Recommendation for 1000BASE-SX card?

[Danial Thom]

--- Heinrich Rebehn <rebehn at ant.uni-bremen.de>
wrote:

> 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.

I clarified this in a second post, sorry. I'd
recommend trying a copper card with your
converter.

I've tested that MB and I don't believe the
controller is connected to a 64/133Mhz bus. Its
less than have the speed (ie twice the load) as
an EM card in the PCI-X slot. You can, of course,
 connect a part to a pci-x buss at 32bits and
33Mhz. Nevertheless, the bge driver with the mobo
is suspect (we've had to hack it a bit to get it
to work properly with bridging at all).  It
doesn't seem to want to come up at a gigabit
unless you give it an address. The driver is
really junk, IMO.

DT

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