Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 16:54:03 -0600 From: Dan Nelson <dnelson@emsphone.com> To: freebsd@isvara.net, Karl Denninger <karl@mcs.net> Cc: FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: "Best" Fast Ethernet Card Message-ID: <19980225165403.33142@emsphone.com> In-Reply-To: <34F477DC.41FD810D@challenge.isvara.net>; from "freebsd@isvara.net" on Wed Feb 25 19:58:20 GMT 1998 References: <19980225125126.05029@mcs.net> <34F477DC.41FD810D@challenge.isvara.net>
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In the last episode (Feb 25), freebsd@isvara.net said: > The recently released 3com Fast Etherink XL (rev B) 3C905B NIC is the > best money can buy (apart from server cards costing upwards of > 250UKP). It has lower CPU usage than any other card, helping it to > give the fastest performance. > > Check it out on: > http://www.3com.com/products/dsheets/400250a.html#Parallel > and > http://www.3com.com/solutions/200399.html Are you sure about that? According to the first URL you gave, the Fast Etherlink XL cas only a 4K buffer, split 2K/2K Send/Receive. This makes it useless for NFS, as a fragmented 8K packet will never get through (I've seen it happen on a P6/200). The non-XL cards have a 64K buffer, but only come in ISA or EISA flavors. The XL is PCI-only. In addition, the "Parallel Tasking" feature of their NICs only works when you use 3Com switches/hubs at the other end. I don't have a reference for this though. I think it was in a recent PC Week article. I would lean toward the Intel EtherExpress/Pro, myself. -Dan Nelson dnelson@emsphone.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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