Dual Ethermet

[Cole The Soul]

What do dual Ethernet ports on a mobo do? Do they double the possible speeds to your computer?

[CoolaxGaming]

No they means to ethernet cables can connect providing two different networks

[Arty]

depends

most boards will let you link it, and if you have an appropriate switch, that supports linking, and another pc with the same speeds, then yes

only for home network "duh"

what u pay is what you get for outside connections

if not, then 2 networks

[QueenDemetria]

What do dual Ethernet ports on a mobo do? Do they double the possible speeds to your computer?

Well, they can be used many ways.

1. Can be used to join a single PC to two separate networks. So you could have 1 dedicated to your home internet and one connected directly to a NAS, or another network(like your neighbors, if they have agreed to it and have a cable routed).
2. Joining 2 PC's together. You could share your internet and files with another PC without having to run 2 cables to your router. You will essentially be joining 2 computers together.
3. "Shotgunning". This is where you use 2 ethernet ports together to effectively "double the bandwidth". This can increase the speed between your PC and router(this does not speed up your internet), however you will need a router to support this feature. Also, this only effects the network, so you won't be able to render video faster or crank out more FPS in games, just network bandwidth. Depending on the hardware, this can also be used for redundancy. If 1 port/cable fails, it can fall back on the working connection.

[DirkW]

 

Well, they can be used many ways.

1. Can be used to join a single PC to two separate networks. So you could have 1 dedicated to your home internet and one connected directly to a NAS, or another network(like your neighbors, if they have agreed to it and have a cable routed).
2. Joining 2 PC's together. You could share your internet and files with another PC without having to run 2 cables to your router. You will essentially be joining 2 computers together.
3. "Shotgunning". This is where you use 2 ethernet ports together to effectively "double the bandwidth". This can increase the speed between your PC and router(this does not speed up your internet), however you will need a router to support this feature. Also, this only effects the network, so you won't be able to render video faster or crank out more FPS in games, just network bandwidth. Depending on the hardware, this can also be used for redundancy. If 1 port/cable fails, it can fall back on the working connection.

 

 

Never heard anyone call 3.) "shotgunning" before.   Officially it's called "link aggregation" (or "teaming"). However, it should be noted that it does not simply boost bandwidth, it's a little more complicated, and (unfortunately) a little less useful than that.

For example, a single PC to a single server (via a switch that supports this feature, all connected with 2 cables, teamed up, etc.) will normally still only get 1Gb/s connection speed (read more here). However, link aggregation gets much more useful, when you connect 2 PCs to that one server (PCs<->switch only need single cable, but switch<->server stays at 2 cables) - then both PCs can connect to the server with full 1Gb/s each, not reducing each others bandwidth.

In other words... it allows several individual parallel transfers (depending on how many ports you team up, but all work at full bandwidth), but it does not increase the speed of any individual, single transfers.