TRENDnet TEG-PCISXplus Manual - Page 6

Gigabit Ethernet Technology Gigabit Ethernet is an extension of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet, which utilizes the same packet structure, format, CSMA/CD protocol, full duplex, flow control, and management objects. From the bandwidth point of view, Gigabit Ethernet has a tenfold increase in theoretical throughput over 100Mbps Fast Ethernet and a hundredfold increase over 10Mbps Ethernet. Since it is also compatible with 10Mbps and 100Mbps Ethernet environments, Gigabit Ethernet provides a straightforward upgrade without wasting a company's existing investment in hardware, software, and trained personnel. The higher packet transfer speed and extra bandwidth offered by Gigabit Ethernet is essential when coping with the network bottlenecks that frequently developed as the computers and their busses get faster and more users use applications that generate more traffic. Upgrading key components, such as your backbone and servers to Gigabit Ethernet can greatly improve network response times as well as significantly speed up the traffic between your subnets. Fiber Gigabit Ethernet enables Fiber cable connections to support video conferencing, complex imaging, and similar data-intensive applications. Likewise, since data transfers occur 10 times faster than Fast Ethernet, servers outfitted with Gigabit Ethernet NIC's are able to perform 10 times the number of operations in the same amount of time. 6