Many newer network cards have the ability of taking some of the network processing load off of the processor and performing it right on the card (much like Hardware T&L on most new video cards).
This can significantly lower the CPU processes needed to maintain a network connection, freeing up that processor time for other tasks. This does not work on all cards, and it can cause network connectivity problems on systems where the service is enabled but unsupported, so please check with your NIC manufacturer prior to enabling this tweak. Find the DWORD “DisableTaskOffload” and set the value to 0 (the default value is 1).
If the key is not already available, create it.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ Tcpip \ Parameters