Gigabit LAN for HTPC

J

jazzman161

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 6, 2004
Messages
220
Hey all. Quick question regarding ethernet speed. How important is wired 1000Mbps speed as opposed to 100Mbps speed. The reason I asked is I ordered (and received, otherwise I'd just cancel) a mobo for my HTPC build that apparently doesn't go up to gigabit speeds.

Will I run into issues running just wired 100Mbps? I'm planning to stream not only dvds but bluray/hd-dvd rips. I guess the other option is picking up an external NIC? I'd rather not cram any more crap into my small HTPC case.

Thanks!
 
I'm too lazy to do the math, but you can figure how much throughput you'd need with whatever bitrate you'll be streaming. ;) For many people, 100mb/s is fast enough.
 
I googled some stuff and it seems like 100mbps will suffice. I just feel sad cause I bought a new gigabit switch and everything. lol

lt_shiro - I've got 3 computers wired and 2 computers wireless.
 
Then yes it would be worth it to get gigbit-lan as streaming will take up about 40-60% of the 100 MB network bandwidth.
 
I stream 2 1080p streams around my 100Mbps network without any hiccups.

As it was said above, just look at the bitrate of the media you play.
 
Personally, I'd stick with Intel NICs. They're pretty much the best NICs out there and they aren't much more expensive.

That Hiro looks like a generic NIC based on a RealTek chip. An Intel NIC would be far superior to that compatibility and performance wise.
 
I vote for Intel, but I think you should take into consideration that you don't need to upgrade at all. I do plenty of HD streaming as I said above and have never run into a bottleneck.
 
gwarren007 said:
Intel gets my vote too
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106121
Click to expand...

There's a caveat with that card now. The new Windows 7 driver from intel doesn't fully support the card. It'll work with the basic driver included with windows, but the full driver from Intel doesn't support it any more. It can't use the more advanced features in the driver like line testing or teaming. You have to have one of the newer cards to do that. I could be terribly wrong, but this is what I ran into trying to install the Win 7 driver.
 
I was actually going to pick up the low-profile version of that card since it'll fit my small lian li htpc case but since i'll have to wait for shipping and blah blah as opposed to going local, so I'm going to hold off as criccio has recommended and set everything up this weekend as is and see how it all runs.
 
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