Re: NetBSD/sparc64 and GbE performance

[Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost>]

On Sat, May 07, 2011 at 08:42:13PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On 5/7/11 8:27 PM, Matthias Scheler wrote:
> >>      Look at those pictures a bit closer.  The Cassini is a 64-bit card
> >>and the Intel is only a 32-bit card.
> >
> >So? The Cassini is still bulky even compared to 64bit Intel card.
> >And it consumes a lot of power and produces a lot of heat.
> 
>   It is physically larger and therefore technologically inferior?
> 
>   WTF?

Yes, larger chips means more transistor, inferior manufacturing or both.
And it is also the number of extra chips they need. The Intel card
contains the chip, the PHY and a little eeprom.

>   I'm running a few of these in higher-end (V480-range) Sun machines
> running Solaris.  While I've not benchmarked them, I know I get better
> than 500Mbps out of them on those machines.

I never said they couldn't do 500Mb/s. But I'm reasonably certain that
an Intel card (later updates of Solaris 10 support those for SPARC
as well) would perform better. A friend of mine used an i82541 based
card in a SB1000 running Solaris 10 and it worked and performed
very well.

        Kind regards

-- 
Matthias Scheler                                  http://zhadum.org.uk/