# Gigabit Ethernet Question



## The_Gunslinger (Dec 15, 2007)

not entirely sure if this should be in here or the motherboards section, hopefully someone will kick it over if i have it in the wrong place 

so here's the question.

i have a gigabit LAN connection on-board my main board, however, this is hooked into the PCI bus  with the resulting cap in speed that goes with such a design.

would using one of these remove that restriction, and allow it to operate at full speed ?

http://www.it247.com/Product/28-EA8...daptors&campaign=ciao&utm_medium=NetworkCards


also, does anyone know how this compares to an on-board, PCIe bound LAN chip in relation to speed and CPU usage ?


thanks


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 15, 2007)

Nope, Gigabit Ethernet isn't as efficient as one might hope, as long as there aren't any other bandwidth hungry devices on the bus you're fine.


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## The_Gunslinger (Dec 15, 2007)

are you referring to the PCI bus there, or the PCIe bus ?

at the moment, all that is there is the Audigy2 zs card, not sure where all the USB 2.0 headers come into the equation though.

also in your reference to efficient, was that referring to the CPU utilisation ?

there is not many reviews around for these cards that i can find, the cpu an throughput figures are listed in most mainboard reviews though, and can be quite useful 

thanks for the speedy reply btw 
always amazed how fast threads get a reply here


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 15, 2007)

The_Gunslinger said:


> are you referring to the PCI bus there, or the PCIe bus ?
> 
> at the moment, all that is there is the Audigy2 zs card, not sure where all the USB 2.0 headers come into the equation though.
> 
> ...



No I was referring to using the full Gbit bandwidth. It's unlikely that you'll be using even 50% of it. Therefor the PCI bus doesn't really bottleneck.


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## The_Gunslinger (Dec 15, 2007)

ahhhh i see, i was hoping to get a little more than that out of it on my LAN (internet obviously being slower when it's connected) but the rest of my equipment including the HP print server card in my laser printer is compatible with Gigabit ethernet (not sure about the router, but that's likely to end up in the bin soon after new year anyway if i can get a N rated wireless one in the sales  )


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## craigwhiteside (Dec 15, 2007)

actually its measured in not a gigabyte but gigabit so you will only get an 8th of the speed , but its still fast


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 15, 2007)

craigwhiteside said:


> actually its measured in not a gigabyte but gigabit so you will only get an 8th of the speed , but its still fast



That's a really wrong way to think. Because you prefer to think in another unit the performance actually is divided by 8? It still is a Gigabit connection, even when you prefer bytes over bits.

The way you think we could put 1000 times as much milk in a box by changing the unit from liters to milliliters.


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## Kreij (Dec 15, 2007)

Don't worry about it. I would really be amazed if you use even 10% of the available bandwidth that a Gb connection has to offer.

Don't forget that you need cables that are rated that speed also. 
What is it Cat 6 for Gb, or Cat 7?
I know the high performance Cat 5 I run is ony rated up to 350Mb.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 15, 2007)

Kreij said:


> Don't worry about it. I would really be amazed if you use even 10% of the available bandwidth that a Gb connection has to offer.
> 
> Don't forget that you need cables that are rated that speed also.
> What is it Cat 6 for Gb, or Cat 7?
> I know the high performance Cat 5 I run is ony rated up to 350Mb.



10% of a Gbit connection is called Fast Ethernet, Gbit goes between 20-40MB/s usually. Cat5 are rated for Gbit, though never designed to do such speed, Cat5e or even cat6 are your safest bets.


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## Kreij (Dec 15, 2007)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> 10% of a Gbit connection is called Fast Ethernet, Gbit goes between 20-40MB/s usually. Cat5 are rated for Gbit, though never designed to do such speed, Cat5e or even cat6 are your safest bets.



I know that 10% of Gb is FE, what I meant was that everything considered, uness he is doing something that requires extensive real time data transfer, even using the full capacity of a 100Mb/s is doubtful.

At work, using a 40 port 100Mb switch (all ports in use), it was rare to see any port go over 10% usage. Now granted, most of what we do at work is DB access and simple file serving, but it still holds true that the _average user_ is only going to use a fraction of a 100Mb connection in normal everyday use.


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## craigwhiteside (Dec 15, 2007)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> That's a really wrong way to think. Because you prefer to think in another unit the performance actually is divided by 8? It still is a Gigabit connection, even when you prefer bytes over bits.
> 
> The way you think we could put 1000 times as much milk in a box by changing the unit from liters to milliliters.


there are 8 bits to a byte so therefore a gigabit is only an 8th the speed of a gigabyte network connection which is what many people believe is what there connection is, a gigabyte connection, but is really only going to reach 128MBps, but is in actual fact only going to reach 100MBps


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## craigwhiteside (Dec 15, 2007)

cat 5 is rated for 100mb and up, cat5e is for 1000mb but isnt meant for those speeds, cat 6 is meant for 1000mb connections because of its higher frequencies, and cat 7 is essentially cat 6 but with extra shielding and can reach further distances than cat 5,5e and 6


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## Fizban (Dec 15, 2007)

I'm agreeing with a few of the other people.....why would anyone need a Gbit internet connection anyway, that around 130 MBps (MegaBytes...not bits) or 16 times faster than the best cable modem available in most areas of the US.


