intergrated ethernet

[Jz1397-5]

do you guys think that intergrated ethernet into the motherbord is better then an add on card? does it have any benefits? just curious.

 

[scriptasylum]

I went from using an add-in card to the onboard one. One advantage is there is one less card in your system (looks less cluttered, frees up a PCI slot, and one less thing to collect dust).

Now, you can either sell the old LAN card for $5-10 or hold on to it as a spare. You could even use the PCI card and the integrated one to use your PC as a two port hub.

Since the LAN is integrated into the chipset, it might use less CPU resources, but with today's CPU's does it really make a difference? I didn't notice any difference either way.

 

[jonifen]

im gettin a new cpu+mobo+ram next weekend, and i intend to use the onboard nic purely for the fact its one less pci slot in use. we use mobos with integrated nics in work, and they work fine

 

[Geffy]

yep they work just fine in Windows

I havent managed to get FreeBSD on my machine to work with the integrated NICs, I have a weird 3COM (should be supported) and a nVidia NIC (dont think there will be support for this in BSD)

 

[Jz1397-5]

i was happy about the one less PCI slot in use. i was hoping that it would improve some performance, like less CPU cycles. well its one less thing in the IRQ.