Did I understand this post correctly?

Someone wrote in response to a thread question (not directly related but...):

"One other thing to consider is that if you connect a slower PC (10/100 Meg-bit card) with other PCs that contain Giga-bit cards, the through put will throttle back to the system with the slowest speed. "


I want to upgrade my router to a gigabit version since my new machine will have a gigabit card.

But as most of you do I'm sure, I'm going to convert my current box to a server and connect our shared printer to it, etc.

I don't need it to be the fasted box for what it will be doing but it has a 10/100 card in it right now.

If I connect this directly (wired) to the router as well as my main machine with a gigabit card, is the post above saying that the 10/100 machine also connected will cause my main machine to run at those speeds?

It doesn't make sense...or I'm not interpreting the post correctly.

?

He's correct in a way. All the ports wont "throttle back". Any gigabit nic on a gigabit connection will run at gigabit speeds. 100 meg nic cards will run the port at 100 meg speeds. 2 gigabit comps will communicate at gigabit speeds. 100 meg comps will communicate with all comps at 100 meg speeds, since thats the fastest they can talk.
Depending on the traffic load you will have with the server it might be best to upgrade it to a gig connection.

Correct. Even if you had to go through the 10/100 interface card, I seriously doubt it would affect your connection speed at all. Unless you get have a 200Mbps internet connection (which is doubtful) you'll never utilize the full capacity of a gigabit system. In my opinion, you should upgrade the server card to a gigabit one as well. The LAN is the only time you'd utilize the full gigabit capabilities.