On 18 Apr 2006 at 17:18, Jeffrey Ottie wrote:

> First up now that I'm back is rebuilding a desktop PC for a friend and I'll
> be needing to purchase a PCI NIC to connect his computer to the rest of the
> world via Verizon DSL. I'm looking for a NIC that reliable, a good performer
> under W2K Professional and a great value. Any recommendations as to brand,
> model and vendor?

  Intel and 3com have long made good NICs, although they tend to be pricy.  
Broadcom have recently become strong players.  These days, I'd seriously 
consider a 10/100/1000 Mbps card -- they're not much more, and bottom-end 
1000 Mbps switches have become pretty affordable too.  Great for shuffling 
digital content like video from one machine to another!

  You may be tempted to consider an Ethernet port built in on the 
motherboard.  Broadcom have done well in that market, but nVidia have 
implemented their own NIC chipset as part of their motherboard chipset 
offerings.  I'm not alone in experiencing very poor results from these; at 
this point, I can't be entirely certain whether the faults are in the 
hardware, the accompanying software, or both.

David Gillett

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