Intel Dual NIC on ebay, sketchy?

[jbraband]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Pro-Dual-...ultDomain_0&hash=item2eb423322b#ht_500wt_1156

the seller says the dell part number is 0G17P but I cannot find anything on Dell's website about it. the other dual intel PCIe cards up for auction have a heatsink on the chip and dont have all that blank PCB at the end of the card.

does anyone have enough working knowledge of these to say that these appear to be legit? i'm not looking for promises or liability, just good educated guesses from people that are educated on such products.

I've been itching on getting three of these for a router box: Intel EXPI9301CT, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106033

how does the card in the auction compare to these single cards. like i said, i can't find anything about the auction card. for what its worth, this is the motherboard i am downcycling to this build, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128335, 1 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x 4, 3 PCIe x1, 2 PCI

 

[jbraband]

ooo, i may have found the intel part number

Intel E1G42ET

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106035

they certainly look the same

 

[PigLover]

The Intel "ET" adapter is a much better card than the 9301ct. The ET adapter is a server class network processor with much more capable offloading, while the 9301ct is a desktop-class device (and is quite old - almost two chip generations older than the ET). I think that it will work much better for you in a software-router box.

Do pay attention to the fact that the "ET" is a PCIe x4 card, while the other ones you were considering are x1 devices.

Finally, I really think you should consider a server class MB instead of that MSI board.

 

[jbraband]

i'm with ya on the server-class motherboard. i was going to go the SM x7SPE-HF-D525 route, but i'm already a sandy bridge workstation and a sandy bridge htpc into my budget with barely enough to scrap together a decent (consumer-level via downcycling) WHS2011 upgrade with M1015 for raid 1 and some hitachi 5k3000. i couldnt justify $4-500 for the atom board + 1U chassis + memory + HD when i would have that MSI and dual core athlon 4050e sitting around collecting dust.

i have dreams about x9scm's and hyper-v in my sleep but in the real world, the gaming/workstation and HTPC are a bigger impact in my house and got the priority in my budget.

i am fully aware that the ET cards are overkill, but if i can get them for a song they aren't a liability in stability right? they won't underperform if i put them in a pciex4 slot on a consumer board. then i have them for when i'm given more money from the household budget commitee and cane go after the virtual server host build. or am i really off base and three PCIex1 CT cards (linked above) are what make the most sense?

i was also planning on trying and pick up a second of these ET cards for my WHS (soon to be WHS2011) (also consumer hardware, my old workstation actually, c2d e8500) to team them to my powerconnect 2724. is that pie in the sky too?

my eyes are bigger than my checkbook i suppose :\

thanks for the reply piglover!



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EDIT: piglover, after re-reading your post, i now understand that you are recommending the ET card for the software router. for whatever reason i took the "that" in "I think that it will work much better for you in a software-router box." to be the CT card.

that said, i guess the plan is the ET card for LAN and WAP subnets and a CT for the WAN. does that seem sensible? plus i'll save a bundle without buying three CT at $30 a pop.

 

[PigLover]

The fact that your "software" router has to run everything through the CPU will have a much bigger impact on performance and latency than your choice of "CT" vs "ET" Intel cards. Might be better off just buying a router...http://www.roc-noc.com/mikrotik/routerboard/rb750g.html. You'll about the same money as you would just buying the NIC cards plus you get 5 ports instead of 3. Mikrotik's routeros won't leave you wanting for any functions. It won't have the pretty GUI you'd get with something others but it will do absolutely everything you could possibly ever want in a router (well, OK, except jumboframes in the cheap one).

 

[Patrick]

I would agree with the above but would note that, the CT cards' Intel 82574L is supported by just about everything. It still amazes me that some common controllers lack native OS support. A prime example is that the 82579's driver was not included in Win 7 SP1. I actually keep CT cards on hand for troubleshooting since they both occupy only an x1 slot and work with ESXi, Solaris and etc.

 

[jbraband]

i'm looking to put an ET card in an untangle box and one in a WHS2011 box (no hypervisor). going to intel's site to poke around for drivers....

 

[PigLover]

Can't speak for untangle - never actually used it - but I do know firsthand that the ET card works fine with WHS - its not natively supportd in Server2003 (which is what WHS really is) so you do have to load the Intel Proset driver from Intel's website, but once you do it works great.

 

[odditory]

The fact that your "software" router has to run everything through the CPU will have a much bigger impact on performance and latency than your choice of "CT" vs "ET" Intel cards. Might be better off just buying a router...http://www.roc-noc.com/mikrotik/routerboard/rb750g.html. You'll about the same money as you would just buying the NIC cards plus you get 5 ports instead of 3. Mikrotik's routeros won't leave you wanting for any functions. It won't have the pretty GUI you'd get with something others but it will do absolutely everything you could possibly ever want in a router (well, OK, except jumboframes in the cheap one).

That thing is sweet! Too bad it can't run pfSense.