@MattSpeller said:

To answer your first question though, yes, it can make a difference.

Interesting. So how do you weigh/compare performance differences across two motherboards that both support your minimum feature requirements? Is there some benchmarking comparison tool like CPUBoss but for mobos?

Beyond individual feature support ( say a board only supporting PCIe 2 instead of 3, or Sata II instead of III ), does your motherboard choice directly affect performance in any way?

In other words, when choosing between 2 boards that are both the correct socket type for your CPU, does anything matter beyond whether it has the features you're looking for?

Doing a CPU and RAM transplant for a temporary workstation and have very few needs, just want one PCIe 16 slot and 32GB RAM support on my socket and I'm set, and wondering whether it's worth going w/ a slightly more expensive board than ones that have the features I need or if it's basically a boolean decision, has the features I need, check, then pick the lowest price without reviews indicating a strong likelihood of reliability woe.

@scottalanmiller said:

Nearly all of that task is done by the OS, not the NIC. Even with TCP Offload enabled (it rarely is) there is a lot done by the OS.

Ah, ok, well that certainly changes things. What purpose does a faster internal NIC processor serve? Here's a quote from a Tom's Hardware review for reference:
@review said:

You may recall that the Killer NIC derived its strength from a few key enhancements over regular integrated network controllers. First and foremost, the adapter used an on-board 400 MHz processor to handle all network packet processing. This offloaded traffic from the host CPU and side-stepped the Windows networking stack. Killer actually had a Linux distribution on the card, turning it into a sort of PCI Express-based co-computer.

@Dashrender said:

I ask because I don't know - is the processing of things into packets done at the NIC layer, or is it done in software and the CPU before being sent to the NIC to put it on the line?

I know that some advanced NICs, like those used for SANs, do offload some of the processing from the system CPU, but I'm not sure if that's the case in a normal PC/laptop.

I think this is a key part of what's missing in how I see things too. It's my impression that NICs do a ton of processing internally which is why one of the main things that differentiates their performance/speed/price is the speed of their internal processor. For example the "Killer" brand NIC in the laptop I just returned touts its 400 MHz processor, which as far as my current understanding and w/ the steps I outlined would mean that, say, compared to a NIC w/ a 200 MHz processor it'd chip away at latency during all moments that it's translating requests into packets and deserializing requests from packets by doing so ~ twice as fast. Now that's clearly just one part of the latency contribution, but it's still a part where a faster processor, or offloading a task to second processor in the case of using both a wired and wireless adapter ( two processors instead of one ), could theoretically reduce the end latency value.

@scottalanmiller said:

The NIC is able to handle wire speed without additional latency, lowering the work it does does not free things up for other traffic realistically.

Maybe this part is the key. Are you saying that whatever handles the processing in the adapter is so fast that it's basically 0 ms? So that the embedded processor in the NIC, even when handling 5 separate applications' worth of information workload, say a large file transfer, a bunch of web pages, IMs, websocket data, etc, will always be 0 ms and that there's no subprocessing at all?

In my mind latency is a byproduct of a few different components, the network beyond the laptop, but internally on the laptop, the time it takes for the CPU to hand a request off to the NIC, and then the NIC to translate that request into appropriate formats and packets, and then the time for the NIC to intermingle that w/ the streaming it's already doing to the router. So by reducing the work in any one of those steps you're getting closer, even if only theoretically, to 0 ms.

@scottalanmiller said:

Nope, doesn't change anything.

Maybe you can correct the issues w/ how I'm thinking about this:

