[netdrivers] latest on gige cards and performance?

[Jeremy Hansen]

I'm in the process of planning a gigE network and I'd like to get the 
latest on performance tuning for gigE copper and what cards to look at for 
maximum performance.  If there is a gigE FAQ, please point me to it.

Right now what I have available to play with is a Cisco 6509 with a 48port 
10/100/1000 copper blade and a few e1000's.  I'd like to benchmark the 
different speeds I'm getting while playing with MTU's on these machines 
but netperf doesn't seem to like it when I set to MTU to 9000.  Ttcp seems 
to do the same.  Our goal is to see somewhere around 500M/s of raw TCP 
between our servers and workstations.

Let me know what factors come into play, any benchmark tools that will 
deal with larger frames and anything else I'm missing.  WHen I gather info 
from the experts on the list I'll write up an FAQ since gigE networks 
seems to be a fairly popular thing these days.

Thanks
-jeremy