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Experience with Intel NICs?

wpirobotbuilder
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I'm looking at NICs for a high-speed interconnect between two machines, does anyone have experience with the x540 or I350 NICs?

 

I'm primarily interested in consumer grade motherboard compatibility and operating temperatures.

 

Thanks in advance.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

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I have experience with a couple different enterprise grade intel NICs.

 

1. I wouldn't worry about motherboard compatibility - its all PCIe.

 

2. temps - they do get a bit warming then regular NICs, but as long as your case has good airflow you will have zero problems.

 

Intel NICs really cannot be beat when it comes to reliability and compatibility.

 

EDIT: Remember for 10gb ethernet you should be using at least CAT6a cable.

CPU: i7 3770k @ 4.8Ghz Motherboard: Sabertooth Z77 RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance GPU: GTX 780 Case: Corsair 540 Air Storage: 2x Intel 520 SSD Raid 0 PSU: Corsair AX850 Display(s): 1x 27" Samsung Monitor 3x 24" Asus Monitors Cooling: Swifttech H220 Keyboard: Logitech 710+ Mouse: Logitech G500 Headphones: Sennheiser HD 558 --- Internet: http://linustechtips.com/main/uploads/gallery/album_1107/gallery_12431_1107_23677.png My Setup:  http://linustechtips.com/main/gallery/image/7922-1-rkcf7io/ -- NAS: 3x WD Red 3TB Drives (RAIDZ-1), 5x 750gb Seagate ES HDD(RAIDZ-1), 120gb SSD for caching, OS: FreeNAS --  Server 1: Xeon E3 1275v2, 32GB of RAM, OS: ESXi 5.5 -- Server 2: Xeon E3 1220v2, 32GB of RAM, OS: ESXi 5.5

 

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1. I wouldn't worry about motherboard compatibility - its all PCIe.

But there are compatibility issues with certain RAID card/motherboard combinations, and I'm sure there are some with NICs as well. It might not be on Intel's side, but on the motherboard manufacturer's side.

 

EDIT: Remember for 10gb ethernet you should be using at least CAT6a cable.

Only for more than 30m, correct?

 

I usually use CAT6a, CAT7 if I can get my hands on it, they're somewhat future proof and just better overall, and really don't cost much more than Cat5e or Cat6.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

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But there are compatibility issues with certain RAID card/motherboard combinations, and I'm sure there are some with NICs as well. It might not be on Intel's side, but on the motherboard manufacturer's side.

 

Only for more than 30m, correct?

 

I usually use CAT6a, CAT7 if I can get my hands on it, they're somewhat future proof and just better overall, and really don't cost much more than Cat5e or Cat6.

 

1. True, there are some motherboards that have issues with RAID cards. But i have never heard of the same problem with a NIC. If you really are worried about it you could get a server board, or one of the Asus Workstation motherboards (they're validated with high-end add-on cards), but i don't think that's necessary.

 

1. CAT6 is good for shorter distances when used for 10gb ethernet - i believe as long as you stay below 50m you should be all right.

CPU: i7 3770k @ 4.8Ghz Motherboard: Sabertooth Z77 RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance GPU: GTX 780 Case: Corsair 540 Air Storage: 2x Intel 520 SSD Raid 0 PSU: Corsair AX850 Display(s): 1x 27" Samsung Monitor 3x 24" Asus Monitors Cooling: Swifttech H220 Keyboard: Logitech 710+ Mouse: Logitech G500 Headphones: Sennheiser HD 558 --- Internet: http://linustechtips.com/main/uploads/gallery/album_1107/gallery_12431_1107_23677.png My Setup:  http://linustechtips.com/main/gallery/image/7922-1-rkcf7io/ -- NAS: 3x WD Red 3TB Drives (RAIDZ-1), 5x 750gb Seagate ES HDD(RAIDZ-1), 120gb SSD for caching, OS: FreeNAS --  Server 1: Xeon E3 1275v2, 32GB of RAM, OS: ESXi 5.5 -- Server 2: Xeon E3 1220v2, 32GB of RAM, OS: ESXi 5.5

 

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