Gigabit Ethernet Question

[blynk]

My college dorm recently upgraded to a gigabit ethernet service and I was wondering if I should upgrade my current NIC, which only supports 10/100. If I should upgrade my current card (It's built into the mobo so I'd just be installing a second one.) could anyone please recommend a good brand/model for me. I don't have PCI-Express and would prefer to just have a pci card if that works well with gigabit connections. Thanks in advance.



blynk

[Triple_B]

The gigabit connection is only going to help transfers between your computer, and a computer inside the school. For example, if you store any files on a server at school, the transfer from that server to your computer will be noticeably faster.

However, upgrading your NIC to accomodate that will NOT affect your internet speed. Internet speeds are far far from any type of gigabit throughput to your computer. At most, if you're at school, you'll be getting 1-2 megs down, and a pretty sad upstream pipe (100-200kb).

If you want to upgrade, go with linksys or netgear. NIC's only come in PCI slots, not PCI-E. PCI-E is the new technology used for Video cards, and only video cards.

Hope this helps.

[BattleToad]

Originally Posted by Triple_B

NIC's only come in PCI slots, not PCI-E. PCI-E is the new technology used for Video cards, and only video cards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=27

Newegg carries a few PCI-E NIC cards, all Gigabit, so there are NIC cards out there that use the PCI-E bus rather than the older PCI bus.

He'd be fine getting a Gigabit PCI NIC though, cant see the use for PCI-E NIC, although the data would be processed and sent throughout the system faster, it can only travel across the wire so fast.

[blynk]

I've noticed a definate increase in how fast my web pages load and in my download speeds. I'm basically just wondering if the thing limiting my connection speed is my computer or the amount of bandwidth i'm provided. If the upgrade was only for inter-school servers then why would my downloads have increased? Just pondering some things, thanks again for all the help.

blynk

[Triple_B]

The upgrade to the school's wiring would have increased your internet speed because the network is faster in general. However, you're still only limited to the amount of bandwidth that they give you, which is about the figures that I gave you on my first post.

So, looking at the big picture, you might be seeing an increase in internet performance because of the school's upgrade. To answer your question, upgrading to a gigabit card will not provide a faster internet connection than what you are getting now with your 100mbit card.

However, you will notice a faster connection between your computer and the school servers.

I remember now that PCI-E slots come in two variations, the ports that you use for your video card, and I believe most newer computers have a shared PCI/PCI-Express slot near the bottom of the motherboard. I can't speak from experience by this, and I can't imagine the amount of money being charged is really making that big of a difference. You're still only limited by the connection given to you by the school, and that won't even touch the capacity of the card you have now.