Is Intel PRO/1000 Pt Dual Port any good?
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I'm building a small home firewall from an old standard home computer I bought 2 years ago and am looking for a nic that supports wan/lan on a single card.
I came across the Intel PRO/1000 Dual Port on Amazon for almost $60 (w/ shipping) which is about what I'm willing to spend on it.
Is that good enough for normal home stuff like watching Netflix, gaming, etc? I don't host any websites or anything other than what a typical home would have so I don't need anything crazy.
I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be but just wanted to verify first.
My only concern is it looks like it was made in 2005 which I'm not sure if that could throw any problems into the loop that I'm not seeing..
Thanks for any advice!
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It is supported by the em driver:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=em&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+8.3-RELEASE -
Thanks for the feedback but I was referring more to the technology of the card..
such as auto negotiation, or the fact I just found out it's cat5..
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It works fine and can easily handle what you need.
Dont worry!
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I actually found one half the price with a lot of good reviews from several sites:
http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Ethernet-PCI-express-Controller-SY-PEX24028/dp/B00965J4TS/ref=pd_cp_e_1
Any thoughts? It seems to have newer technology in it which would be great.
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Intel cards work with almost everything…. a lot of others dont. Stick with Intel!
Better drivers...
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lol but the drivers shouldn't be the only deciding factor which is what i keep trying to say.. there are other network technologies built into a nic..
Thanks anyhow :)
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I know but what if the newer wont work and not deliver what you want and need?
You want throughput and stability! Intel provides it.
The other one can easily be newer but have flaky drivers and where does that get you?
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@flsense:
I came across the Intel PRO/1000 Dual Port on Amazon for almost $60 (w/ shipping) which is about what I'm willing to spend on it.
Its fine but go to ebay, you can find plenty of dual PT for $30 shipped or less.
You can find a quad PT for ~$60 sometimes.
The 82571 found on the PT series is a server oriented chipset, it works great and has drivers that have been widely deployed and tested for years. Sometimes old and proven is a good thing :) The data buffer even has ECC unlike most consumer chipsets found on cheap cards or bundled with a motherboard.
Unless you are really into hypervisors with lots of VMs, building a SAN or other similar enterprise functions don't worry about extra features on newer GbE server chipsets. (and running a basic host + couple guests setup or whatever doesn't count)
i350 is a really nice GbE chipset but it also costs 3+ times as much.
Intel has also been removing some offload features from the low end chipsets lately as cpu power is not a problem for basic use anymore, and the hardware compatibility with older motherboards might not be as good. -
$60 is a good price for that part, I think I paid $180 on Newegg.com for the Intel part. Can't beat Intel Nics!