Recommendations for cheap PCI-E network adapter ?

[Rodney W. Grimes]

> 
> In message <CAKfTJoWLPvC28=kPWE5oJYW87p+qbjB6zKwSpzfOoTjK1wBTWw at mail.gmail.com>,
> John Lyon <johnllyon at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >What's your use case?  If this is for a home box, developer box, or
> >something that is not "enterprise production," then I wouldn't worry about
> >RealTek cards bought in the last 5 years.  Their 10/100 cards from 15 years
> >ago were crap, which is how they earned their bad reputation.  However, the
> >continuing dismissiveness towards RealTek is mostly undeserved in my
> >opinion.
> 
> This is just for my home network.  Not "mission critical", but I don't want
> my equipment being eternally flaky, of course.  And I am not enthused about
> the possibility of having to frequently build and/or install a new driver
> that isn't in the stock FreeBSD releases.
> 
> >The issue currently is the state of the drivers themselves and not the
> >cards.  For example, the drivers themselves that FreeBSD includes have
> >problems.  However, you can always download the source code to the latest
> >FreeBSD drivers from the RealTek website and all of the "bugs" disappear.
> 
> Hummm... Am I being naive to ask why, if there are better drivers available,
> they do not get rolled into -CURRENT?
> 
> >That said, if you're cost sensitive, buy your NICS used.
> 
> Oh yes!  This is for a "new" system build for which I am buying everything
> as used parts.  Depending on which specific motherboard I decide to go with,
> I may or may not have a good old fashioned PCI slot to work with on the
> motherboard.
> 
> If I do, then I'm good, because as I discovered last night, I have/had, sitting
> inside a box of old parts up on my top shelf, no fewer than four (4) Realtek
> cards, two (2) Intel cards, two (2) Netgear cards, one (1) HP card, and even
> one ancient 3Com 3C509B card.  (I'm pretty sure that all of these are 10/100
> cards.  They are definitely all PCI.)
> 
> The problem is that all these cards are verging on being obsolete now, because
> many newer motherboards... and even ones that are several years old now... have
> dropped the old fashioned PCI slots altogether (e.g. ASUS B85M-G).
> 
> >Last time I checked, the going rate for
> >used Intel NICS was something like $10 per port + shipping.  I think used
> >Broadcom NICS were similar in pricing.
> 
> Really?  Where?
> 
> I checked on FleaBay and as far as -Intel- PCI-E cards, the best I could find
> was about $12 USD.
> 
> I don't know how to search FleaBay for Broadcom-based cards, because I don't
> know any relevant model numbers (or even manufacturer names).

ebay search for broadcom gigabit
I see some Dell cards, dual port, $9.95
And some single ports at $4.99
These are shipped prices.

Some people cuss at Broadcom, some people swear by them.   I don't own
any of there cards, but I have never had problems with the inbuilt
broadcom nics in any of my dell servers.

-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org