Performance Evaluation of Gigabit Ethernet Interfaces

In high performance computational environments, communication stands out as the major limiting factor to performance. However, high speed network infrastructures are constructed and high speed data transfer protocols, such as BIC TCP and UDT, are capable of transferring the data at the speed of 6~7 Gbps. Despite these circumstances, normal PC users, still have difficulties transferring bulk data in 1 Gbps network. In this paper we try to find out performance limiting factor in end systems. First of all, we investigate the performance effect according to types of NIC and we characterize the current capabilities of PCI, PCI-X and PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Interfaces and identify requisite components for optimal performance.