Giga-bit Ethernet

[Robotnik]

Can two giga-bit ethernet cards talk to each other over a standard Cat-5 cross-over cable? I see some giga-bit ethernet cards in stores, but no one seems to have switches or hubs for them yet and I would love to try some out.

[Kennyshin]

I've read over at Storage Review forum that Gigabit allows the network to send files at 300-400Mbps over CAT5 cable.

[mike_s104]

just like with 100baseT NICs, you can connect them from NIC to NIC using a CAT5E or CAT6 crossover cable. there are 1GB switches out there but cost a lot more then a regular 100MB switch. in most applications, you will want to use a 1GB NIC in a server and connect it to a switch with a 1GB uplink port. this will provide maxium through-put for multiple machines connecting to the same server and the bottleneck will not be at the NIC in the machine or at the port on the switch.

I have thought about getting a linksys switch with a single 1GB port and the rest 10/100MB but I cannot not justify the use of it at home. I don't use more then 50% of my 100MB bandwidth anyway, so how will 1GB on one port help me? I burn DVD-Rs and CD-Rs across my LAN and have not run into any problems. I would like to note that I have everything set to 100MB Full Duplex; Half Duplex is not the best speed for burning anything across a LAN.

I would wait. although I have a feeling that doing a ghost image from 1GB NIC to 1GB NIC via a x-overcable will be very fast. we have about 300 new Dells with the Intel 10/100/1000 Pro NIC in them. I think I will try that today to see just how fast I can clone a mahine.