Hi

I am trying to establish the fastest network connection speed I can achieve on my W700ds (2757CTO).
The published specifications indicate that this is 1 gigabyte but add that this is "through the motherboard". Does this mean that I need to connect using the docking station to achieve this speed?

No - as long as you are on wired Ethernet and a GbE switch, you should be able to obtain 1GbE speeds.