> >  Are you stating that the network interface on the motherboard is
> >  implemented in an inferior manner?  I.e. no DMA, etc.?
> 
> That's been my experience, yes.  On the networks I've worked on, 
> we never used the built-in interface for most of our machines -- we 
> always bought a good-quality dedicated NIC.  Not a single 
> manufacturer that I know of will put the extra memory and other chips 
> required into having a decent built-in NIC on the motherboard -- it 
> may just be pennies per board, but they're still too cheap to do it.

Not true for sbus sparc systems....

    David