> > I would like to get rid of DEC 2114x cards due to the broken driver
> > but didn't find a good replacement yet. Compaq ThunderLan based
> > "tl" boards are too expensive, the "fxp" driver is slow as hell and
> > the 3Com 3c905 has a slow hardware design.
> 
> I haven't actually had a chance to do any really good benchmarking with
> anything TCP related, never mind ttcp, but plain old 'ping -f' suggests
> to me that the "fxp" driver is a quite decent driver particularly if you
> put some decent hardware behind it, such as the Intel EtherExpress Pro
> 10+/100B card (I believe the model number is PILA8460, but I'm not 100%
> sure).  These cards are definitely not the cheapest, but seem to be one
> of the best available without going all the way to Intel's new
> server-class cards (which I don't expect are supported yet anyway).

If the fxp driver seems to be "slow as hell", I'd suggest there's
something else which is wrong with your system. As far as I know, the
NetBSD fxp driver is basically the same as the FreeBSD fxp driver,
written by David Greenman. On FreeBSD, the Intel Pro 100B (and the
newer 100+ with integrated PHY) with the fxp driver is just about
*the* fastest and most efficient 100 Mbps card/driver available. As
an example, with this card a P-133 can *receive* a full 100 Mbps, and
can *almost* send a full 100 Mbps (both measured with ttcp and NetPerf).

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no