Gigabit Ethernet

[Eberhard Roloff]

Felipe Alfaro Solana wrote:

> On 10/8/06, drew at technteach.com <drew at technteach.com> wrote:
>> Looking for a good gigabit ethernet card.
>>
>> There appears to be a wide variety of cards, at a wide variety of prices
>>
>> Not sure I understand the differences between the various cards,
>>
>> or the variations in the pci slots they plug into.
>>
>> It's an old recycled dell precision 530, looking at the service tag I
>> see that when it left the factory it had a dell p/n 5m235. which appears
>> to be an Intel Pro/1000Xt, a high dollar card.
>>
>> Will a cheaper one work just as well.
> 
> The Realtek 8169 is a nice and cheap card and it supports NAPI.

Yes, it is. 

But according to a recent article in the german linux magazin, they are
notorious to burn cpu cycles, which is nothing to worry about on a desktop.
On a server, I would not recommend to go the cheap realtek route.

regards
Eberhard