• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Using onboard NIC's (Broadcom/realtek) vs PCI-E (Intel)

T

tankman1989

Gawd
Joined
Aug 21, 2009
Messages
588
I have a number of servers that have dual onboard NIC's with a Broadcom chipset (Gigabit). I also have a number of Intel gigabit PCI-E cards that I can use if they are better.

My question is - how much better are these dedicated NIC's than the onboard versions? I think my card was $200-300 when it was new, almost as much as the motherboard!

So, should I use the onboard or is it worth it to use the PCI-E card? I'm running a full duplex gigabit switch if that matters.
 
Broadcom and Intel onboard NICs are good. Realtek NICs are fine for desktop home use. It depends on "how much bettter" they are if you compare the models of the NICs. Intel has low end basic models all the way up to high-end NICs. Same with Broadcom.
 
In what way are the cards better than the onboard NICs? Is it just in terms of CPU usage?
 
latency and max bandwidth are almost always better with intel, vs realtek

just because the icon says "connected at 1gbps" doesnt mean you can transfer a file at a full 125megabytes/second...
 
I work at a financial institution on the Linux Admin team and under medium to heavy load we've had to tweak the heck out of broadcom linux driver settings to get anywhere near acceptable performance. Intel nics, especially the server adapters generally work MUCH better for us.

For light use the broadcoms are OK. For anything mission critical we use intel nics.
 
Yea, I definitely would not consider Broadcom good. They're definitely better than Realtek, but nowhere near as good as Intel, in general. The open source Broadcom drivers are much worse than the Intel ones, as pointed out above.
 
Roughly what kind of a difference in latency is there between Realtek and an Intel NIC? I'm guessing it's not a difference that would matter for a home user, but is it microseconds? A few milliseconds? I've looked for benchmarks on Google, but I haven't been able to find any.
 
I just replaced replaced a p67/Realtek with a z77/intel board. On the realtek I have had random connection issues on the media center extender. Both devices hard wired 1Gbit and not dropping packets. The Realtek never had issues with normal internet usage/browsing/gaming though.
 
The benefits? Flexibility, features, and general overall stability.

For the low cost that a good Intel PCIE will run you, is your time worth that. I can tell you mine can move data at a good 20mb better than the onboard. They do so with no drag on the system, and they do it w/o any complaints. I can team the ports on my dual port nic, etc etc.

They simply are just better cards. With better support.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top