Maurice Kinal wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 MK>> I prefer the 3c509's since the ne2000's use extra cpu cycles to run
 MK>> them.  They work good but the 3c509's are a noticable improvement
 MK>> (transfer speeds etc.). 

 RJT> I guess that makes it pretty silly for me to have one of those in my 
 RJT> firewall/router box,  then...

 MK> Not really but if more then one, which is often the case in 
 MK> routers, then the issue will take on greater significance 
 MK> especially on slow cpu's, and then reducing the load on the cpu
 MK> will have even greater impact overall.

That box _was_ a 386dx40 a while back,  now it's a 486dx2/66.  I have some
other boards around,  and may end up upgrading that at some point.

 MK> With high speed internet you problably won't see the difference 
 MK> but on a LAN it is quite noticable.

That box has a 56k modem and a 10baseT LAN connection.  No "high
speed" here, I can't afford it.

 MK> I find for routers the Intel Pro's work great but then we're 
 MK> talking pci.  I have two of them on a 486-33 that works great but 
 MK> at 100Mb it is slower then a speedier cpu.  I tried the same sort 
 MK> of setup on a 233MHz MMX jobber and it handled everything quite 
 MK> well.  Streaming mp3's on a 10Mb network was a tad slow but it 
 MK> works.

Perhaps at some point I can upgrade the LAN to 100...

 MK> I haven't tried that with the 486-33 yet but I am sure that it'll 
 MK> be fast enough for that on a 100Mb connection despite it not being 
 MK> quite up to fullbore on that network.

We'll see where it goes,  here,  as I can do stuff.

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