[Verios]

Hiya everyone,

I was curious to know if buying a new NIC card (currently using onboard one) would increase my over all online performance? I play a lot of MMORPG's (mainly EQ2) so Iam wondering if any of the below would be a good investment. Thanks a bunch guys, my options are below:

3COM 10/100 PCI Managed NIC
Startech 10/100 PCI NIC
D-Link 10/100 PCI w/Wake On Lan NIC
3Com 10/100/1000 Gigabit Desktop PCI Adapter
D-Link 10/100/1000 Gigabit PCI Adapter
Linksys Etherfast 10/100 PCI w/Wake On Lan NIC

Of these if you could possibly let me know which is the better option and why I'd be very greatful, thanks again!

[MiDKnYtE]

you're better off sticking with the onboard one. you never stated what kind of onboard nic you are running. some chips like the Intel with CSA run better than any PCI card could.

your ISP won't even run 10Mbps, so it's pointless to worry about gigabit or fast ethernet speeds. that would only be useful within your local network. the bottleneck is your DSL or cable modem, not your nic.

the point is, I think you will be disappointed if you spend money on a new nic and don't see any performance gain.

[Matth]

Yes, the onboard NIC is either tightly integrated with the southbridge (giving it data transfer that bypasses the PCI bus), or is the contents of a typical PCI card glued onto the motherboard.

Unlike onboard sound (which often DOES use more CPU than a good card), there are generally no drawbacks to the onboard NIC