Subject: Re: INTEL ETHERNET COMPATIBILITY qQUESTION?
To: Michael L. VanLoon -- Iowa State University <michaelv@headcandy.com>
From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@fsa.ca>
List: current-users
Date: 08/05/1994 16:29:32
> I've been told that both the 3com 3c5x9 boards, and the SMC/WD 8013x
> boards are quite good.  There are supposedly PCI versions of both
> available, although Theo would probably have to speak authoritatively
> on which work well.

Regarding the 3COM cards:

3c509	ISA. For some people these work really well, and if you call
	1-800-NET-3COM you can get 2/$99. For some people these cards
	perform *very* badly, and we don't know why yet (I would not
	recommend this card on an IDE system).
3c579	EISA. Works very well everywhere.

I do not know of any PCI cards (but there might be some..) I feel
that the extra few bytes of speed fail to warrant the cost.

You can get NE2000 clones for about $50 from various places too.
Although not the best card, you are pretty much gauranteed it will
work.

Then there are the SMC/WD 80xx cards. I don't know much about them.
They just pretty much work, too.

I didn't buy any of the 4 ethernet cards I am using here, so don't
take my word for any of this. :-)

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