Karl Ferguson wrote: ] As for PCI versions - they're worth it, they ] speed up transfers accross the network dramatically (that is, if you have ] both cards being PCI).
Rick Macdonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ] It seems to me that the ETHERNET-HOWTO goes out of it's way to prove ] that ] 16bit ISA ethernet cards can handle 10Mb ethernet just fine, and that ] PCI ] doesn't buy you anything. There are lots of reasons for choosing PCI over ISA... In my experience, the throughput of a good 16-bit ISA card is approximately equivalent to that of a PCI card. However, the CPU overhead of network transfers using a good ISA card is much higher than that of good PCI cards. Your next machine will probably have a PCI bus, but it might not have an ISA bus. The total throughput of a good ISA bus is approximately 5 MB/s, if memory serves, as compared to approximately 50 MB/s for even a mediocre PCI. If you sink 1 MB/s into network transfer (yeah yeah, it's only about 700 or 900 KB/s, but let me make a point ok?), you would consume 20% of your ISA bandwidth, and only have 4 MB/s left over for things like disk and video access. On the other hand, on a PCI bus you can sink 1 MB/s to the net and still have LOTS of room for disk, video, etc. About the only advantage of ISA over PCI that i can see is it's slightly cheaper and more old machines support it. As a side note, i have had very good luck with 3com products. I heartily recommend them to anyone shopping for network stuff. Sebastian Kuzminsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
