25 Dec
2001
25 Dec
'01
4:33 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Ethan Dicks wrote:
--- Tothwolf <tothwolf(a)concentric.net> wrote:
The ISA bus can't handle anywhere near the full 100mb/s bandwith, so these
cards throttle the bandwith considerably. From personal experience in
testing tons of different cards on my lan, I just don't see enough of a
throughput difference when comparing the 509 and 515 to justify the extra
cost. This is especially true when the second generation 509 cards can be
had for less than $5 easily, and have much better driver support.
On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Ernest wrote:
Much gain? 10BaseT vs 10/100? Seems like a win to me. The only real
problem is that you can't saturate a 100mbps line from an ISA card. > There were very few *ISA* 10/100 NICs ever
made. The 3C515 is one of
> them.
I don't really consider these cards to be hard to find, you just won't
find them in most used computer shops. The 515 isn't too popular, since
there isn't much gain with it compared to a less expensive 509. As I mentioned in my first post, I think the only real
need for one is
if you find yourself on a 100BaseT *only* network.
That would be about the only use for them that I can think of. Most modern
100mb/s networks are switched and support N-way autonegotiation (and
10mb/s), so there just isn't much use for a 100mb/s ISA nic anymore.
-Toth