3Com 3C905C-TX
If one company can be labeled the "Grandfather" of NIC technology, it is 3Com. The 3C905C-TX is the latest generation of the famous 3Com 3C905 NIC card. Each generation of the 3C905 series has brought us more features and somewhat lower prices. This card is a Business/Enterprise level NIC card with one of the most complete feature sets currently available. Due to its extensive features, this card has earned its reputation for reliability and functionality, and has thus become one of the most commonly chosen NIC cards in IT Departments worldwide.
The 3C905C-TX has the following features:
- Media: 10Base-T/100Base-TX
- Connector: RJ-45
- Bus: 32-bit PCI
- IEEE Standards Supported: 802.3, 802.3u, 802.2, 802.1p, 802.1Q, 802.1 GMRP
- Standards Compliance: PCI 2.1/2.2, WfM 2.0, ACPI 1.0, RWU, PXE
- Driver Support: Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000 - Linux, Netware, OS/2, Packet Driver
- Special Features: 3Com Parallel Tasking II
- Warranty: Limited Lifetime
Installation of the 3C905C-TX NIC card is straightforward: insert the card into a PCI slot and use the included EtherLink driver CD. This driver CD also provides installation options to install 3Com's DynamicAccess technology, which adds a host of new management features to the NIC card. Additionally, this card provides one of the best visual diagnostic and configuration tools available today with a DOS based configuration tool, which allows you to set the NICs media type, duplex, enable/disable boot ROM, I/O Address, IRQ, and the card's Network Optimization Mode. The DOS based configuration utility also allows you to run basic tests on the NIC card to help isolate a failure. This testing includes a unique Echo Server feature that allows testing the card and the cabling while looking for faults.
Setting the card's "Network Optimization Mode" allows you to choose from these modes: "Maximized Network Performance", "Minimized CPU Utilization", or "Normal." These options affect the overall performance of the card and can greatly assist in tweaking the NIC card's configuration to a mode that best suits the user environment. In testing the card, varying the mode setting did make a difference in our benchmarking results, so we recommend trying different settings in order to find out the optimum mode for your use.
Living up to its 3Com reputation, we found the performance of the 3C905C-TX card to rank at the high end in Network throughput and toward the low end in CPU utilization. Additionally, we found this card and the drivers to be very stable. Overall, the 3C905C-TX card is an excellent choice. Although most users will not use all of the extensive management features of the card, this card is still an outstanding choice for most users. The price might scare some users away from this card. However, since this card is an IT favorite, it is fairly easy to find inexpensive used 3C905/3C905B/3C905C NIC cards at local computer shows.