• Information ( in the form of requests and responses in both directions ) needs transfer between the laptop and the router.
• Information is not transferred in its raw or natural form, it requires preparation, translation, and fragmenting into smaller chunks and reassembly from smaller chunks for incoming information.
• The laptop sends its various requests or responses to the router through an adapter, which intelligently handles the above tasks.
• Therefore, handling 4 separate applications' worth of information coordination is an amount of work, which consists of each application's information coordination workload. At any given moment, there may be requests currently being coordinated on adapter 1 w/ the router, and new requests coming into it.
• By removing say, one of the applications from this channel ( adapter 1 ) and moving it to its own channel ( adapter 2 ), it guarantees that at any given moment the new network adapter isn't spending its clock cycles handling other requests, receiving new ones from other applications, or having to mix in requests from the removed application into the packet batches.
• This has an effect similar to splitting a specific task off onto a dedicated second core in CPU processing, although the primary core has more than enough horsepower and capacity to handle all of the work of the computer, by isolating a task onto a separate core, the task switching penalties and "contention" for focus are removed, and the 2nd core will respond, even if only marginally or trivially, more quickly to any incoming tasks dedicated to it because its resources are guaranteed to not be doing anything else, even if we say that none of the other work at play will or should matter because the hardware can more than easily enough handle all of it.

I may totally misunderstand how packets and routers work and be missing how things you've already mention invalidate the summary above. If so I apologize and am definitely thinking about this from a programmer's perspective. But, I'm genuinely interested in understanding these networking concepts so your help is very much appreciated! I find this stuff ( networking, servers, general IT ) fascinating despite my limited exposure to and knowledge of it.

@scottalanmiller said:

I think most people are heading towards 10 years these days. I still have my "new" laptop and it was purchased in early 2012. That's 3.5 years now. Still snappy and newer than almost anyone that I know that buys as a normal consumer.

That blows my mind. I have a 5 year old ( 2010 ) iMac and it's too slow for me to put up with for even web browsing. I can't imagine how tedious and painful it'd be to use a 10 year old system.

@scottalanmiller said:

Understood, it is a lot like NIC Teaming. Still requires an extra layer of overhead that, unless you are getting some benefit, is a negative. Since the WiFi connection will have extra latency of its own and more signal problems (if it doesn't you have other isues) and since you presumably are not saturating the main connection, it seems to be two negatives without a positive. The positive is only a theoretical one in a case where you are surpassing 1GigE of traffic. If you are actually doing that much, you need to upgrade your networking and this is, at best, a really poor bandaid.

Wouldn't it theoretically at a minimum reduce contention for latency on the adapter that it dedicates important traffic to? Which I think for gaming is the point. So if my Dota 2 match is the only thing running over the ethernet for example, it'll never have to execute the evaluation of whether to commandeer the adapter for each new packet from something else it might be doing, like downloading a file or serving a web page? In other words if the important stuff is in its own lane, wouldn't that exempt it from any kind of work to prioritize or rearrange traffic like it'd hit if it were sharing a connection?

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

I don't know about saturated, but I've noticed that when I'm downloading a file and do a speedtest.net test, my numbers are very tangibly degraded. So even if that's not supposed to happen, it's an observable phenomenon and makes me wonder if adding in a second connector simultaenously wouldn't protect against that somewhat.

No, actually it would make it worse by adding unnecessary latency and a separation / recombination process onto the network. Minor, but definitely no way to improve but there is opportunity to degrade. The speed you are talking about with Speedtest.net is WAN speed, having lots of separate paths on the LAN won't affect that.

Just to be clear, it doesn't route the same traffic over both adapters, it divides the full workload by application / purpose and routes things discerningly.

http://www.killernetworking.com/technology/killer-double-shot-pro

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

@thecreativeone91

If that's true, how does that stuff affect anything about the experience? It honestly sounds kind of conspiracy theory to me ( an admitted layman ).

Reliability is the biggest thing. This same stuff affects why commercial gear outlasts and outperforms consumer gear. Higher quality parts and build, not better specs.

Ah ok, well if that's true it probably doesn't affect most people, wouldn't affect me at least. The only laptop I've ever kept for more than a year or two is one I kept to give to my mom. I don't know how long most people hold onto computers, but they feel pretty obsolete after 2 years and my impression is that people don't expect them to last much more than that.

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

You know when a $600 Dell gets better wifi performance than a $1700 gaming laptop that something's wrong

One of the advantages to enterprise engineering.

Although it does have a cool feature ( which may be available in enterprise too ) where it uses the wifi and lan simultaneously and does QoS to put the more important apps onto the lan. I had to enable it ( was after that post ).

That's confusing terminology. When is a WiFi not a LAN?

That's sort of a cool feature, but when do you have your Ethernet saturated to a point where it would be beneficial?

