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[sev]

I know that the merits of onboard disc controller cards have been talked about many times, and thanks in particular to The Boy and Cem for all their advice on this, which I took on board and true to form, it's paid dividends.

How do you tech guys who know the guts of this stuff feel about other controller cards, like sound and networking - is a separate soundcard and ethernet card better than the onboard solutions, or are they just money spinners?

[mathewst]

Depends what you need.
If you are into professional sound use then you need it and it is better, but for regular home use its just a waste  of money.
And for ethernet its the same thing (onboard or  separate), no point in needing the separate ethernet card

[Mr Skrunts]

interesting subject, upuntill the recent motherboards I found that fitting say a soundblaster card improved system performance on high demand games.

Now allthough I have not updated my system recently I was chatting to a mate about this who updates ona regular basis.  He plays a lot of high end games and said that a lot of the current manufacturers have got thier acts together.  So the quality of sound/performanace has improved big style.  Maybe the onboard configuration is the way to go as the system resources should be better balanced, the only way way to find out for sure is to run a system bench mark utility like Si soft sandra or 3D Mark and get a set of results and then put in a 3rd party card and run the tests again.

[cem_devecioglu]

I know that the merits of onboard disc controller cards have been talked about many times, and thanks in particular to The Boy and Cem for all their advice on this, which I took on board and true to form, it's paid dividends.

How do you tech guys who know the guts of this stuff feel about other controller cards, like sound and networking - is a separate soundcard and ethernet card better than the onboard solutions, or are they just money spinners?

imho, the answer is both yes and no.. :-/

it depends on the board compatibility with external cards (and model) , the board support for management of pci irqs etc etc..

and your future plans about expansion.. if you are going to install a bunch of cards after, on board types will cause less problem (except vga)  (but dont worry all these adventures sooner or later end up with complete mess and with a second pc purchase )

you can check irq settings of all components from my computer-manage -device manager- (upper menu)- view resources by type or connection..

and one additional note: if you are going to use that additional card for some professional use external models will have extra properties with more cost..

[TheBoy]

With soundcards, depends on your needs. Generally, modern onboards are 'good enough', though better audio quality and/or better gaming performance cand be achieved through premium plug in cards.


Network cards are a little more complex.  Up to and including 100Mb, it makes little difference unless you need specific features rarely implemented on onboard ones.

Once you get to gigabit (and 10Gb), you also need to consider the implementation. Gigabit will easily flatten a PCI bus, which is why you can't buy gigabit PCI (32Mhz/32bit) cards.  I've yet to see a desktop motherboard with PCI-X (64Mhz and/or 64bit) slots. Yet the number of onboard NIC implementations where the manufacturer connects a gigabit NIC to the PCI bus is shockingly common.  The likes of ASUS and Gigabyte do this all the time. This has a hugely performance hit on the entire system.  Professional boards, such as Intel's own, tend to put the NIC on a dedicated link into the MCH (Northbridge in traditional terms).

As we move more and more away from any PCI on motherboards, and go to PCIe, this becomes less of an issue for 1Gb NICs, but will show its face again with the new 10Gb cards.

[Mr Skrunts]

Once you get to gigabit (and 10Gb), you also need to consider the implementation. Gigabit will easily flatten a PCI bus, which is why you can't buy gigabit PCI (32Mhz/32bit) cards.  I've yet to see a desktop motherboard with PCI-X (64Mhz and/or 64bit) slots. Yet the number of onboard NIC implementations where the manufacturer connects a gigabit NIC to the PCI bus is shockingly common.  The likes of ASUS and Gigabyte do this all the time. This has a hugely performance hit on the entire system.  Professional boards, such as Intel's own, tend to put the NIC on a dedicated link into the MCH (Northbridge in traditional terms).

