Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports

[Skriger]

So my mobo has the dual gigabit ethernet ports. the only thing i can find useful is separate line for a server then another for yourself.. At the moment I have them bridged and running to my router. I really am pulling activity on a single line. is there a way that would double up the connection? I.E. one is upstream the other is downstream? Perhaps to boost performance?

[Trace]

I was wondering this same thing. If you find your answer on Google, let us know!

[mtekk]

There is no advantage to doing that as Gigabit ports are full duplex as it it (they can download and upload at 1Gbps simultaneously, so max throughput is really 2Gbp). Network topology wise, it isn't very straight forward to have two ports connect to the same switch unless one is running as a hot spare. There should be away to have it so both can run up and down at the same time, thus getting 2Gbps up and 2Gbps down at the same time, but do you really need that? The only way you'd use that speed is for burst from cache/memory as your hard drive is not fast enough to max it out. I just recently got a wireless-n/gigabit router and even with all of my computers being gigabit I haven't really maxed it out yet. I've found the better router has made a bigger difference than the gigabit actually has for internet things and gaming.

[Trace]

Would that be bridging the connection?

[mtekk]

Bridging in networking usually refers to using 2 ports to bridge two networks (filters data by MAC address). Essentially a bridge is a 2 port switch while a repeater is a 2 port hub. So bridging would let your computer sort of route data between two networks based on MAC address of the destination. Having a bridge connect both ends to the same switch (assuming the switch doesn't have any network splitting/partitioning going on, even then the bridge is not really needed as a normal crossover cable would do just fine) will do nothing at best, and at worst will cause things to stop working, we do not really like loops in non-tolkin ring setups.

[Spawn-Inc]

my motherboard has the same thing and says something about that to. i started a thread and was told the increase will not be noticeable and not worth it.

[Skriger]

Pretty much the only conclusion I have came up with is that you can share your internet connection to a Console, or setup a server through the other port. You can also rig it so that you can have a LAN only through one port and internet through the other. Keeping lines clear and a bit more secured if needed.

As for me... no use at all LoL . I don't have any fancy xbox360 or PS3 to use that ability. And not running a server on the badboy either