1. A method of managing network communications, comprising: operatively coupling an Ethernet adapter to a multi-core processor system via a processor bus; selectively assigning a first plurality of packets to a first queue pair for servicing in an endpoint mode; running a device driver on the multi-core processing system, the device driver controlling the servicing of the first queue pair by dispatching the first plurality of packets to only one processor core of the multi-core processor system; selectively assigning a second plurality of packets to a second queue pair for servicing in a network node mode; and the Ethernet adapter controlling the servicing of the second queue pair by dispatching the second plurality of packets to multiple processor threads.