Recommendation for 1000BASE-SX card?

[Heinrich Rebehn]

Danial Thom wrote:
> 
> --- Heinrich Rebehn <rebehn at ant.uni-bremen.de>
> wrote:
> 
>> Danial Thom wrote:
>>>  The intel cards that use the EM driver are
>> the
>>> best performing cards in FreeBSD that we've
>>> tested. We've test cards made by the same
>> company
>>> that use the broadcom controllers and the
>> intel
>>> cards are substantially better (ie use less
>> CPU
>>> passing the same amount of traffic). 
>>>
>>> Be careful using on-board controllers.
>> Usually
>>> vendors, for some reason, don't wire them to
>> the
>>> pci-x bus. Most supermicro boards wire the em
>>> controllers to the 32bit/33mhz bus and the
>> tyan
>>> and supermicro opteron boards we've tested
>> wire
>>> the broadcoms to a shared 1x PCI-E, both of
>> which
>>> will not only give you poor performance, but
>> are
>>> not capable of running full gigabit rates.
>>>
>>> DT
>>>
>> The Intel card would be an INTEL Pro1000MF,
>> right? This would be quite
>> expensive (~ EUR 430), but good performance and
>> stability would warrant
>> that.
>> ATM, we are using the onboard controller
>> (Broadcom BCM5704C wired to the
>> pci-x bus). I did not have opportunity to do
>> performance measurements,
>> but we do have problems with our Linkpro
>> 1000SX/1000TX converters, the
>> 3rd of which has already died.
>> That's why i want to give a PCI-X card with
>> fiber interface a try.
> 
> No, that would be the 1000MT, the MF is a fiber
> card I believe. They are about US$120. in the US.

Our building has fiber cabling, that's why i am looking for a fiber 
card. The 1000SX/1000TX converters that we use are just to unreliable.
> 
> How do you know its wired to the PCI-X bus, since
> I don't believe that the controller has a way of
> reporting the way that the intel controller does?
> What MB do you have?

It is a Tyan Thunder K8SD Pro S2882-D

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8sdpro_spec.html

The spec says that the BCM5704C is connected to PCI-X Bridge A 
(64Bit,100MHz).
> 
> Also keep in mind that the bge driver is a piece
> of crap; driver quality is a much more telling
> factor in these free OS's than the card in many
> cases. The EM and FXP are the only drivers worth
> anything (mainly because neither were written by
> mass-driver mill man Bill Paul).

That really sounds bad. I wonder if others can confirm that.


--Heinrich