Dedicated network card better than onboard?

Harbz · 4 Oct 2008 at 13:03

Just got a new Asus P5Q-E motherboard and doing the build now.

I've got a pci gigabit network card lying around "Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Server Adapter". Just wondering would this card be better to use than the motherboard inbuilt network adapater? I think the onboard is a marvel something.

Obviously the motherboard onboard network adapater is newer technology but the intel card has loads of chips on it so it maybe more efficient as its doing more stuff in hardware?? not sure and confused!

Thanks.

MikeHunt79 · 4 Oct 2008 at 13:09

Just use onboard, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Ace Modder · 4 Oct 2008 at 13:11

not much difference, now if you were to get a KillerNIC card, that's were the performance is much better.

Phatzy · 4 Oct 2008 at 13:16

the only improvement you would see, if you bought a bigfoot network killer NIC card, it reduces system processes and its apparenly lag free in on-line games, at £100+ its pretty useless

MikeHunt79 · 4 Oct 2008 at 13:18

Ace Modder said:
not much difference, now if you were to get a KillerNIC card, that's were the performance is much better.

You're being sarcastic right?

Major_Disaster · 4 Oct 2008 at 13:24

Id use it.

Sweeney · 4 Oct 2008 at 13:45

re: Killer NIC
Toms hardware have been on the prowl looking for 100% answers, good read up on it on the site and they are waiting for one to actually do a proper comparison test to see if they live up to their claims.

reflux · 4 Oct 2008 at 14:56

Custom PC magazine loved the Killer NIC, but opinion in the hardware community is very divided.

Anything dedicated will take load off the CPU and main memory, but I don't think integrated LAN has much of an overhead.

MikeHunt79 · 4 Oct 2008 at 15:14

reflux said:
I don't think integrated LAN has much of an overhead.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head there... Network overhead (especially at broadband speed) is very little or next to nothing... I really don't see how a "Killer NIC" can make any difference...

Mick-1965 · 4 Oct 2008 at 15:39

MikeHunt79 said:
Pretty much hit the nail on the head there... Network overhead (especially at broadband speed) is very little or next to nothing... I really don't see how a "Killer NIC" can make any difference...

Exactly Broad band speeds will be negligible, but if you're putting 3-400 Mb/s through your local network with your on-board NIC expect considerable CPU usage.
ie transferring data between my machine and my daughter at 3-400 Mb/s uses between 25 -45 % cpu ( C2D @ 3.2 )

But if you use decent hardware Gigabit cards it should reduce this considerably

Indy500 · 4 Oct 2008 at 15:40

Don't bother unless you copy lots of data across the network regularly.

Harbz · 4 Oct 2008 at 15:52

thanks for the responses but if I already have the network card sitting on my desk doing nothing i might aswell use it, or would it be better to just use the onboard?

Mick-1965 · 4 Oct 2008 at 16:00

If your motherboard supports it, arnt the intel server adapters PCI-X ?

Indy500 · 4 Oct 2008 at 16:00

Harbz said:
thanks for the responses but if I already have the network card sitting on my desk doing nothing i might aswell use it, or would it be better to just use the onboard?

The dedicated card would also be limited by the PCI bus (shared between devices, so full duplex wouldn't be as fast as a PCI-E chip).

MikeHunt79 · 4 Oct 2008 at 16:08

Harbz said:
thanks for the responses but if I already have the network card sitting on my desk doing nothing i might aswell use it, or would it be better to just use the onboard?

Yes. it would be better to just use the onboard

Harbz · 4 Oct 2008 at 17:33

thanks all, looks like server card is out then!

dipper17 · 5 Oct 2008 at 08:33

Use the onboard one - just another way of getting at your hard earned cash