# igb and em



## Geezer (Jul 7, 2021)

Why is it that on one machine, the intel nics are igb and on another they are em?


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## SirDice (Jul 7, 2021)

Different chipset. Previously igb(4) and em(4) were actually two separate drivers. But sometime during 12.x they were rolled into one single driver because there was a lot of code duplication and overlap.


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## Geezer (Jul 7, 2021)

Thank you.

If I am going to look for a new nic, which is better and what is the chipset?


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## SirDice (Jul 7, 2021)

I don't have a preference. I have a bunch of machines that have an Intel PRO/1000 card (mostly to replace the onboard Realtek) running on em(4). Most of the SuperMicro machines I manage have 4 port igb(4) interfaces onboard. Both work good enough for me.


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## pboehmer (Jul 7, 2021)

Even better is with the new box I deployed using an Asus WS C246 Pro motherboard with two Intel onboard NICs.  One identifies as igb0 and the other em0.  Both are running at 1gb.  Not complaining, just thought it was interesting that Asus would use different chipsets on the same motherboard.  The different chipsets are noted in their documentation/specifications.


```
em0@pci0:0:31:6:        class=0x020000 rev=0x10 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x15bb subvendor=0x1043 subdevice=0x8686
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = 'Ethernet Connection (7) I219-LM'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet
igb0@pci0:1:0:0:        class=0x020000 rev=0x03 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x1533 subvendor=0x1043 subdevice=0x8557
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = 'I210 Gigabit Network Connection'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet
```


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