Questions about Fiber.

[Irishllama]

I plan on hosting small lan parties (15) ppl or less... But i want to use Fiber... What switch Do you recomend? also what PCI card do you recomend for my computer?

 

[IceWindus]

Ummmmm fiber LAN for a 15 person lan party? Hate to burst your bubble bud but not only would your costs be up the ying yang, you would see NO disconcernable diffference in speed or latency in comparison to a Gigabit ethernet setup. Your simply not gonna have that much data pounding the lines to justify fiber.

JUST the fiber wiring itself would cost you hundreds of dollars, and fiber optic line is something YOU DO NOT want to be moved around, bent or continually moved, its very fragile

Now, if you were doing 1,500 person party, then we'd talk.

 

[IceWindus]

woop, double post.

 

[dariob]

yeah fiber is really not necessary AT ALL for your lan party.

 

[MM983]

Now, if you were doing 1,500 person party, then we'd talk.

lol...true. In all seriousness though, a 16 port switch and some cat5 will be more than enough for your LAN party.

 

[tiebird321]

fibre and copper are the same speed...
mostly
the speed of light does verry depending upon the media it is passing trough
but the difference in copper vs glass fibre is tiny even over longer distances

the reason fibre is used is it is not affected by electromagnetic interfearence, it does not degrade or oxadize
and when your talking about doing multi KM distances the wire is cheaper than copper

admitedly my house is wired with fibre....
but that was because i gutted it and started over and i was thinking about badwith 20years down the road
but its also wired with copper and except for the core switch and the server... everything is wired with copper
(yes my house has a 3com core switch.... yay bankrupcy auctions)

any of the big vendors make base 100 and base gigabit fibre switches and routers
fibre switches generaly start at $50 per port or MORE and the adapters for the computers are $300-400 and up

 

[BobSutan]

fibre and copper are the same speed...
mostly
the speed of light does verry depending upon the media it is passing trough
but the difference in copper vs glass fibre is tiny even over longer distances

the reason fibre is used is it is not affected by electromagnetic interfearence, it does not degrade or oxadize
and when your talking about doing multi KM distances the wire is cheaper than copper

admitedly my house is wired with fibre....
but that was because i gutted it and started over and i was thinking about badwith 20years down the road
but its also wired with copper and except for the core switch and the server... everything is wired with copper
(yes my house has a 3com core switch.... yay bankrupcy auctions)

any of the big vendors make base 100 and base gigabit fibre switches and routers
fibre switches generaly start at $50 per port or MORE and the adapters for the computers are $300-400 and up

For the most part I'd have to agree, but you can get Fiber NICs for as low as US$40 these days if you keep a close lookout. Hell, even Newegg has a Fiber NIC that fallls lower than the $300-400 price range you claim. And its 64bit too! Buy also has fiber NICs for in the $100 range.

 

[Barnaby]

well, you can score 15 feet of Fiber, that's already terminated for about $40.. But, compare that to a spool of cat6 for the same price (which is 500ft), you can see where the cost adds up for fiber. Also I wouldn't use it due to it being fragile, unless you had the fiber in the walls, and then had a patch panel at each desk someone would sit at, and they had a fiber patch to go from the patch panel to their NIC..


much easier to go to home depot, score a 500ft spool of cat6 for $35, a package of rj-45 connectors for $7, and the crimper for $20 if you don't have it... Then score your basic gig-e switch from linksys, or netgear, etc, and get everyone the right NIC.. it's cheap, the exact same speed as fiber, and a whole lot more durable..

 

[Crashsector]

Fiber is very fragile as a few have already mentioned. Plus, it doesn't take angles very well (I think approaching 90 degrees it cracks, or something around there).

If all you're doing is playing games, 10/100 is fine. If you're doing some file transfers, you'll see an improvement with Gigabit copper. It's much easier to work with and much cheaper.

 

[tiebird321]

For the most part I'd have to agree, but you can get Fiber NICs for as low as US$40 these days if you keep a close lookout. Hell, even Newegg has a Fiber NIC that fallls lower than the $300-400 price range you claim. And its 64bit too! Buy also has fiber NICs for in the $100 range.

Hunh guess i'm a little out of date on the cost of the Adapter's....
I havent had to buy one for about 2 years now....