Waaay cheap gigabit cards

[Defiant One]

Check it out! (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=33%2D157%2D010&searchdepa=0&order=Description)

$15.99 & tax + $4 Fedex shipping.

[Anasazi]

AWESOME!!

Thanks

[enervate]

Are these any good?

[Punl<]

What enervate said.

[GotNoRice]

Well the card looks to be the same as the D-Link card:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?description=33-127-109

And this Trendware card:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?description=33-156-104

And Almost the same as the Netgear 64-bit card:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?description=33-122-127

And I swear I’ve seen that card rebadged under a few other companies also.

So.... With that many companies using the card, i'm sure driver support won't be a problem, and you gotta figure that companies like D-Link and netgear wouldn't use it if it really sucked.

That being said, I wouldn't recommend anything other than Intel Gig cards :)

[Silly]

Well, since the chip you can see seems to be a national semiconductor chip, I'd assume it's a versoin of this card: http://www.national.com/news/item/0,1735,609,00.html

Should be a worthwhile investment, but as GNR said, Intel is the way to go....

[Area51_FLG]

Yeh, I was talking with Vigilanti.... He said thatr the Intel cards have their own processor and they are by far the BEST GIg Card out there

[Silly]

Yeah, but all gigabit controllers basically have their own processors. Intel's chips are just designed that much better. Another thing which Intel has on their side is drivers, which nobody does better. Although, I have had much luck with a broadcom BCM5701 chips which is on one of my boards. It seems to be able to out perform an intel PRO1000/XT card is a PCI.X slot, which is quite a feat. Looking at the specs it's only advantage would seem to be a larger FIFO buffer--96K for the broadcomm vs. 64K for the Intel vs. a mere 40K for the NS card in this thread--which would seem to suggest that the FIFO size is rather improtant. Also, note that the NS board only supports up to 64-bit/66MHz PCI, and not PCI.X, which doesn't really matter to the majority of people, but ...

[VitaMan]

Originally posted by Area51_FLG
Intel cards have their own processor

Intel has done this for a long time with their "cutting edge" products.

Back in the days of 386 and 486 computers, Intel came out with their SatisFAXtion 14400 modems. Yeah, 14.4 -- that was the brand-new high speed at the time.

Their modem contained an Intel 80186 CPU and 512K of RAM. Basically, it was a computer on its own. The purpose was so that it could adequately handle all faxing by itself -- without Windows 3.0/3.1 having to desperately try to "cooperatively multitask" and ruin the fax.

Very powerful; at the time, most computers were "frozen" while faxing or even connecting... but not with the SatisFAXtion.

Yeah, that was a great modem. Cost me $400 at the time.