ENCORE ENLGA-1320 Ethernet Card 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI 1 x RJ45

Pros: Simple, easy installation, works as it should

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: PCI installation was a breeze, Windows 7 recognized and installed drivers immediately. Connected a Cat6 cable and the gigabit light on my switch lit right up.

Pros: Cheap, and gets the gig-e job done quickly and easily.

Cons: Still isn't free.

Other Thoughts: I dropped this nic in my linux htpc and it worked on next reboot. I've been seeing full gig speeds on my home network -- I was expecting somewhat sub-par performance from such a cheap card, but I haven't been disappointed yet!

Pros: -Cheap
-Inexpensive
-Gigabit
-Not a lot of money
-Did I say cheap?

Cons: -Cheap
-Will probably melt down in a week or two
-But whatever... they work for right now

Other Thoughts: Put two of these into an old P4 box. pfSense didn't break a sweat. They work great so far.

And yes... they are re-branded Realtek 8169's.

Only four stars because the face flange was to large for the compact ATX case. Had to dremel the flange smaller for them to fit.

Pros: Amazing. Purchased to upgrade an older network interface (10/100) on a FreeNAS machine I created from an older desktop. The older Network card would transfer at an average of 10Mbps. This will transfer at an average of about 35Mbps across my network now. Best thing about this card was I didn't have to install any software to NAS or reinstall the FreeNAS OS. Simply plugged in the card to the PCI slot, changed the Network cable from onbard Ethernet to the Encore Ethernet port, and turned on my machine. I love stuff that is simple.

Cons: None, does exactly what I wanted.

Other Thoughts: FreeNAS 8.3.0 was used. Desktop is an Intel 2.6ghz Pentium generation, DDR400, & ASUS LGA775 board.

Pros: Easy to use. No issues with the install or setup. Drivers on CD and easily found at their website....They actually have a site.

Great price. No conflicts with other hardware.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: I have owned these a few year and only thought about it when I was posting on another forum as a network card suggestion and noticed I never commented when I first got them.

Pros: I put it in, plugged in the wire, and it works. Thus I am happy. This is in a linux box with a 3.2 kernel. I only bother mentioning it because the product description names 2.2 and 2.4 kernels and nothing newer. I know sometimes companies like to change chipsets and just call it a new revision but for the one I purchased it comes up as 'RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)'

Cons: Nada

Other Thoughts: I can't comment on it's throughput at gigabit speeds because it's bottlenecked by a 10/100 hub.

Pros: Price, fast shipping as usual with NewEgg

Cons: Couldn't get it working correctly with anything besides basic internet browsing

Other Thoughts: My on-board Ethernet port recently died, so I ordered this. Windows XP SP3 immediately detected the card & installed the drivers off the mini CD flawlessly. Everything looked fine. Internet worked. However for some reason every-time I'd try to download something such as a torrent file, I had extremely slow speeds. Pings were insanely high in games as well. Not sure if it was some sort of configuration issue, a faulty card, or what. Nothing on the system had changed except the card. Went from getting a 16-20 ping in games, to a steady 80-90, regardless of settings.

I used it for a while, but would just avoid playing games/downloading large files. I eventually tried swapping it out with a 10+ year old Kingston 10/100 Mbps PCI LAN card I had recently found in storage, & the speeds instantly went back to normal, so I auctioned this card off and made most of my $ back.

It didn't perfectly fit in the board's PCI slot as the slot was bigger than the card, but I knew this going in, I think this may of been the problem. The board was too old to fully run this card. The older card I tried fit perfectly and the speed/ping issues were corrected.

Probably a great Ethernet card to use on newer boards. For older boards the PCI slot vs card size issue might present some problems, guess it all depends on the motherboard. I was using an ancient Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS board.

Pros: Replaced a motherboard port that died on an old HP machine. Slipped it in the slot, fired up computer, plugged in a cable and had immediate access. Been working fine ever since. A good cheap was to resurrect an older machine and would recommend it..

Cons: None

Pros: Seems to work ok for normal internet browsing and the like.

Cons: Bluescreens my PC while transferring large files across the network.

Other Thoughts: Ordered two of these cards; first one was DOA and computer would not POST with it installed. Second one has issues as well (see above).

I'd try a different brand. Unfortunately on something this price it isn't worth getting an RMA.

Pros: gigabit -ish. works in esxi 5.1

Cons: pci slot limits speed a bit it seems, but it works great and very close to gigabit speeds compared to gigabit onboard