gigabit over copper?

[all420]

I was looking around the net and found out about gigabit over copper. Based on what I know, it is a specification that allows people to run at gigabit speeds (usually 1000 mbit/s, D-Links can get 2000) over Cat-5E cable. Does anyone use this or can tell me about it? I would like to know about several things such as what percent of the theoritical speed it can operate at, reliablility, etc. I was planning on using the cheap ($49) adapter (http://www.dlink.com/products/gigabit/dge500t/) from D-Link (http://www.dlink.com). I thought I remember that in benchmarks, D-Link does poorly, is this true? If so, is it that big of a deal? Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Gresyth]

even if you buy one of the expensive 1000 base nics you wont get more than your ISP provides. I'm presuming you have cable or dsl.

[all420]

yes, i do have DSL. I am however wishing to have this more for the LAN aspect of it, and not the web browsing. I send files that are many gigs over my network routinley, and would not like to be bottlenecked. I was thinking networking w/ firewire (400 mbit/s) but to move my rig within 15 feet of the others is no easy task (the case weighs over 50lbs alone), and I don't wish to buy multiple repeaters.

[Maddman]

You will get an increase in performance on the local network but on 32bit pci bus you wont see 1Gbps. 1Gbps is a though put of 125meg/sec and the 32bit pci bus net a theoretical 133meg/sec shared among the pci cards and hard disks.

[all420]

i have 2-64bit slots on my mobo. Isn't that good enough? And I know that no matter what I do, I will never reach the top speed, but I would like to have at least 70%

[two_dope2000]

Off topic but i have to ask, what the hell do have in there that weighs 50lb?!?!

[all420]

that's just the case. I have a SC760P4 (http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/Chassis/sc760P4.htm) from Supermicro. It's huge, almost 2'6" tall. It comes up to my waist. Plus it is also watercooled, so I don't want to move it too much.