PaulS:
is there something in the Wiznet chip that makes it special?
Yes. Built in support for a lot of stuff that makes the ENCJ chip harder to use, since that stuff is done in software, rather than hardware.
Built in support for what? DHCP? DNS? I'm sure those 2 options are nice to have, but I can get by without them. I can easily put a sd card on my boards, and have a config file for that. My router only supports DHCP for I think 32 hosts? So I have plenty of space for static IP addresses. SSL would be nice, but I'm guessing I personally just want to connect to the network and talk to the house server. If I use the ENCJ how hard is it going to be to use the ethernet libraries have they changed that much? Should I grab an earlier copy from the github repo? and if so what's the best one to get?