Intel has been making quad port adapters for a long time. Sometimes however things catch up with us and some of our products end up between specifications, especially with cutting edge work. The rapid deployment of PCI Express® Base Specification Revision 2.0 out into the market has left some once easy choices not so easy. In the adapter market, Intel had a stable of four port adapters that customers could pick from. The current adapter, Intel® Gigabit ET Quad Port Server Adapter is from the post 2.0 era. The other adapters should stick to the 1.0 only slots.
The ET adapter also has Intel® Virtualization Technology for Connectivity (Intel® VT-c), a feature that marries well with the higher port density that a four port adapter brings to the table. Older adapters are still great; just make sure to make sure it is not in a 2.0 slot.
Big ending!
1. The Intel Gigabit ET Quad port adapter is a perfect match for PCI Express 2.0 based servers.
2. Thanks for using Intel networking products.