PCI or Onboard Network??

hey guys!I just got my P4 mobo, a MSI 845E Max2 with onborad network card 10/100Mbps / Bluethooth(wiresless, Optional!) but i have a PCI network card 10/100Mbps and i wonna no which i should use??

Onboard is just fine...depending on what chipset both are using, it may be better in the first place. I just really see no point in wasting a PCI slot for it in the first place...not to mention possibly wasting another IRQ (or sharing one).

ok i'll use onboard and that way i set up my server!

I would suggest the offboard PCI NIC.

Onboard NICs use system memory and system CPU to operate, which slows down your system.

If the onboard NIC ever bites the dust, your buying a new board (or RMAing).

If any potentially high voltage gets onto the network line (which happens mainly if you are on a network via copper to another device on a different ground, or lightning, or bad wiring), then you could fry your motherboard.

Onboard is fine, but I find they use cheap chipsets (which break, or have hard-to-find drivers), and put a load on the system. Offboard uses virtually no CPU, and no memory at all.

Onboard video is the worst thing you can do to a computer, a NIC, however, is very tolerable.

Oh, and even the onboard NIC will still use/share an IRQ, as the onboard NIC will still need to interrupt the processor & get it's attension (otherwise no data would be recieved from it).

Alot of onboard NICs use very good chipsets. Intel and 3COM are actually the most common on anything but very cheap motherboards. The board he has uses an Intel chipset which is much better than any generic Realtek 8139X that is mostly common in cheap PCI NICs nowadays.

As far as system resource usage goes, if the PCI NIC has no onboard processing capabilities (as most cheap ones don't...especially Realtek) it will use no less resources than an onboard will.

If you buy a good motherboard, then yes, you'll probably get a good NIC Chipset.

It really depends on the person, if they are pinching pennies for networking, then they can buy the cheap onboard for about the same price of a no-onboard NIC board. If they are looking to network worth their weight in bandwidth, they'll go buy a top of the line 3COM PCI server NIC.

In the beginning of onboard NICs, they used to only include crap onboard, as they still had to compete with the competitors, who had nothing onboard.

As far as system resource usage goes, if the PCI NIC has no onboard processing capabilities (as most cheap ones don't...especially Realtek) it will use no less resources than an onboard will. [/B]

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Essentially, yes, cheap NICs, or almost anything built on Realtek chips will eat the same amount of resouces, it's like the WinModem of NICs. However, any better cards will take all load off the processor, and the only load the processor will see is offloading it to the PCI bus.

As for opinnions, I prefer offboard NICs (as I have seen oh-so-many die, I actually replaced about 12 dead ones just yesterday, incl. 3com's). It's alot easier than RMAing 12 motherboards Also, if you look at any integrated system that integrates video, nic and sound onboard, and compare it to the same system with those 3 offboard, you will see the performance jump.. the offboard one will be faster (mainly b/c the onboard video sucks ram and CPU like a mofo).

hey the MSI 845E 6398E Rocks! it has 6 USB2 and onboard lan and its been created for OCing, only one thing wrong with it is that it only surports DDR PC2100 max