On Mon, 1 Apr 1996, Tom Trebisky wrote:

> I now have the following 16-bit cards at my fingertips:  The SMC/WD 8013,
> The SMC 8216 "Elite/Ultra", and the Intel "Ether/express".  Which do folks
> recommend and why?  I replaced the 3Com with the 8013 and can measure a
> factor of 4 speed-up on incoming FTP, and maybe a 1.5 speed-up outgoing,
> and no more ring-buffer overflow messages.  This is nice for now, but is
> one of the other cards available to me a real winner?

Of the three cards you mentioned, I would definitely go with 8216 Ultra.
It has good buffering and a fast controller. We've been using an 8216 on
our NetBSD based name server, which gets about 750,000 queries per day,
with no problems. There also seems to be good support for the 8216 with
other free and commercial unices.

As far as the Intel EtherExpress goes, I know some folks that have had
good luck with it on a variety of platforms; however, my personal
experience is run, run like the wind -- the EtherExpress is nothing but
trouble. I have to admit, though, that I can't really qualify that
statement, as I have steered clear of the EtherExpress after my first few
experiences with it early on, and I don't really have a lot of day-to-day
experience with it. It may now be less quirky now than when I originally
ran into it.

The 8013 is a good, well-supported ISA card, and we have quite a few
installed here. However, the 8216 performs much better under heavy
load.

Regards
____________________________________________________________________________
Mike Bradford
Network Services
Dept. of Computing Services
University of Arkansas