> receive side uses a per-packet interrupt to finalize a received packet
This has made much faster systems not being able to process packets at line speed. A classic was that standard Gigabit network cards and contemporary CPUs were not able to process VoIP packets (which are tiny) at line speed, while they could easily download files (which are basically MTU-sized packets) at line speed.
This has made much faster systems not being able to process packets at line speed. A classic was that standard Gigabit network cards and contemporary CPUs were not able to process VoIP packets (which are tiny) at line speed, while they could easily download files (which are basically MTU-sized packets) at line speed.