Does NIC Selection Matter?

[wronglebowski]

Assuming you've got a legitimate symmetrical gigabit ISP connection, is it possible to pick a NIC so bad it bottlenecks your connection?

Previously I had just used a R210 with it's built in Broadcom 5709 2 port for LAN and WAN. I realize these probably run through the DMI, so 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes so that should be fast enough.

I'm moving up to an R330 for my next build and I can't even find the built in NICs anywhere listed. I know it's another Broadcom chipset, maybe a 5720 but I only found one reference for that.

Is it better to split up the connections between two different NICs?

Should I follow a particular brand or chipset?

Would there be any benefit to using an SFP+ port to my core switch even if outbound is to be the bottleneck?

I see options sometimes like "Hardware packet offloading" are they worth using?

I currently have the following NICs laying around if one is preferable.

Intel 82571EB
Intel 82574L
Intel 82575GB
NetXen/Qlogic NX3031
Broadcom 5708
Broadcom 5709

[opnfwb]

I've tried to use a BCM5720 based NIC on OPNsense 21.7.x (the previous release) and the throughput was pretty bad. It would not do symmetric gig, as I recall upload wouldn't push much past 600mbit. I'm unsure if the current OPNsense release and its FreeBSD 13 base has better support for this NIC. I may try it again soon and see.

No problems using Intel NICs to get full gigabit. I also have access to fiber providers with multi-gig service so I've personally used these to sustain a 1gb connection.

I'd highly recommend a slightly newer Intel NIC that can use the igb driver. An i340/i350 based adapter is great. However, the i210 series is also an excellent value if you don't mind a single port solution (the i340 and i350 are always going to be dual port or quad port NICs).

Also, in case you're wondering why the recommendation for the newer Intel NICs. The older Intel NICs based on the em driver are interrupt based devices. They can still sustain 1gig pretty easily but, they won't maximize newer multi-core hardware. Polling based igb NICs often use better thread balancing to distribute their queues across all the cores. Again, as just gigabit speeds, both will suffice but igb will do a better job spreading the load and working all the cores in a system.

Here's a cheap set of i210's: https://www.ebay.com/itm/353597383042
Here's a 4 port i340 NIC for cheap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185351644681

I've personally used both NICs linked above, they work excellent for full gig. In your case with a server platform and limited PCIe slots, I'd get the quad port i340.