Is the NIC connected over USB?

[q5sys]

Many boards which claim to be have a gbit nic connect it over the usb bus on the PCB, thus automatically limiting it to 480mb with no other USB activity.  When using the USB device as well it drops even further.  So when trying to use this as a simple file server to serve files off a USB drive... the speed is cut again.

So the question remains... does this gbit nic actually provide gbit speeds or is it limited due to how its wired onto the board?

Lastly, do you have any iperf output that shows this?

[tllim]

Many boards which claim to be have a gbit nic connect it over the usb bus on the PCB, thus automatically limiting it to 480mb with no other USB activity.  When using the USB device as well it drops even further.  So when trying to use this as a simple file server to serve files off a USB drive... the speed is cut again.

So the question remains... does this gbit nic actually provide gbit speeds or is it limited due to how its wired onto the board?

Lastly, do you have any iperf output that shows this?

The Gb NIC (Realtek RTL8211) directly connect to A64's RGMII port which will yield full Gb speed. The Gbp driver just up and running and we are currently fine tuning the performance. I will make some measurement and release on two weeks time.

[tkaiser]

does this gbit nic actually provide gbit speeds or is it limited due to how its wired onto the board?

Most Allwinner SoCs have a native GBit Ethernet implementation called GMAC/EMAC (on the A64 multiplexed with the LCD interface!). This will be combined with an external Ethernet PHY through RGMII -- so no USB involved. The RTL8211 used on the Pine64 acts only as a PHY so you'll need neither RealTek drivers nor do you get RealTek features (Wake-on-LAN for example). It's just responsible for the physical layer.

The theoretical throughput depends on many factors. Given the theoretical single core speed it might be possible to reach the theoretical 940 MBit/s.   But CPU speed isn't that important -- it's more about balanced network and I/O bandwidth: And there the older A20 clearly outperforms the A64. If it's really just about file serving, a pcDuino3 Nano Lite is the better (and cheaper) choice. Some background informations:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS

[tllim]

does this gbit nic actually provide gbit speeds or is it limited due to how its wired onto the board?

Most Allwinner SoCs have a native GBit Ethernet implementation called GMAC/EMAC (on the A64 multiplexed with the LCD interface!). This will be combined with an external Ethernet PHY through RGMII -- so no USB involved. The RTL8211 used on the Pine64 acts only as a PHY so you'll need neither RealTek drivers nor do you get RealTek features (Wake-on-LAN for example). It's just responsible for the physical layer.

The theoretical throughput depends on many factors. Given the theoretical single core speed it might be possible to reach the theoretical 940 MBit/s.   But CPU speed isn't that important -- it's more about balanced network and I/O bandwidth: And there the older A20 clearly outperforms the A64. If it's really just about file serving, a pcDuino3 Nano Lite is the better (and cheaper) choice. Some background informations:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS

@tkaiser, thanks.

[blktiger]

does this gbit nic actually provide gbit speeds or is it limited due to how its wired onto the board?

Most Allwinner SoCs have a native GBit Ethernet implementation called GMAC/EMAC (on the A64 multiplexed with the LCD interface!). This will be combined with an external Ethernet PHY through RGMII -- so no USB involved. The RTL8211 used on the Pine64 acts only as a PHY so you'll need neither RealTek drivers nor do you get RealTek features (Wake-on-LAN for example). It's just responsible for the physical layer.

The theoretical throughput depends on many factors. Given the theoretical single core speed it might be possible to reach the theoretical 940 MBit/s.   But CPU speed isn't that important -- it's more about balanced network and I/O bandwidth: And there the older A20 clearly outperforms the A64. If it's really just about file serving, a pcDuino3 Nano Lite is the better (and cheaper) choice. Some background informations:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS

@tkaiser, thanks.

 Not trying to be a dick here but where do you get GB speeds? Local networking?
On a side note, I worked as a contractor for an R&D firm a while back, I distinctly recall the head boss dude mentioning that the people at realtek were serious assholes

[pterjan]

does this gbit nic actually provide gbit speeds or is it limited due to how its wired onto the board?

Most Allwinner SoCs have a native GBit Ethernet implementation called GMAC/EMAC (on the A64 multiplexed with the LCD interface!). This will be combined with an external Ethernet PHY through RGMII -- so no USB involved. The RTL8211 used on the Pine64 acts only as a PHY so you'll need neither RealTek drivers nor do you get RealTek features (Wake-on-LAN for example). It's just responsible for the physical layer.

The theoretical throughput depends on many factors. Given the theoretical single core speed it might be possible to reach the theoretical 940 MBit/s.   But CPU speed isn't that important -- it's more about balanced network and I/O bandwidth: And there the older A20 clearly outperforms the A64. If it's really just about file serving, a pcDuino3 Nano Lite is the better (and cheaper) choice. Some background informations:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS

@tkaiser, thanks.

 Not trying to be a dick here but where do you get GB speeds? Local networking?
On a side note, I worked as a contractor for an R&D firm a while back, I distinctly recall the head boss dude mentioning that the people at realtek were serious assholes

I have gigabit Internet connection at home, but yes this is mostly important on local network, for example to access shared storage on a pine64 cluster.

[tllim]

does this gbit nic actually provide gbit speeds or is it limited due to how its wired onto the board?

Most Allwinner SoCs have a native GBit Ethernet implementation called GMAC/EMAC (on the A64 multiplexed with the LCD interface!). This will be combined with an external Ethernet PHY through RGMII -- so no USB involved. The RTL8211 used on the Pine64 acts only as a PHY so you'll need neither RealTek drivers nor do you get RealTek features (Wake-on-LAN for example). It's just responsible for the physical layer.

The theoretical throughput depends on many factors. Given the theoretical single core speed it might be possible to reach the theoretical 940 MBit/s.   But CPU speed isn't that important -- it's more about balanced network and I/O bandwidth: And there the older A20 clearly outperforms the A64. If it's really just about file serving, a pcDuino3 Nano Lite is the better (and cheaper) choice. Some background informations:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS

@tkaiser, thanks.

 Not trying to be a dick here but where do you get GB speeds? Local networking?
On a side note, I worked as a contractor for an R&D firm a while back, I distinctly recall the head boss dude mentioning that the people at realtek were serious assholes

I have gigabit Internet connection at home, but yes this is mostly important on local network, for example to access shared storage on a pine64 cluster.

longsleep has tested the current GB speed on Pine64 about 500Mb plus, there is still some room to improve further.

[patrickhwood]

Actually, sending I'm getting ~600Mbps sustained with one thread, and 640-650 with two threads (-P 2), and receiving 820Mbps with one thread and 940 with two threads.

[tllim]

Actually, sending I'm getting ~600Mbps sustained with one thread, and 640-650 with two threads (-P 2), and receiving 820Mbps with one thread and 940 with two threads.

Good result

[blktiger]

I have gigabit Internet connection at home, but yes this is mostly important on local network, for example to access shared storage on a pine64 cluster.

Must be nice. I'm lucky if I get 5mbps internet. And that cost me $90+/month thru centurylink dsl. Even so my home lan is only 100mbps