I am a complete network numpty but need to learn a little at least as I need to run gigabit networking through the home when I get chance as I tranfer huge ammounts of data at a time when I do back up.  As most of us, I have grown to trust the information we learn on the site as most of it is from IT profesionals that are not just trying to pacify us or sell us something.  Which is why I am now noncerned about the 5 1 Gigabit PCi network cards I bought a couple of years ago along with a hub all from netgear (that are all still in thier boxes :-/)

it also explains why from board to board even on a x-link or even through a gigabit hub that these sort of speeds are not achieved.

The question is now, are the short PCI-e slots capable of running gigabit nics or are they not much faster than PCI.

[TheBoy]

Once you get to gigabit (and 10Gb), you also need to consider the implementation. Gigabit will easily flatten a PCI bus, which is why you can't buy gigabit PCI (32Mhz/32bit) cards.  I've yet to see a desktop motherboard with PCI-X (64Mhz and/or 64bit) slots. Yet the number of onboard NIC implementations where the manufacturer connects a gigabit NIC to the PCI bus is shockingly common.  The likes of ASUS and Gigabyte do this all the time. This has a hugely performance hit on the entire system.  Professional boards, such as Intel's own, tend to put the NIC on a dedicated link into the MCH (Northbridge in traditional terms).

I am a complete network numpty but need to learn a little at least as I need to run gigabit networking through the home when I get chance as I tranfer huge ammounts of data at a time when I do back up.  As most of us, I have grown to trust the information we learn on the site as most of it is from IT profesionals that are not just trying to pacify us or sell us something.  Which is why I am now noncerned about the 5 1 Gigabit PCi network cards I bought a couple of years ago along with a hub all from netgear (that are all still in thier boxes :-/)

it also explains why from board to board even on a x-link or even through a gigabit hub that these sort of speeds are not achieved.

The question is now, are the short PCI-e slots capable of running gigabit nics or are they not much faster than PCI.

Firstly, nobody makes gigabit hubs, they are all switches

PCIe, even x1 slot, can carry gigabit traffic fine.  There are other gotchas in the chipset configuration, but most modern implementations from the big boys (Intel, Nvidia etc) are now fine.

[Mr Skrunts]

Firstly, nobody makes gigabit hubs, they are all switches 

PCIe, even x1 slot, can carry gigabit traffic fine.  There are other gotchas in the chipset configuration, but most modern implementations from the big boys (Intel, Nvidia etc) are now fine.

Like I said, network Numpty.  I just remembered it ha 5 ports in it hence why I called it aa hub. 

[Chris_H]

Firstly, nobody makes gigabit hubs, they are all switches 

PCIe, even x1 slot, can carry gigabit traffic fine.  There are other gotchas in the chipset configuration, but most modern implementations from the big boys (Intel, Nvidia etc) are now fine.

Like I said, network Numpty.  I just remembered it ha 5 ports in it hence why I called it aa hub. 

Hubs are like distribution amplifiers in that they distribute packets from all ports to all ports.  They are horrendously inefficient and their only saving grace is that you can snoop on a network successfully with them.
In order to send larger quantities of data over a network of any given bandwidth, a switch only sends data between the necessary ports (once it has built a map of the network).  Consequently, it effectively partitions the network into smaller segments allowing maximum-speed transfers on more than one path.

[TheBoy]

Firstly, nobody makes gigabit hubs, they are all switches 

PCIe, even x1 slot, can carry gigabit traffic fine.  There are other gotchas in the chipset configuration, but most modern implementations from the big boys (Intel, Nvidia etc) are now fine.

Like I said, network Numpty.  I just remembered it ha 5 ports in it hence why I called it aa hub. 

Hubs are like distribution amplifiers in that they distribute packets from all ports to all ports.  They are horrendously inefficient and their only saving grace is that you can snoop on a network successfully with them.
In order to send larger quantities of data over a network of any given bandwidth, a switch only sends data between the necessary ports (once it has built a map of the network).  Consequently, it effectively partitions the network into smaller segments allowing maximum-speed transfers on more than one path.

Thats the theory, but the best gains on samller networks come from the fact that switches are full duplex, rather than a hub's half duplex