On 02 Feb 2016 13:43:15 +0000 (GMT), Theo
wrote:

T i m wrote:
They may of course ... but what are the chances of an integrated NIC
(even an Intel one) being as capable (on a desktop board specifically)
as an add-on card, in the same way onboard video is rarely as capable
as even the simplest add-on video card (demonstrated by the size (lack
of?) of any heatsinks on the on-board video solutions)?

Gigabit is pretty mature technology here. It doesn't take much silicon
area, or much processing power these days: the link is likely to be the
limiting factor. I think it's approximately a cut and paste of the silicon
IP from the external NIC chip onto the motherboard chipset.

And you feel that is still the case between most on-board offerings
and server centric add-on cards Theo? I wonder why they sell such
things (over and above basic add-on NICs where people want to replace
a faulty on-board or add another port etc).

(Bearing in mind the ex-server 1G NICs you might buy on ebay are probably 10
years old, but still do the job)

Ok.

If you're talking 10/40/100G then smarts in the NIC make a bigger
difference. You don't get those integrated (some mobos have 10G, but it's
an extra chip).

Ok.

That's also where thermals make more of a difference.

I didn't consider 'thermals' and NIX though, just video cards.

OOI, is there a utility that is good for doing such network throughput
tests or is it more 'real world' to transfer a largish block of data
(as I believe you mention previously) and just time the result?

I don't know of a tool, but in networking the relevant number is packets per
second, not Gbps. Most of the overhead is on dealing with packet headers
and so on, rather than shovelling data out the door. Lots of small packets
are more work than a few large ones.

Understood. I ask because I haven't any real idea what the throughput
is here but all I know is I can generally do what I need to do without
waiting too long, Inc moving a few G's worth of .iso images about. ;-)

Alternative NICs are academic here as this PC is a Mac Mini, my server
an Atom board with no spare slots and only an onboard NIC and the rest
are phones, laptops and tablets that connect via WiFi in any case.

The server I built running WHS V2 to replace the old WHS V1 is on a
more std motherboard so there could be room for a better NIC in there
(so I'll check out the cheap Intel NICS you mentioned). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. The only problem is I don't know if I would recoup the power
consumed by the onboard LAN if I disabled it and what the add-on NIC
might consume extra and to what advantage in general?