Onboard Stuff

[ripsaw82]

Do you get better performance out of onboard devices, ie Sound Card, Network Card or are PCI cards much better?

I know what type of card is going to have a big effect, but say an onboard Intel network card compared to the same as a PCI?

[Rave]

It totally depends on the components used. Some onboard components- like NVidia's forthcoming gigabit ethernet- are going to be better than any PCI card just because they're not going to saturate the PCI bus with their throughput. On the other hand it's pretty hard to get a decent RAID-5 controller onboard- you need to cough up for one with an onboard XOR processor otherwise they use some of the CPU time while they're working.

It's not question that can be easily answered one way or the other. Ask about a specific board and we might be able to give a more specific answer. FWIW, for my fairly basic needs I'm happy sticking with onboard stuff, with the obvious exception of graphics of course.

Rich :¬)

[Zak33]

good question.

Some stuff is very good. Nforce2 Soundstrom Audio was awesome. I normally use built in networking if its there with no hassle. Once again, NForce2 built in graphics are really not bad. (Geforce 4MX standard)

As Rave says...the RAID is often pants, although useable for adding more EIDE drives

On the whole....5 years ago onboard was bad, and now its good
:atest Nforce4 boards will have built in FIREWALLS on the 10/100/1000 network ports
Funny old world huh?