Windows 7 - Upgrading to Gbit LAN - any sense in that?

Yes this is possible but you will need what is known as a crossover cable where the transmit and receive lines are swapped on each end (the router normally handles this transfer)

Upgraded home network to Gigabit some time ago, including the following:
1) Gigabit network router
2) Gigabit network cards in SOME of the PCs
3) Cat6 network cable connecting the router to the PCs containing Gigabit cards

Can get very fast transfers, but despite the network infrastructure the speed of the transfer is STILL governed by the processing power of both the sending and receiving machines, the hard drive speeds of both machines, and what processing is currently being done on both machines.

At first, I didn't think the processing power would mean much, but when I updated the file server machine from a P4 1.7GHz to a 4-core AMD 2.8GHz, the transfer speeds (which I monitor real time using SpeedFan) shot through the roof!

Realistically, don't expect to see anything approaching the theoretical speed limits, but if all the network infrastructure is capabile of handling Gigabit speeds, your processors are relatively fast, and your machines idle at the time, you are likely to see some very impressive improvements over 100MBit networking.

Thanks guys!
Actually, I retried the Windows based DCC program's ftp section, and today the rate was 12 Mb / sec. which is not too bad.
But afai understand, for better results I will have to upgrade the whole chain to gigabit:
- gigabit switch (currently I have a 10/100 switch dividing my blu ray player and my set top box)
- gigabit LAN card for my PC (currently 10/100 on Asus motherboard)
- gigabit ADSL LAN/WLAN modem/router
However I doubt whether all this stuff will help my set top box transfer, as it supports 10/100 only...

imeem poses an interesting question- maybe I could connect the PC and the set top box by a crossed LAN cable in order to keep the loss (and the cost of course) down?
How do I set that up in Windows 7 Ultimate?
Do I need a gigabit LAN card?
What do you think?

If you are going the Gigabit route the best starting place is the switch/router as this will auto select downwards for any 10 or 100 Mb/s devices you have automatically - then as you add Gigabit devices this will be re-negotiated to the fastest speed possible for each device

If you want a crossover cable they are available ready made at most good PC stores

or you can make them up yourself





CAT5e Pinouts and Wiring Diagrams - cat5ecables.co.uk

Thanks to all!

You are correct that it won't help with this. A 100 Megabit per second connection equates to about 12.5Megabytes per second maximum speed. And usually ethernet maxes out around 80% efficient. So, around 10 megabytes per second is what I usually say will be max. So, if you are getting 12 megabytes per second...you are doing great.