NIC Cards Wanted, but which ones?

Well I have several systems that all have been running onboard Ethernet. But two of the systems (H77 with Realtek and a Z87 with Intel) have had a couple of lockups in recent months. I saw the same behavior before on some older boards which finally one day I smelled the mobo burn at the solder joint of the Ethernet receptacle. So I am concerned that these last two events are the prelude to maybe the onboard Ethernet is going out so i want to buy some NIC's to insert them in to the systems so I can keep going.

I keep reading that Intel are the way to go. My network is all Gbit so looking for a card to be the same. Main uses are backups of files daily so no biggie there, but weekly I am imaging my drives. Main systems take about 15-20 minutes while other low working systems take about 5-6 minutes.

Which Intel Gb NIC cards are the go to?

Thanks bro67 for your response. Yes, mostly just small data files everyday for backing up. But weekly I am imaging whole systems, movies and tv shows get backed up also. Price is not too much of an issue, just looking for sweet sot. Don't want to expensive where if middle range has same speed. For me reliability is most important then speed.

I am worried that the issues I saw are a sign that the connection is one day not going to work and those computers are workhorses with data so my backups have to be always ready to go. Thank you for the link. Looking at the list it looks like the i350-T2 is where I'll go. I may be getting a new router and I may then separate my backup server and server from the main network so the two ports will leave me that room if that day comes.

Thank you bro67, I'm headed off to the store.