flips wrote:What is the

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January 14, 2011 at 2:00 pm #3000
mikinho
Participant

    [quote=flips]

    What is the adavantage of using a server grad NIC?  Your LAN traffic doesn’t go through the router, right? so your only perfomance boost would be to the internet.  Would you really notice a performance difference on a 6 mbit internet connection?

    flips

    [/quote]

    The advantage is with stability.  On many *BSD and *nix platforms lower grade NICs are not very well supported or developed.  For instance, 3-4 years ago I had an older firewall running m0n0wall and switching from an on-board Realtek to a dedicated Intel PCI-E NIC (workstation grade, you can find them for $29 on Newegg) increased my speed test by 4 Mbps and lead to a much more stable connection.

    If you can find a good price on an Intel PRO/1000 MT Dual Port get it, that cards rock.  My router, Motorola 6120, has a gigabit port and with Comcast rolling out their 5010 (and 10050 in some markets) plan I don’t want my hardware to be the limiting factor 🙂