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Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter

Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
INTELVPN: PWLA8391GTBLK
Vendor: INTEL
Price: $39.99 - $39.99 CAD from 1 stores
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Product Reviews

Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
61%
Excellent
33%
Very Good
3%
Average
3%
Below Average
0%
Poor
Rating: 9.06/10
Tony_Y@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 05/02/13
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:none

Pros:small footprint
Comment:
Needed this card since my motherboard only had 10/100 LAN port. This fit the bill perfectly as I had a spare PCI port. LAN speeds are now way faster
Saberon@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 04/30/13
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:A bit expensive, but you get what you pay for

Pros:Easy to installRock solidPCI is great for older systemsIntel Brand
Comment:
Installtion takes only a minute and drivers were detected within Windows Vista and installed within seconds. Note, no Driver CD is included with this.
Mark_L@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 05/08/12
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:You might not really need itExpensive for a NIC

Pros:Probably the best gigabit NIC you can buyOffloads network overhead from the CPUEven has its own BIOS where settings can be alteredExtensive features
Comment:
Did I really need this? Probably not. It's nice to have the best NIC you can get though, and it will be good for many years.There aren't too many ways to benchmark performance on a single machine though, tests that aren't dependent on your Internet connection which is orders of magnitude lower than gigabit speeds. I tried a TCP loopback test, time to transfer 10 GB via loopback. It did show an improvement, averaging 47.185 seconds for the onboard gigabit NIC versus 44.54 seconds for the Intel gigabit NIC. That's a 6% improvement. Worth the money? Umm...maybe?I suppose my ping has gone down too, probably by about the same percentage. I didn't measure it since I don't game online.This would be much better if I was doing gigabit file transfers, that's where this would really shine, especially coupled with a professional gigabit switch. A PCIe one would have been even better if I was doing gigabit file transfers, those will suck up a lot of the PCI bandwidth and PCIe has much more room. However my motherboard doesn't have any PCIe X 1 slots. My next one will and I'll switch to the PCIe version of this card, moving this one to a secondary computer.This NIC offloads networking overhead from the CPU. The Intel 82541PI controller that forms the heart of this NIC is much more than a typical PHY device found on motherboards and other NICs, it's actually a network processor. PHYs just convert from one signal to another, the CPU has to process it. That processing is done right on the card with this NIC. Again this offloading would really come into play for large file transfers. Still, every little bit helps even if modern multicore CPUs have lots of resources.It has way more features than most consumers need. It even has its own BIOS that comes up on bootup, press CTRL+S. Note you can alter  the length of time this screen will wait or you can turn it off entirely.Intel has extensive documentation regarding setup and features...again, way more than the average consumer needs.Despite me not really needing it, it still gives me peace of mind knowing that this is one very capable piece of hardware and better in many ways than onboard NICs and other separate NICs. I'll be using more of its advanced capabilities in the future.Oh incidentally it installed without a hitch in Linux, the e1000 driver that supports this card is built into newer kernels.
thelastboss@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 04/21/11
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons: It failed to open my case and install itself

Pros: It works. It's compatible with Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 out of the box.
Comment:
My onboard RealTEK died 3 weeks after buying my mobo. I did not want the downtime associated with the an RMA. I bought this with a PM for $28. It works a little faster. I'm getting 1 or 2 MB/s greater than my RealTEK onboard NIC.
Striderx32@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 03/20/11
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons: - None

Pros: - Fair cost- Gigabit- Reliable and consistent performance- Intel product (i.e. well made)
Comment:
Purchased to replace a failed on-board NIC. I have had no problems with this product whatsoever, from install to usage. I would definitely purchase this product again.
roach9@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 02/17/11
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons: None!

Pros: Bought one for an old computer, runs awesome
Comment:
I would get the CT over this if you can, but if your computer has no free PCI-E ports, this will do just fine. Runs great!
Alexandre_S@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 09/15/10
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons: none

Pros: cheap and works perfectly
Comment:
I use this card in a router for our small office and I never had any problem. The card is fast and our pfSense router recognize it right away, no hassle at all.I can't say if the card goes really to 1000Gbits but it works well for all of us. Never had to reboot the router for any problem.I highly recommand this card as for the price it is good.
Keith_H@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 03/04/10
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:None found.

Pros:Fast, Cheap, Works.
Comment:
Cheap fast, NIC card. Works with FreeBSD. Not much to say, installed the card, plugged in a cable, configured it and it worked.
Roderick_V@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 02/20/10
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:It's not the cheapest NIC out there, and one of the computers I installed them in didn't have the drivers (Windows XP fully patched). Windows 7 not supported by Intel.

Pros:Rock solid performance, excellent build quality
Comment:
It's a great card; while it costs more that other brands, you're paying for reliability. While being a PCI card it'll be typically used in older PCs, it's worth noting that Intel won't be supporting this adapter under Windows 7, so drivers bundled with the OS will have to be relied on.
thequinox@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 01/28/10
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:- None

Pros:- Decently prices- Excellent driver support
Comment:
Bought this for use in a file server I am building. It's an older motherboard so I needed a fast reliable PCI card. Intel this fit the bill and since it's an Intel drivers are included for it pretty much everywhere.
ADay2Long@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 01/07/10
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:None really

Pros:CheapGigabit!
Comment:
Using this on a Linux server to transfer files faster than 100mps so HD content when playing it back is faster. Works well so far, haven't tested HD playback yet.On boot tough the card is looking for some Intel software or trying to find something it never finds and just adds 30 secs to boot sequence ... doesn't bother me since it's in a server and I turn it on and off once a month but for regular users it could slow down your boot. Then again maybe if it has the proper drivers it wouldn't do it!
Philippe_C@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 08/20/09
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:none!

