gigabit lan cards

[noah]

ive been looking at getting a gigabit lan card, and have come across 32bit and 64 bit versions. are there an advantages in buying a 64 bit one for home networking?

and has anyone got an experience with us robotics as i like the look of this very low profile card to make it less obvious
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=160647

thanks

[nichomach]

For a 64-bit one to be any use to you, your machine would have to have 64-bit PCI slots available (PCI-X). Mostly, you'll find these in server boards (for instance my latest Poweredge 2850 has a 64-bit quad port Intel PRO 1000MT, which load balances the traffic acdross all four ports). Basically, you're unlikely to have such a slot in your home machine, so although many 64-bit cards will work in a 32-bit slot, you'd be wasting your money. USR are fine; they're more famous as a modem retailer, but this card looks perfectly serviceable. It's basically a Realtek chipset with a USR sticker on it, but there's nothing wrong with that, certainly for a home user. Can I ask why you'd want a Gigabit card in a home environment, though? Overkill for Internet access. Are you going to be networking it to other machines at home via a Gig switch or something?

[noah]

thanks for the info on the 64 bit ones, i didnt think of that. doh

yeah its gonna be linked up to a gigabit switch at a mates LAN, thought i might as well take advantage of it for £11

[nichomach]

Yep, fair enough, that makes sense; you can pay more than that for a cheapie 10/100, so definitely sensible.

[javalord]

Its based on the Realtek 8169 chipset. Unless you plan just to game, I'd bare that in mind as Realtek's previous chipsets arent the greatest in efficiency terms.

[arthurleung]

Any chipset will do fine but Realtek chipset tends to have higher CPU usage.

Most home computers have harddrive that can only write at 50MB/s max, real life transfer rate will be around 35MB/s (My own home network). So there is no any need for a 64bit card (And you only have a 32bit slot anyway).