Motherboard Ethernet Ports

[seattleman13]

[What ethernet port on a motherboard ( Intel & Realtek) is the best and why would I use one over the other? Nowhere, in any motherboard review, does anyone comment on the virtues of one over the other. This begs the question; " Why are there two?" I know that this post will display my ignorance, but hey, this is my first ever build and I'm in the process of buying needed components. Hope someone will take the time to explain?

ASRock Z97Extreme6
Intel 4690K
GTX 970
250 ssd & 1tb hd
TX750 watt PS
Windows 8.1

 

[BonzaiDuck]

[What ethernet port on a motherboard ( Intel & Realtek) is the best and why would I use one over the other? Nowhere, in any motherboard review, does anyone comment on the virtues of one over the other. This begs the question; " Why are there two?" I know that this post will display my ignorance, but hey, this is my first ever build and I'm in the process of buying needed components. Hope someone will take the time to explain?

ASRock Z97Extreme6
Intel 4690K
GTX 970
250 ssd & 1tb hd
TX750 watt PS
Windows 8.1

I've never bothered much to choose a motherboard based on which NIC chip it's sporting. When I DO feel the need to disable the motherboard ports for some reason, I look for an Intel Pro PCI-E network card. and the only reason I spent the extra $20 on such a card while "re-building" a computer: I had problems with driver conflicts causing one core of a C2Q to load up to 95% constantly. It was actually an older SATA controller not entirely compatible with AHCI, but the network drivers fit into the mix. I could probably go back and remove the Pro card and re-enable the onboard (NVidia) LAN ports.

As to "why two?" Because . . . they can!! There might be uses for an extra LAN port, though. Many uses. Here's one which seems like a "niche" configuration, but it demonstrates what I mean.

My "flagship" sig-rig does double-duty as an HTPC because feeding HDMI to my home-theater parts is pretty much a low-level background process for it, with maybe 4% CPU usage. The input "Live-TV" is provided by a Silicon-Dust HD HomeRun Prime triple-tuner connected to my cable coax. It provides TV over our gigabit LAN so I could share it with computers of other family members in the house. But they aren't all goosey-gooh-gah about "HTPC" and would rather have their TV provided via cable-box.

That means I could take the HomeRun PRime off the LAN and make a direct connection to the computer on a second LAN port.

There is also the possibility of "teaming" two LAN connections to get better throughput.

You might reduce the cost of your motherboard by narrowing the selection to those with only one LAN port, but there may be other reasons to select a board that happens to have two, even if you don't intend to use them both.

Look at it another way. Even top-quality (Intel Pro) NICs are $20 items, and "good-enough" (many using RealTek or other chips) can be had for $10 to $15. If your motherboard has two, it's an incidental item that doesn't contribute all that much to cost.

 

[JimKiler]

I've never bothered much to choose a motherboard based on which NIC chip it's sporting. When I DO feel the need to disable the motherboard ports for some reason, I look for an Intel Pro PCI-E network card. and the only reason I spent the extra $20 on such a card while "re-building" a computer: I had problems with driver conflicts causing one core of a C2Q to load up to 95% constantly. It was actually an older SATA controller not entirely compatible with AHCI, but the network drivers fit into the mix. I could probably go back and remove the Pro card and re-enable the onboard (NVidia) LAN ports.

As to "why two?" Because . . . they can!! There might be uses for an extra LAN port, though. Many uses. Here's one which seems like a "niche" configuration, but it demonstrates what I mean.

My "flagship" sig-rig does double-duty as an HTPC because feeding HDMI to my home-theater parts is pretty much a low-level background process for it, with maybe 4% CPU usage. The input "Live-TV" is provided by a Silicon-Dust HD HomeRun Prime triple-tuner connected to my cable coax. It provides TV over our gigabit LAN so I could share it with computers of other family members in the house. But they aren't all goosey-gooh-gah about "HTPC" and would rather have their TV provided via cable-box.

That means I could take the HomeRun PRime off the LAN and make a direct connection to the computer on a second LAN port.

There is also the possibility of "teaming" two LAN connections to get better throughput.

You might reduce the cost of your motherboard by narrowing the selection to those with only one LAN port, but there may be other reasons to select a board that happens to have two, even if you don't intend to use them both.

Look at it another way. Even top-quality (Intel Pro) NICs are $20 items, and "good-enough" (many using RealTek or other chips) can be had for $10 to $15. If your motherboard has two, it's an incidental item that doesn't contribute all that much to cost.

I remember the old Nvidia mobo's doing load balancing. My Nvidia MB was also buggy with the onboard NIC although easily fixed with new drivers.

 

[ethebubbeth]

In normal usage, it doesn't make much of a difference. For server usage, however, I wouldn't touch realtek with a 99 1/2 ft pole.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

In normal usage, it doesn't make much of a difference. For server usage, however, I wouldn't touch realtek with a 99 1/2 ft pole.

Just for the common sense of it, I couldn't disagree. On the other hand, "server usage for what and for whom?" If you can count the users on one hand, well . . . .

I remember the old Nvidia mobo's doing load balancing. My Nvidia MB was also buggy with the onboard NIC although easily fixed with new drivers.

And that's another problem. With Win7, Win2008 R2/WHS-2011, etc. it was a real job finding workable drivers for an old 680i motherboard. Bad enough that nForce wasn't "AHCI" compliant. Usually, newer operating system will bundle drivers for old hardware. Untangling pile-ups of DPCs and Interrupts, there may be "unnecessary casualties," like the LAN ports I mentioned. If the board has plenty of free PCI/PCI-E slots, though, you can pick and choose.

But the OP is not so likely to have that problem. Maybe a good answer is "M-I-B" -- "MOre is better."

 

[Geofram]

In general, Intel ones are better is the short answer.

The more experience I've had with different onboard NICs, though, the more I've hated all of them. For example, if you use a Ceton InfiniTV network device with a CableCARD, you run into some really bad corruption and slowness with a lot of onboard NICs (I've seen it personally). I've got a motherboard with a Killer NIC built in, and if I transfer large files (converted movies for example) over to my server PC, it sometimes just...stops. Off and on. Again, behavior that goes away when I use a discreet NIC.

So, to answer the question, I give onboard Intel NICs a slight advantage over Realtek, etc, but the reality is that if you start doing more than web surfing, you find that a lot of onboard NICs on "home" grade motherboards are flaky.