Are there any benefits of getting a separate NIC if your motherboard
already has an onboard ethernet controller?
Many (most?) of the onboard NICs use more host processing.
That used to be a problem but these days the typical system
has a few CPU cycles to spare, especially if it's doing
nothing-in-particular while it's waiting on that network
transfer to complete.
Well not all external NICs are created equal either,
generally Intel, followed by 3Com are among the best in the
consumer range. Something like a general Realtek isn't a
whole lot better than onboard, though as mentioned above the
difference may not be noticable.
although I have an onboard one as a program I use
needs a MAC address for licensing purposes. I would rather the software
be tied to an (easily transferable) network card's MAC than a mobo,
which I may decide to upgrade at a later date.
I agree, IF you can't easily transfer the license to another
MAC later then this is a good plan... though I'd at least
make that NIC a Gigabit version rather than 10/100, since
that gives you the option of GbE in the future if it isn't
the current plan... plus even a cheap $15 Gigabit card is
still well over 300% faster on a Gigabit lan than the best
100Mb card is on 100Mb lan. Then again, if you don't need
to use the NIC as the primary adapter for any reason, you
might want to tie the MAC from a USB adapter since it's so
easy shoved out of the way, sticking out of the back of a
system or on a hub even if you don't use it, you're not
needing to have it take up a sometimes-precious PCI slot.
