NIC - Onboard or Seperate?

[jdulmage 0]

Just a quick question...

 

I am getting the A7N8X Deluxe board soon and I know it has Dual Lan. Is it better to use the onboard LAN or to buy a seperate card for it?

 

I was just curious if that would increase the speed and flowthrough in any way?

 

If so, what cards do you guys recommend? I was thinking 3Com Etherlink XL.

 

But if it won't make a difference, I won't spend the extra $$$

 

Thanks guys.

[Xiven 0]

The network itself is usually the bottleneck, not the interface between the PCI bus and the NIC, so even if there is a difference I doubt it would actually have any effect.

[Bursar 0]

This PC I'm using has an oboard LAN which I use for connecting the machine to a LAN. It also has an XL card in it for my cable modem. The only reason I'm doing it this way is that I can move the LAN card to different machines, and the modem won't have to learn another MAC address.

 

My network connections are fairly rubbish though as I'm still using a 10MB hub. Been too much of a cheapskate to upgrade it though. It's mostly used for ICS, so 10MB is plenty for that.

 

Functionality wise, I don't think you'll notice any difference.

[adamvjackson 0]

I would stick with the intergrated unless you need a feature such as PXE support, etc. that the onboard NIC does not have.

[DosFreak 2]

The integrated NICS in the A7N8X are fine. I only use the 3Com because it's 3com. Dunno how well the Nvidia one performs....

[akiss 0]

i just dont like onboard devices....

[BladeRunner 0]

If it all possible I'll use the onboard NIC personally.

There is no difference in performance and neither will take up more resources or CPU time than the other.

I've got a Broadcom Gigabit NIC on my current board and it does everything I ask of it without complaint.

[jimf43 0]

Asus has really good onboard lan support for this model, and, I can't even understand why you'd want to buy 'another' lan board ;(

 

Do you have a special requirement here, or do you just have extra cash burning a hole in your pocket ;(

[DosFreak 2]

Err...the onboard NICS in the Nforce are 100. His GIGABIT NIC is of course much faster which is why he's using it. I'd be using my Gig NIC but I don't have my second computer up.

[ThC 129 0]

I have an A7N8X Deluxe. It comes with nVidia 10/100 and 3COM Gigabit LAN. I have seen no performance hits what so ever. You can disable one or both in the BIOS aswell.

[Copernicus 0]

I really wished that they would use the Broadcom 5702 Giagbit LAN Adaptor on the A7N8X like they do with the A7V8X. I like Broadcom 4401 that I have for the onboard NIC.