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## Kreij (Dec 15, 2007)

Yes, Gb it a lot faster that an internet connection but you may being doing large file transfers between machines (say you want to back up that 50GB music collection).

However, with the protocol overhead (packet validation and such) and the time it takes your computer to manage file infromation overhead, it is really unlikely that you will see anywhere near 100Mb constant utilization, let alone Gb.

As always, this depends on what you are doing. If you create one monster file (say a zip) of everything you have and the system decides to burst it through, a Gb connection could be useful.

Why would We want a Gb connections? This is TPU !!!  Because we can have it !!


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## craigwhiteside (Dec 15, 2007)

said like a true tpu member


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## The_Gunslinger (Dec 15, 2007)

Kreij said:


> Yes, Gb it a lot faster that an internet connection but you may being doing large file transfers between machines (say you want to back up that 50GB music collection).




bingo, like i said, earlier i was interested in the speed without the internet connected, i was thinking more along the lines of network storage possibilities, as i've just ran out of space on one of my internal 500GB drives  obviously there are no gains to be had on internet connection speeds due to my internet connection being slower than the theoretical max of the LAN, unless i was heavily congesting the PCI bus
File transfer speeds etc was what i was mainly interested in.



> However, with the protocol overhead (packet validation and such) and the time it takes your computer to manage file infromation overhead, it is really unlikely that you will see anywhere near 100Mb constant utilization, let alone Gb.
> 
> As always, this depends on what you are doing. If you create one monster file (say a zip) of everything you have and the system decides to burst it through, a Gb connection could be useful.


Fair point



> Why would We want a Gb connections? This is TPU !!!  Because we can have it !!



 .... that is soooooo true, dammit if these companies are going to market these features on stuff i buy.... i WANT it 


thanks for all your comments guys, they are really appreciated (even if you could easily confuse or lose me in there sometimes )

so basically, i should be ok using the PCI bound ethernet for my LAN, and internet when i connect it, and should not see any congestion on the PCI bus with only my audigy2 card plugged in

the added cable info was also useful too, thanks

... ok, i'm off to look at the same question regarding Firewire 800 (1394b)


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## Kreij (Dec 15, 2007)

LOL ... You know it's true GS, if they make something cool we will try it.

I have both integrated Gb and wireless on my mobo.
What do I use?  The wireless (56Mb max).

Why?

Because I have a networked based dial-up modem hooked to a wireless router that connects to my wired NAS, and the instructions said that it was not possible to set up the modem this way.  It was a major PITA to do, but they were wrong


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## lemonadesoda (Dec 15, 2007)

craigwhiteside said:


> cat 5 is rated for 100mb and up, cat5e is for 1000mb but isnt meant for those speeds, cat 6 is meant for 1000mb connections because of its higher frequencies, and cat 7 is essentially cat 6 but with extra shielding and can reach further distances than cat 5,5e and 6



All these "CATx" specifications are minimum specification requirements.  They are usually written at 100m of cable... ie. for extended office wiring.

I run unshielded CAT5e cable at Gb speeds without a problem. But note that cables are on average only 3m. Some 30cm, some 10m, but on average 3m or less.  With short cables you are unlikely to have problems using CAT5 or CAT5e at GB speeds, so dont worry.

NOTE: when I say unshielded, I mean, in practice, non-perfect shielding. The cable has the metal foil in it, but with home-made cable lengths with manually connected RJ45 plugs, there is usually no, or poor connection of the cable shield to the metal plug.  Home-cut cables are NEVER as good as a factory sealed RJ45 plug with proper shielding.


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## The_Gunslinger (Dec 15, 2007)

> and the instructions said that it was not possible to set up the modem this way



they really will never learn not to put such sweeping statements in there will they...... as soon as i read that i was expecting you to say you did it simply to prove them wrong 

i would hazzard a guess that your on-board wireless isnt bound to the PCI bus though, right ?


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## craigwhiteside (Dec 15, 2007)

ya but cat5e was really never meant for 1gb, its essentially the same as cat5 lol, but with a couple of changes


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## Kreij (Dec 15, 2007)

The catx specification is not a requirement specification, it is a specification for gauranteed performance. The standard on the cables is for a guarantee of transmission integrity over a given distance at a given speed.

I run Gb switches on cat5 fine, but that does not mean that I will see 100% data integrity if I am pushing them over their rating.

No, it is unlikely that someone would see problems on a lesser rated cable if they are underutilizing their available bandwdth, but in a scenerio where they need the full bandwidth they could potentially see serious problems when they try to push the data through the cables at 3x times their rated throughput.

For home users this would most likley never be a problem as the data throughput requirements will never exceed the cables limits.


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