On 06/07/2012 03:50 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: Yes I understand, but while not in promiscuous mode, the filtering is done by the network interface chip, rather than by one of my cores which are typically pretty busy doing other things. I have a very fast machine on my desk, but that doesn't mean I want to waste the cycles...I use those cycles for lots of stuff. ;) Your machine is most likely wasting lots of cycles. You probably don't even want to know... ;-) Networks are slow, compared to CPUs. A friend of mine wrote his PhD about the concept that you basically can increase network bandwidth by just compressing data you want to send as much as humanly possible for this simple reason. The CPU will wait on data anyway, so why not use that time to compress the data to send, which means you get more data through on the same network bandwidth. In nearly all cases, yes I agree. Desktop OSs, even the "lean" ones, are becoming fatter with each release though. And I do actually keep my CPUs pretty busy, doing large compiles and PCB routing. But, see my other mail, it is perfectionism more than fear of actual visible impact. But on the other hand, this is my NEW desktop system, less than a year old, and I used my last one for about seven years with only minor upgrades...I get a lot of mileage out of my hardware. I agree, but it is a bigger concern for me as above. There is also a "purist" aspect...I also eschew things like "winprinters" (if you remember those!)...my main CPU cores have other work to be doing.