Pros:Fast, compatible good connector
Comment:
This card is not expensive for a great gbps card. The connector feel WAY more robust than the onboard one or the one on dlink card. I'm happy with my new card and I plan to get some more pci or pci-e depending of witch pc!
Cannon Fodder@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 07/23/09
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:None so far....

Pros:Works well, small, lowers ping.
Comment:
Although I haven't used this for a lot of online gaming(yet), I did get this card based on other people's recommendations, and so far it's been a good piece of hardware.These Intel NICs are supposedly good at lowering your ping, especially compared to onboard NICs, and although I haven't run this through a battery of tests, I did notice that on one of the online speed checking sites, on which it always gave my onboard NIC a ping of 28 or 29, this Intel NIC always gets 18, or 19!Another nice thing about this card, is that you don't even need to install the Intel drivers to get it working, because Windows(at least Vista & Win7) recognizes it right away, and automatically installs the necessary drivers.
Stanley.@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 04/10/09
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:none so far

Pros:FastIntelReliable
Comment:
Great NIC. I bought this for a computer that has no PCI-E slots and was surprised at how well it's doing. I have the PT version and love it too. Great cards from a great brand. This holds it's own compared to the over priced "Killer NIC". Why spend an extra $100 for next to no difference?
Haxelon@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 01/22/09
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:none and at that price it's a steal for the performance.

Pros:Sky high speedServer grade quality
Comment:
I needed this to build a VMware server and the network card are really rare. This did the job perfectly. i have nothing to worry about now.
¸.·°´'`°¤,¸mk_ln¸.·°´'`°¤,¸@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 01/02/09
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:price

Pros:works as advertised
Comment:
i bought this as i needed an extra gigabit connection on one of my systems so that i could hook it up with another system and transfer files directly over a gigabit connection via crossover cable.
Lesaonar@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 12/12/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:None

Pros:Cheap, fast, great replacement for onboard.
Comment:
This card is top notch. Excellent speed, great price if PM'd and excellent driver support. Have been using it for a while now, and wonder how I only used onboard.
ljshewchuk@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 10/08/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:None

Pros:Cheap, fast, PCI
Comment:
Great PCI card for updating older PCs to gigabit ethernet. Fast file transfers through a gigabit switch. Bottleneck seems to be the older ATA hard drives on the older PC and not the card. Overall great for making a FreeNAS server.
Nicholas_M@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 08/10/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:A Little Expensive but WELL worth it

Pros:FastReliable
Comment:
This is a fantastic product. I bought the D-Link DNS-323 NAS and needed something to connect my PC to it through Gigabit to get the best performance. A lot of people complain about the price. This product is more than worth the price that is on it. When you are dealing with networking and speed you don't want to be stingy with the hardware. If you buy this card I guarantee you will be glad you spent the extra.
Bowmah@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 08/07/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:None

Pros:Backed by Intel, drivers from Intel consists of many useful tools like cable checker and loop testing. Easy to install, supports jumbo frame.
Comment:
Works as it should. Download Intel drivers and get access to a bunch of tools to test your network health and jumbo frame support.
bthacker@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 07/18/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:have to find drivers your self

Pros:qualitydriversspeedlower pingeasy to installReliableOffloads network use from CPUwork in linux (dont even need to install driver)
Comment:
this card is great, i was contemplating wheather or not i should buy this, but after a couple recomondations from people in the forum, i thought i'll try it out, for $30 i thought why not. i noticed a drop in ping while playing games like COD4, TF2 etc.. one of the greatest thing i found was that it worked in Linux with out a problem, i didn't even have to install the driver, Linux recognized it right off the bat. the only thing i didn't like was that i had to look for the drivers my self, but with the helpful people in the forums, it didn't take long. i would recommend to anyone wanting to try to lower their ping in games. here is the web site where i got the driver from so know one else has to find them http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=1878&lang=eng
65535@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 05/15/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:expensive compared to alternativesno better than most gigE cards

Pros:qualitydriversspeed
Comment:
Very nice card. Pricey compared to the others but absolutely trustworthy and of excellent quality.Drivers are fantastic, and feature rich.Works as specified. But any GigE card would do the job.
Lance W@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 05/07/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:A bit more expensive than other brandsSlowed down after awhile...

Pros:WorksLots of options
Comment:
This is *the* PCI gigabit ethernet card to get if you're in the market. It has tons of functionality (it even has a setup menu that you can set to appear before the O/S boots up). I get about 250mbps (31.25MB/s) read using a Netgear switch and CAT6/5E cables. With regular 100 ethernet, it usually topped out at 80mbps.Edit 2009-03-01: for some reason the card isn't as fast as it used to be. Maybe because I changed mobos. I only get 25MB/s now and sometimes it will dip down to as low as 10MB/s. When I use the integrated NIC I can get up to 50MB/s. Unfortunately the integrated NIC is rather unreliable. I got the Syba PCI-E NIC to replace this thing and now I'm back up to 30-31MB/s. This review was modfied by poster @ 03-01-09 08:49 PM
gump99@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 03/09/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:none

Pros:cheap,lower ping
Comment:
After reading the different post about this card i decided to try it out. I was unable to get into lower ping servers in COD4 with my onboard lan controller. As it was a bit of an experiment i was nicely suprised when it drop my ping from 130ms down to 80ms. Now i can go into any server i want to. A+ :)
Kai_L@NCIX
Rating:

Review Date: 02/21/08
Intel PWLA8391GT PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter
Cons:none

Pros:easy to install
Comment:
Upgraded my LAN to gigabit and bought this to put into an oldfile server. Works well, but don't know how this card compares with onboard gigabit NICs. Like other reviewers have mentioned, on a gigabit network, your hard disks will likely be your bottleneck, not the NICs.
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