[cw823]

http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/297117

Support for this NIC is awesome in just about any OS you can throw at it. Good for NAS systems like Freenas, Openindiana, Linux, etc....

YOu can't get a better NIC for the money imho.

Direct link to newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106033

[freakdiablo]

How does this compare to the GT? I have one in my NAS now and the two don't play nice (disconnects after an hour hour or so after boot, faster if I'm moving large amounts of stuff. Onboard NIC works fine.)

[CharlieCS]

Is there a reason to use this over onboard NIC for online games like css ? I tried to look it up, but found nothing solid.

[DumpALump]

Originally Posted by CharlieCS

Is there a reason to use this over onboard NIC for online games like css ? I tried to look it up, but found nothing solid.

Majority of the time there is going to be very little difference. I'd say a max of 10ms if everything is set optimally. I just run tests on each setting through various games on different servers to see what gets me the lowest ping. My onboard Intel likes settings to be on, my girlfriend's computer's realtek likes settings to be off (same connection).

Even the killer NIC doesn't do much of anything. The biggest difference will be your connection. My understanding is DSL will get 10-20ms over a cable connection, but haven't personally tested it.

[moz_21]

I've got 2 of these, they are great cards.

[zzzzzzzzzz]

Originally Posted by cw823

Support for this NIC is awesome in just about any OS you can throw at it.

It used to be.

Unfortunately, Intel Corporation support is today not anywhere near as good as it used to be.

One thing that most bothers me is that they no longer make available most of the previous release versions of drivers, firmware and utilities.

I do have an Intel Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter and it works. Do not try to flash the boot ROM with the image file from the 17.0 version of the Intel Ethernet Connections Boot Utility, Preboot images, and EFI Drivers package. The image is defective and the flash should fail. Although Intel Corporation, knows of the problem, they do not make available the last working version of the image.

For those interested, I have attached a spanned ZIP archive containing the Intel Network Adapter Driver 14.0 package for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 family operating system. Rename "PRO2KXP_v14_0z01.zip" to "PRO2KXP_v14_0.z01" (Forum does not allow file named "PRO2KXP_v14_0.z01"). This package is no longer available from Intel Corporation.

[Go3Team]

I went ahead and picked one of these up. It ended up being ~$16 with adding 3 day shipping and using a free $10 gift code that I got a few months ago. Looking at the tracking, I think UPS is having a bad day:

Code:

Edison, NJ, United States 	05/08/2012 	2:10 A.M. 	Departure Scan
Edison, NJ, United States	05/08/2012 	1:28 A.M. 	Arrival Scan
Bound Brook, NJ, United States 	05/08/2012 	1:04 A.M. 	Departure Scan
Bound Brook, NJ, United States 	05/07/2012 	10:44 P.M. 	Arrival Scan
Edison, NJ, United States 	05/07/2012 	9:40 P.M. 	Departure Scan
Edison, NJ, United States 	05/06/2012 	1:58 P.M. 	Origin Scan
United States 	05/07/2012 	12:05 A.M. 	Order Processed: Ready for UPS