[geeks] Opinion: RTL8169 vs. Intel PCI e1000?

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On 1/3/2011 2:41 AM, Bill Bradford wrote:
> The new ohno.mrbill.net has (and is using) a Realtek 8169-chipset onboard
> gigabit network interface.
> 
> Should I look into finding a PCI Intel e1000 card to use instead, and
> disable the onboard?  The box isn't bandwidth or CPU-constrained at all,
> but I want to run the very best system that I can, while I'm in a period
> when the occasional reboot is allowed for tweaking. 8-)
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Bill
> 

AFAIK the later Realteks are OK, but the earlier ones that were 10/100
were very crappy.  They generated 1 interrupt per packet and had small
buffers.

--Patrick