On-board ethernet or no?

[ImmortalDragon]

Its not really a big deal, but I always hear that getting a PCI sound card would take some pressure off the motherboard. Would the same logic apply to ethernet connections? Would there be any other disadvantage to using the on-board connection?

 

[mitch074]

to add to mpilch's answer:
nowadays onboard components use mainly software mode emulation for their functionalities - which translates into some CPU load, as high as 30% CPU load on a single core 2 GHz system - if you happen to play an online game with 5.1 EAX 2.0 sound (like Realtek ALC8x0 codecs allow you).
This translates into more or less 7% on the ethernet side, the rest on sound.

Now, if you have a dual core CPU, said load gets almost irrelevant. Considering that most add-in network cards do the Ethernet translation in software anyway, getting a card that does hardware ethernet encoding, routing and IP translation costs more than the CPU and mobo combined. A card that does hardware-based EAX 2.0 (or more) costs less, and will yeld much better results. On the other hand, if you merely play stereo games, onboard solutions will yeld slightly better results due to less electrical interference - provided you have a good quality mobo with a well-set DAC (ASUS boards have good onboard sound quality, for example)

Short answer: yes, onboard solutions weight on the CPU. No, if you're not into very high quality accelerated games sound or into high-speed server business, you don't need add-in cards.

 

[chuckshissle]

On board ethernet are now about the same with the PCI ones. If you're taking about online gaming make sure you have good connection like 1Mb/512Kb.

 

[mitch074]

As I said, onboard and 'simple' PCI ethernet cards are the same: they do all the ethernet protocol and TCP/IP protocol stuff in the driver - software-based. Only 'pro' PCI ethernet cards can do those in hardware; they are costly, but they also deliver lower latency than simpler solutions, and unload the processor.
Now, if you have a very low latency Internet access and need the lowest ping time you can get, these cards are indeed useful - but they are costly. If your Internet access is slow, you won't notice the difference.