[CLUE-Tech] eth0 keeps dropping, whats up with that?

[Friedman, Jason]

Adam Bultman said, in part:
The new netgear (FA311) use the natsemi driver, and don't have
the problem. In fact, they are really good cards (although don't come
close to competing with my 3c980B and my Intel NICs
-------

My question is, how critical is NIC performance?  In the past I have
purchased the cheapest ones I could find at Best Buy, thinking that the
performance of even a bad NIC card would exceed my DSL connection and
would come close enough to my hard drive performance.

But, Adam's remark is making me re-think that.  Any opinions?