ethernet card quality make difference in speed?

[Warlord2]

I see a $4 10/100 card at pricewatch and was wondering if quality realy makes a difference in speed.

I fried 2 cards already and one was $40 so I really dont wanna spend that much on something that wont make any difference in speed

all I want on the card is a way to hook up to the internet and IPX


so will a $40+ card run noticably faster thin a $4 card? in terms of u/l and d/l?

[Bmxpunk86pl]

i dont think speed is related to price but i think that the higher priced Nics are better overclockers. get a low priced one if ur not going to put the PCI bus out of spec a lot. like 2-6mhz more

[Warlord2]

Ive got a $25 card in right now and can hit 152fsb

I thinks that just because I have a v1.3 shuttle though

[dugans]

I don't know if the more expensive nics oc better- I've heard a few people swearing by realtek-based nics which are very much cheapos.

They shouldn't make any real difference in up/download speeds either- any 10base is much faster than cable, dsl or isdn.

My experience is that they are more reliable though: I've had my Intel and 3com nics (both cost about $70 each!) for about 3 years now, still run fine. I have gone through 5 or 6 cheapos in the same time though. Every once in a while one of them will just start going crazy transmitting data over my network and just never stop!

My theory now is: critical system-spend the dough on a good one
non-critical- realtek for $10!

[Warlord2]

haha I think I will just get the cheap ones

hell its only $4=/

Im using a cheap one right now and it has last longer thin my 3com

[Intraveinous]

When you're talking in terms of ul/dl from the net, no, the cable or dsl modem is the limiting factor, and even the slowest 10/100 card will still keep up. However, when it comes to transfering files and etc, the higher quality cards DO make a difference. Had a 100Mbit switch on a network I was working on. Had 3 workstations with Intel network cards, 2 with 3coms, and 5 or six with Realteks. The Realteks wouldn't ever get beyond about 48Mbit if they were transfering something from one of the 3com or Intel nic equipped systems, and never over 25Mbit if connecting to another Realtek... This was transfering videos and sound files over the network. Intel-Intel, Intel-3Com, and 3Com-3Com all topped out closer to 80Mbit...
For what it's worth...
John

[!-=sky=-!]

the cheaper card has worser quality components while the more expensive ones have better quality components like resistors and stuff and they wont burn out as easily

but i have been using by realtek based no brand card i got for free for around 3 months non stop and it's still working fine

[Zuck Gou :)]

Originally posted by rogerdugans
I don't know if the more expensive nics oc better- I've heard a few people swearing by realtek-based nics which are very much cheapos.

They shouldn't make any real difference in up/download speeds either- any 10base is much faster than cable, dsl or isdn.

My experience is that they are more reliable though: I've had my Intel and 3com nics (both cost about $70 each!) for about 3 years now, still run fine. I have gone through 5 or 6 cheapos in the same time though. Every once in a while one of them will just start going crazy transmitting data over my network and just never stop!

My theory now is: critical system-spend the dough on a good one
non-critical- realtek for $10!

Actually the realtek-based nics were/are pretty notorious for hating a + bus spec.

[T. J.]

FWIW, I bought a while slew of D-Link cards on sale at BB for $4.95 ea and they run just fine on my overclocked machines with a Linksys Router.

[!-=sky=-!]

Originally posted by Zuck Gou :)


Actually the realtek-based nics were/are pretty notorious for hating a + bus spec.


mine was running at 151 fsb before the ram couldnt take it

[o770]

i dont know if this thing is usual but sandra's performance tune up always relates PCI latency timer too high for my relatek RTL8139A, and its only at 32.