G5 Ethernet Card

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Dr. No

macrumors regular

Original poster

• Aug 28, 2004

• #1

In the Build-to-Order section of the Apple.com store for the PM G5, it lists a "PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet Card".

Does this deliver any improvements (speed or otherwise) over the internal ethernet connection? 😕

 

superbovine

macrumors 68030

• Aug 28, 2004

• #2

only if you have a gigabit network equipment i.e. switches, hubs, routers, and cat6 cable, and you are transfering very large files. for examples serveral large audio files or video files that is about the only reason a home user would need gigabit ethernet.

 

Nermal

Moderator

Staff member

• Aug 28, 2004

• #3

I think it's just for if you need to have two Ethernet ports in your system. The internal gigabit port and the one provided by the card are probably both the same speed, although the internal one may have all its processing done by the CPU instead of with a dedicated chip.

 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5

• Aug 28, 2004

• #4

There's a good chance the PCI-X card is on a faster bus than the KeyLargo2's Ethernet port (which is a PCI bus shared by all I/O).

The X-Serve G5 uses a built-in Broadcom PCI-X gig-Ethernet chip that resides off the KeyLargo.

Since the Broadcom offerings are 10-gigabit capable, Apple may be bumping the PowerMac's ethernet soon.

 

homerjward

macrumors 68030

• Aug 28, 2004

• #5

Sun Baked said:

There's a good chance the PCI-X card is on a faster bus than the KeyLargo2's Ethernet port (which is a PCI bus shared by all I/O).

The X-Serve G5 uses a built-in Broadcom PCI-X gig-Ethernet chip that resides off the KeyLargo.

Since the Broadcom offerings are 10-gigabit capable, Apple may be bumping the PowerMac's ethernet soon.

Click to expand...

well, also the g5 has integrated ethernet and sound which means they run on the system bus and so adding a pci sound card and ethernet could give it a slight speed boost

 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5

• Aug 28, 2004

• #6

homerjward said:

well, also the g5 has integrated ethernet and sound which means they run on the system bus and so adding a pci sound card and ethernet could give it a slight speed boost

Click to expand...

As I said the integrated ethernet is on the KeyLargo2 -- which has a shared PCI-bus with ALL other I/O.

Going upstream to PCI gets you off the shared PCI bus and onto PCI-X.

Basically the same set-up as the XServe G5 -- except the XServe put in on the motherboard instead of the PCI-X card.

Don't know who does the PCI-X add-on card.