On Fri, Feb 23, 2001 at 12:10:22AM +0000, Martin J. Laubach wrote:
>   I need to build a packet filtering box with the additional
> requirement of doing _at_least_ 100 MBit. I guess that to
> actually get that kind of performance, I need to use hand
> picked NICs instead of the cheap card du jour.
> 
>   I'd be grateful for any hints or comments, even if it's
> a "this just ist not possible".

SMC Etherpower-II adapters (based on thp epic/100 chip) are quite good.
You may also want to look at the quad-port DLINK board (based on the
DEC 21143 chip, I think it's the DFE620 but I'm not sure) if you're short
in PCI slots.

Netgear has a 1000baseT version of the GA620, which can also do 100BaseTX.
This may also be a good choice, and leave you room for future expantion.
You'll want a motherboard with 64bit PCI slots if you use theses :)
Also, the GA620 can do IP/TCP/UDP checksums on board, which offloads the
CPU and reduce latency (the if_ti driver doesn't use this yet, but it's
still on my list of things to do - At last offloading IP checksums to the
board should be quite easy).

--
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
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