dual/quadruple ports on a NICs

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, Martin Siegert wrote:

> My impression is that dual/quad card works no better than two/four single
> cards of the same vendor at least when you are interested in channel bonding.

Don't forget that dual/quad cards occupy only one PCI slot. With quads on
a 5 PCI slots motherboard, one can get 20 NICs. Of course, shared IRQs and
shared PCI bus might slow things down. But for something like image
rendering (to keep clustering topics), where nodes don't have to talk
between them, one server with 16 NICs and direct links (crossover cables)
to clients might be a good alternative to a switch-ed environment.

> The dual/quad cards are just more expensive.

They have to include some additional circuitry, at least a PCI bridge to
hide all the NICs behind. So, increased price is (partly) justifiable.

Sincerely,

Bogdan Costescu

IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868
E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu at IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.De