I'm specing out an beefy PC with 66MHz, 64-bit PCI slots to be a GigE
enabled firewall.  I've been trying to figure out which GigE NICs to
buy and I'm kinda stuck.  So, I'm here asking for input.

First of all, I need to get SX fiber NICs with SC connectors to plug
into my existing network equipment and I really want to stick with
66MHz, 64-bit or PCI-X cards.  At this point, I've narrowed my choices
down to five cards:

 + Intel PRO/1000 XF	(Chipset:  i82544EI)

 + 3COM 3C996-SX	(Chipset:  Broadcom BCM570X)

 + SysKonnect SK-9843	(Chipset:  SysKonnect GEnesis ASIC)

 + SysKonnect SK-9844	(Chipset:  SysKonnect GEnesis ASIC)

 + SysKonnect SK-9D41	(Chipset:  Broadcom BCM570X)


Now, I've got an obvious problem:  the Intel card is the only one that's
supported by -current.  The BCM570X chipset is supported by FreeBSD's
bge driver and the SysKonnect GEnesis ASIC is supported by FreeBSD's
sk driver.

It's the BCM570X based cards that I'm particularly interested in.  It
seems to have about the best performance to price ratio on other OSs.

So, before I attempt to port FreeBSD's bge driver, is there anyone
already working on it?  Or, am I crazy and should just go with the
Intel cards?


Paul
-- 
Paul Dokas                                            dokas@cs.umn.edu
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Don Juan Matus:  "an enigma wrapped in mystery wrapped in a tortilla."