Network performance of nForce2 chipset based NIC

[Donald Becker]

On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, Jon Tegner wrote:

> Subject: Network performance of nForce2 chipset based NIC
> 
> We have recorded really bad latency timings on this type of hardware 
> (K7N2G).
> 
> The latency (with the nvnet.o driver from NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0248) is 
> about five times larger than what we obtain using a standard 3C905 NIC.
> 
> Has anyone else seen this? And has hints on how to improve the performance?

I doubt that anyone can answer this question.

The nVidea NIC drivers are binary-only, with a release only for the x86.

They release only the interface code as source, which is the only
feasible way to link a binary against against the kernel.  (IMNSHO, it's
a license violation, but that's not the issue at hand.)  Even that
interface code is provided as "proprietary and confidential".

There are many excellent high performance NICs available.  The fastest
are the best documented.  In my experience, when documentation was
hidden there was usually a bad design or horrible flaw.

-- 
Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Scyld Beowulf cluster system
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993