Introduction

1.3.5Additional Performance Features

Provides adaptive Inter Frame Spacing (IFS) capability, enabling collision reduction in half duplex networks (82544GC/EI)

Programmable host memory receive buffers (256 B to 16 KB)

Programmable cache line size from 16 B to 128 B for efficient usage of PCI bandwidth

Implements a total of 64 KB (40 KB for the 82547GI/EI) of configurable receive and transmit data FIFOs. Default allocation is 48 KB for the receive data FIFO and 16 KB for the transmit data FIFO

Descriptor ring management hardware for transmit and receive. Optimized descriptor fetching and write-back mechanisms for efficient system memory and PCI bandwidth usage

Provides interrupt coalescing to reduce the number of interrupts generated by receive and transmit operations (82544GC/EI)

Supports reception and transmission of packets with length up to 16 KB

New intelligent interrupt generation features to enhance driver performance (not applicable to the 82544GC/EI):

Packet interrupt coalescing timers (packet timers) and absolute-delay interrupt timers for both transmit and receive operation

Short packet detection interrupt for improved response time to TCP acknowledges

Transmit Descriptor Ring “Low” signaling

Interrupt throttling control to limit maximum interrupt rate and improve CPU utilization

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Software Developer’s Manual

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Intel PCI-X, Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controllers manual Additional Performance Features