Intel EXPI9300PT Gigabit Performance to the Desktop 10/100/1000Mbps PCI-Express 1 x RJ45

Pros: Excellent Linux Driver Support, uses more efficient MSI interrupts, excellent performance on pci-express, comes with a heat sink, Intel quality.

Cons: None I can find.

Overall Review: I was using the onboard nvidia GigE, but experienced massive performance problems on gige because the driver is reverse engineered. The system is now noticeably faster. I had not realized how much performance I was losing because of a bad driver. Hopefully Jeff Garzik's rewrite of the the forcedeth driver will fix these issues, but I need to be productive now. This card is excellent.

Pros: Excellent driver support in Vista, XP and Linux (vie e1000). With a crossover cable between two of these, I've managed to hit 50Mbyte/sec transfers with 20ns latency (yes, Mbyte and nanosec) an no major spikes in CPU utilization. Jumbo packets are supported in case you think they'll help.

Cons: No documentation?

Overall Review: For all those considering being duped into a Killer NIC, this NIC has almost all the same advantages. Vista and Linux both allow offloading a significant amount of work to the NIC, speeding up IP transfers and decreasing CPU utilization.

Pros: I tried this because I was having onboard Asus MB NIC problems. Not uunheard of, from what I have read. This NIC installed easily, and has great utilities. Using it on a 975X board. Everything went smoothly.

Cons: No complaints about this card, but I am not trying some of the more exotic things like Jumbo Frames, etc.

Overall Review: It does seem to transfer large video files faster. We'll see how it does over time vs. the problematic Asus/Marvell onboards. So far, so good.

Pros: I am a fanboy when it comes to Intel network cards. The rest of my network is filled with the PCI version of this card. Their drivers are superb and performance is likewise. I really like the diagnostics in the driver tab. I picked up one of these to cure the lackluster performance of my onboard Marvel NIC. It didn't disappoint.

Cons: No problems

Overall Review: Don't worry if you only have 16x PCIE slots. This 1x PCIE cards will work with it no problem. It just uses the first set of contacts and leaves the rest. The PCIE spec makes the 16x compatible with all the lower PCIE slot types.

Pros: True host based network processing. Good price and excellent performance. This is replacing an onboard Realtek giga controller based on nVidia's 650 chipset.

Cons: The bracket doesn't line up properly and the card won't seat perfectly as is. I loosened the bracket srews and adjusted as much to correct as I could, but it still isn't right. It took some slight bending of the bracket.

Overall Review: nVidia's driver or just the Realtek's 8211BL controller, I'm not sure which, can't handle much traffic. I discovered this while building WHS boxes using the nForce 6nn series north bridge chipset implementations. This however is a gaming machine. Just playing a 2 human vs. 2 AI C&C Zero:Hour game produced huge studders and sometimes a pure timeout. Swap in the Intel Giga card and all traffic problems dissapeared. I also did an experiement with traffic and found that the download speed went from 165 mbits to 573 mbits using the aame file as close to the same time and up load speeds tripled. If you're having any type of problems playing online or even on a wired router, buy a decent Lan card like this one. Less than fifty bucks is a deal for this level of performance. I hope this helps others who may be experiencing this type of problem.

Pros: Installed into a home network server running CentOS 5.1. Works flawlessly. No drivers to install, CentOS automatically loaded the e1000 driver at boot. Linux users should be able to pitch the accompanying CD.

Cons: None, other than possibly the driver CD ending up in a landfill.

Overall Review: I replaced a D-Link DGE-560T with this Intel. The Intel card physically appears much more substantial, a lot more components on the card and the Intel even has a small heat sink. The D-Link that I was using used the sky2 driver in Linux, which I heard can be problematic. I did have the D-Link drop off the network under heavy load, so that was enough for me. I've used Intel gigabit NICs in the past and have had great luck.

Pros: Better throughput and more stable than onboard realtek. Windows seems more responsive but that shouldn't be related to this card then again maybe the realtek was slowing my system down.

Cons: Installation was a pain. Used drivers from intel website. Card was detected as PRO 1000 PT Dual NIC which is wrong. Updated driver to use the PT Desktop one which is correct and card would not start. Restarted system and it worked ok. I docked it a star because of this problem.

Overall Review: It uses pci-express which at this pt we all know is going to replace pci sooner than later.

Pros: this thing beats any onboard network, hands down, fast,it does its own work, so ur cpu can do something else

Cons: none

Overall Review: u will notice a difference, dont bother with drivers on cd, go to intel and download new drivers, so its up to date, u will be impressed, and not disappointed