Simple Network Speed Test?

[GordonCopestake]

Hi Folks,
I would like to measure my network throughput between 2 machines I have networked with gigabit NIC's. Is there a simple way of doing this? Ideally I would like an output similar to hdparm -t

Is there a built in utility in Ubuntu that can say something like
"eth0 - 500Mb transfered in 60 seconds - 8.3Mb/s"

Thanks in advance