SuperMicro H8SSL-i (ServerWorks HT1000) -- WAS: Sun Fire X2100/nForce4 Ultra desktop

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Tue, 2005-11-29 at 05:58 -0500, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> According to the BCM5704*1* product brief, each NIC has its own RISC
> off-loading processor 16KiB of SRAM as well as dual 64KiB RAM packet
> buffer.  You might be eyeing the $50-60 SysKonnect SK-9E21D*2* PCIe x1
> NIC, it has a 48KiB RAM packet buffer (no RISC+SRAM off-load engine --
> just a "large send off-load").  Even the $125-150+, server-designed PCIe
> x1 SK-9E21 or PCIe x4 SK-9E21 (PCI-X equivalent SK-9S21 and SK-9S22,
> respectively) doesn't seem to offer any off-load other than "large send
> off-load" (can't tell how good, the manual is in French or German and
> doesn't make any mention of SRAM), only 2x the RAM (per port), 96KiB.
> *1* Broadcom BCM5704 Product Brief (first page):  
>   http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pb/5704C-PB04-R.pdf  
> *2* SysKonnect SK-9E21D Manual (page 41, PDF page 39):  
>   http://www.skd.de/e_en/products/adapters/pcie_desktop/sk-9exxd/docu/Sk-9E21D_E.pdf  

Actually, I was doing some research, and it seems that only LSO is
supported in the BCM5704 firmware under Linux.

And it seems that most "quality" TX/RX designs these days have 16KiB
SRAM so they can handle up to 16KiB Jumbo frames.

You only need to be careful about the NICs that have only 2-4KiB SRAM
TX/RX that can't handle jumbo frames.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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