Are there any other z77 based mobos with dual nics onboard? I can find H77 boards or the EVGA z77 board. Maybe i can get away with an H77 board - it's for a HTPC, but i'd like to be able to overclock and it'll be a 3570k CPU anyway (difference between a k or non-k is about £3, even a 3550 is only about £10 cheaper - not worth the saving). Any leads greatly appreciated!
This Gigabyte Z77 board has dual NICs. If I find anymore I shall edit this post Edit: ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Asus P8Z77-V DELUXE Intel BOXDZ77GA70K Intel BOXDZ77RE75K Asus P8Z77 WS Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 Asus P8Z77-V PREMIUM Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP7 ASRock Z77 Extreme11 Those are all the Z77 based dual NIC boards I can find on Scan. It looks like the cheapest is the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H I linked to originally at £161.72. Hope this helps!
Just a question, what do people actually use dual nics for. Ive seen a couple of high end motherboards with it and wondered what the point was.
@lancer - many thanks! In case it helps anyone else in future, here's @lancer's and a couple of others with prices from amazon: Code: z77 with Dual NICs: Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI £91 (mITX) G1 Sniper 3 £250 GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB WIFI £160 GA-Z77X-UD5H £151 GA-Z77X-UP7 £280 ASUS P8Z77 WS £230 P8Z77-V DELUXE £175 P8Z77-V PREMIUM £300 ASROCK Z77 Extreme11 £359 Fatal1ty Z77 Professional £164 Z77 Extreme9 £230 Z77 WS £225 EVGA Z77 Cheesecake £270
Don't know about others but for me in this case it's because it's replacing another HTPC. Since it was always on i used it as a router too. I used tc on linux to setup traffic shaping and a squid web proxy. I'm on virgin which generally has low ping latencies but even so, my home t'internet tends to feel a lot faster than anywhere else, all thanks to having that box in the middle caching pages and prioritising packets.
It is nice for playing with networks (firewalls, pfSense) or with virtual machine hosts... I guess. I cannot see how this helps gaming.
Here are some possibilities: -> Bridge the 2 Ethernet, providing you optimal performance, backup line in the case, for some reason, one of the Ethernet cable to your router breaks, -> Use as router -> Back Ethernet in the case one of them breaks.. could be an advantage if you plan to keep or give to someone the computer after 5 years, where the warranty is well passed. But the chances of that happening (that it breaks) is usually very, very, slim. OR, in case you plan to have Windows 10 or 11 on it, by having 2 different controllers, you increase your chances of compatibility (all depending if Microsoft revamp some core stuff related to networking)
Maybe it's me, but it is not easier just to get a board you really like instead of limiting yourself to dual-NIC boards and add an extra ethernet port using a PCI-E card. Am i being too old-school to think about this alternative ?
If you want to use the same computer on two different networks. I have used this where a computer was connected to an office LAN as well as a separate device network. Most home users will never make use of two NICs.