Yeah, LAN is what their interface calls it, I should've corrected it lol. Guessing "gamers" ( I'm not one so I can't speak to it ) call it the LAN because of "LAN parties" where everyone would wire up a long time ago. IDK.

I don't know about saturated, but I've noticed that when I'm downloading a file and do a speedtest.net test, my numbers are very tangibly degraded. So even if that's not supposed to happen, it's an observable phenomenon and makes me wonder if adding in a second connector simultaenously wouldn't protect against that somewhat. When I was putting this laptop through it's paces I was playing a 1440p game of Dota 2 on its highest settings and multi-tasking across 2 other monitors downloading apps, installing software, and doing general web browsing, I don't know how much of an advantage their was to using both wifi and lan, but it all felt surprisingly instant.

@thecreativeone91

If that's true, how does that stuff affect anything about the experience? It honestly sounds kind of conspiracy theory to me ( an admitted layman ).

@nadnerB said:

Can you contact MSI and get the intended thermal specs from them?
Might be time for an RMA.

Good tip. Unfortunately there were a handful of other dealbreakers that have inspired me to return the laptop and look for a new model. A pretty terrible screen, a completely missing left windows key ( I use this all day every day ), the worst trackpad I've ever touched, and poor jack and keyboard placement are all simultaneously dealbreaking what could've been an amazing workstation.

@thecreativeone91 said:

@creayt said:

The reason to buy an identical model from Best Buy

Unfortunetly just because the model numbers and specs are the same does not mean they are identical when buying from best buy. They are known for ripping people off both in sales & service.

That said, I mostly agree with you. Best Buy is a real shit show and it's a wonder they're still in business. Their web site errors every 4th click.

@thecreativeone91 said:

@creayt said:

The reason to buy an identical model from Best Buy

Unfortunetly just because the model numbers and specs are the same does not mean they are identical when buying from best buy. They are known for ripping people off both in sales & service.

It does if you check all of the specs and they're exactly the same.

@thecreativeone91 said:

@creayt said:

@nadnerB said:

Yeah, I'd be double checking that the CPU cooler is mounted correctly.
 
Was the cooler the stock cooler that came part n parcel or sloppy seconds from the previous CPU?

It's an MSI Stealth Pro ( 17" gaming laptop ) that arrived from BestBuy yesterday.

Buying from best buy is a mistake, many of the models if it the same models as sold else where are customized too make cheaper for best buy. Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo and many others are doing this for them.

That would depend on whether you know what you're doing or not, wouldn't it. The reason to buy an identical model from Best Buy is for compounding discounts. I got the newest, identical MSI Stealth Pro ( the only model w/ the 5th gen i7 ) and was able to use:

A 10% off coupon
A 5% off promotional rebate
Elite status certificates to reduce the cost
And got about $40 in new certificates directly from this purchase.

All in all it was hundreds of dollars less than any other buying option, had free expedited shipping, and NO RESTOCKING FEE if I decide to return it ( compared to big ones from NewEgg and other resellers ), a mistake would've been not to order this laptop through Best Buy.

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

You know when a $600 Dell gets better wifi performance than a $1700 gaming laptop that something's wrong

One of the advantages to enterprise engineering.

Although it does have a cool feature ( which may be available in enterprise too ) where it uses the wifi and lan simultaneously and does QoS to put the more important apps onto the lan. I had to enable it ( was after that post ).

@nadnerB said:

Yeah, I'd be double checking that the CPU cooler is mounted correctly.
 
Was the cooler the stock cooler that came part n parcel or sloppy seconds from the previous CPU?

It's an MSI Stealth Pro ( 17" gaming laptop ) that arrived from BestBuy yesterday.

@nadnerB said:

What CPU is it?
That seems to be a bit high.
 
Has anyone had the case open?
 
I had a thermal issue where my CPU would be sitting in the high 80C to high 90C. Turns out the CPU cooler wasn't attached correctly.

Processor is the http://ark.intel.com/products/87716/Intel-Core-i7-5700HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz

i7-5700HQ

Just came in the mail today from Best Buy. I presume the case hasn't been opened. That's scary.