Using Intel and Broadcom NICs in one ESX Host

Good day everybody,

I tried to run a search for what I was looking for, but can't seem to find anything relevant to ESX 3.5, so here goes...

We just bought a few new Dell PowerEdge 2950s that we are going to be using as ESX hosts.  We are also using an EqualLogic SAN for our storage, so  we're going to need additional NICs.

Last week my network admin and I took an unofficial VMware 'Boot Camp' last week one thing that was stressed was that you should avoid mixing different brands of NIC.  This is going to be easier said than done, however, as the two onboard ports for these servers are Broadcom, and the only 4-port PCIe NICs I can find are Intel-made.

Does anyone have any experience here?  Will it be problematic to mix Broadcom and Intel NICs in the same host?  Just a quick note, if we do add-in Intel cards we would *not *be port-grouping/teaming Intel and Broadcoms together.  My thought is that the on-board Broadcoms for the COS and HyperVisor then one Intel NIC for LAN traffic and one Intel NIC for SAN traffic.

Thoughts here?

Thanks in advance!