Fielding Opinions on modern NICs: Intel E800 series or CX6 (or above?) Not really a user of fancy features, I just need a NIC with drivers that don't want to kill me I do not wish to see or be seen by Broadcom or Intel XL710
one honk maybe more
tmcfarlane@toot.comm..
replied 04 Jun 2024 11:13 +0000
in reply to: https://benjojo.co.uk/u/benjojo/h/bWNwj3l5Z1P4Q4b8mX
benjojo
replied 04 Jun 2024 11:22 +0000
in reply to: https://toot.community/users/tmcfarlane/statuses/112558055887772726
@tmcfarlane probably the Intel X520, I already have loads of them, but they are getting a little old and they consume more power than is technically needed. But there are the very few NICs out there where the datasheet is just pure truth, so much good driver support out there
tj@altelectron.org.u..
replied 04 Jun 2024 11:38 +0000
in reply to: https://benjojo.co.uk/u/benjojo/h/7wQD72KhLRP7HklQYc
@benjojo @tmcfarlane I have all of these (apart from 710).
3c509 needing isa and base2-t probably rules it out.
Linux support for CX6 was amazingly spotty, but FreeBSD support was seamless.
The e810 I have was easy to get going too.
It’s going to depend on what you need to do
benjojo
replied 04 Jun 2024 11:47 +0000
in reply to: https://altelectron.org.uk/objects/5fe978de-ca8e-463d-ae6d-9e4c5315a4c4
@tj I'm not doing any high speed forwarding, I'm basically just looking for a modern 10/25G SFP NIC that has stable drivers. Most of my workload is TCP flows (aka, this is the future box that bgp.tools runs on). No VM's, so fancy SR-IOV is not needed etc I plan to add ~50k PPS of UDP to it at some point, but that could easily be moved do another box with a X520 that I universally trust to not go wrong
antonis@mastodon.soc..
replied 04 Jun 2024 11:45 +0000
in reply to: https://benjojo.co.uk/u/benjojo/h/bWNwj3l5Z1P4Q4b8mX
@benjojo Intel is the only one offering 4x25, but other than that I think CX6+ is easier to deal with if you don’t care about the fancy features.
MissAemilia@mastodon..
replied 04 Jun 2024 17:14 +0000
in reply to: https://benjojo.co.uk/u/benjojo/h/bWNwj3l5Z1P4Q4b8mX
@benjojo
I throw in a surprise contender - I've had a decent experience with Chelsio gear on Linux - however I'm fairly standard networking so YMMV on fancier stuff you get up to. Could be worth looking into though.
benjojo
replied 04 Jun 2024 17:37 +0000
in reply to: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/users/MissAemilia/statuses/112559472946762617
@MissAemilia Mayyyyyyyyyyybe, I've had rough experiances from non mainstream NIC suppliers, Cloudflare built their empire for a while on solarflare NICs and that adventure is still burned into my memory, I'd really like to just have NICs I know are not likely going to give me trouble
MissAemilia@mastodon..
replied 04 Jun 2024 17:57 +0000
in reply to: https://benjojo.co.uk/u/benjojo/h/HRfznxYj44t21QgqN2
@benjojo
Completely reasonable. In that case I throw my hat in the mellanox ring. I've got more than enough CXs lying around of various types.
Seriously help I have so many CX3s.
electronic_eel@socia..
replied 04 Jun 2024 19:13 +0000
in reply to: https://benjojo.co.uk/u/benjojo/h/bWNwj3l5Z1P4Q4b8mX
@benjojo i have used both, Intel E810 and ConnectX-6 Dx. I had a few issues with optics not being detected by the Intel, but firmware updates fixed them. The last issue I had was fixed with the 4.40 version from earlier this year, so they are still actively working on this and there could still be issues with other optics. Otherwise the cards work well and are cheaper than the Mellanox. The ConnectX-6 Dx cards I have directly worked out of the box, no issues with optics. Also their integrated switch features and SR-IOV is clearly superior to what Intel is offering. Especially if you want to use SR-IOV in combination with bonding the ports. I have done some benchmarks and other testing on the crypto and other fancy features of the ConnectX-6 Dx here:
https://social.treehouse.systems/@electronic_eel/112079312897503571
jeroen@secluded.ch
replied 04 Jun 2024 20:14 +0000
in reply to: https://social.treehouse.systems/users/electronic_eel/statuses/112559942501323648
@electronic_eel @benjojo agree, ConnectX-6 Dx is the way to go; the 520s are cheap to get nowadays though, especially 2nd hand ;)