Please recommend a 10Gbps NIC for my home system.

G

Gatecrasher3000

Gawd
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
580
Hi everyone,
I just got a new apartment and for the first time will be getting fibre internet, as its offered in my new building. I will be ordering my new ISPs fastest service they offer at 1.5Gbps. Because my server and home PCs all have 1Gbps cards built into them, I will need to start looking for a NIC capable of handling a 1.5Gbps speed.
Therefor, can any of you recommend a good 10Gbps NIC, I have never needed to buy a NIC so I’m not sure what chipsets/features I should be looking for.
An when I say ‘good’, I mean one that has updated drivers, is stable, and will work with my Windows 10 systems.
I have been hearing good things about the Intel X540T2, however I thought I could find a NIC that was less expensive.

Thank you.
 
Gatecrasher3000 said:
Intel X540T2
Click to expand...

This card, and the 'T1' variant with a single port, should be cheaper, are the gold standard. The Aquantia AQN-107 does the job as well, and I'm using one now, but I wouldn't rate it as highly as the Intel option. Just worth mentioning at US$80 (don't bother with the other versions).

One other thing: you need to know how this connection is being provided. It's either going to be a 10Gbase-T RJ-45 or a 10Gbps SFP+, and I'd lean on likely being the latter; which is fine, you can get switches and transceivers for that too, even cheaper.
 
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Yeah with Windows 10, I should be fine when using most cards, its not like Im trying to get these to work with centOS.
ok cool I will check out the Aquantia, thanks.
And yeah, the 1.5Gbps router is using RJ-45, so the Aquantia would work.
 
I have both the 540-T2 and aquatia cards setup on my home network, no issues with either. Did have an issue with windows update setting a group policy for TCP window sizes and it locking them to a small number. This locked me down to gig-e speeds and took a while to figure out.
 
Is this for a work environment or for your house?

I only ask because you're going to spend a lot of money to go from 1gb to 1.5gb in NICs if you have to buy several of them.

What kind of router/switching setup do you have now?
 
You may want to reconsider your objective until you can justify the need. Meaning, you may want to see that you can ever saturate that bandwidth across a single physical interface.

I say this as a person with multiple years of gigabit speed at home and I still have an incredible difficulty saturating a single device at 1gb, let alone 1.5. To be quite frank I've only been able to saturate in theoretical (waste) scenarios and not in actual/heavy quality usage.

Reconfiguring your LAN for 10 gig could be fun and even useful under certain use cases, but for WAN purposes could still be overkill.
 
Eickst said:
Is this for a work environment or for your house?

I only ask because you're going to spend a lot of money to go from 1gb to 1.5gb in NICs if you have to buy several of them.

What kind of router/switching setup do you have now?
Click to expand...

Its really only two systems, one of the being my media/server box, its always running with constant uploads/downloads.



inbedwithhomer said:
You may want to reconsider your objective until you can justify the need. Meaning, you may want to see that you can ever saturate that bandwidth across a single physical interface.

I say this as a person with multiple years of gigabit speed at home and I still have an incredible difficulty saturating a single device at 1gb, let alone 1.5. To be quite frank I've only been able to saturate in theoretical (waste) scenarios and not in actual/heavy quality usage.

Reconfiguring your LAN for 10 gig could be fun and even useful under certain use cases, but for WAN purposes could still be overkill.
Click to expand...

This is all very true, but the monthly cost difference between 1g and 1.5gbps was like $9 a month, so I figured I would go for the faster plan.
I do have a some server on my network that is used as a plex server for myself and my friends. But you're right Im probably not going to saturate my line at 1.5gbps. If not then I will downgrade to the less expensive 1gbps option.
 
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inbedwithhomer said:
You may want to reconsider your objective until you can justify the need. Meaning, you may want to see that you can ever saturate that bandwidth across a single physical interface.

I say this as a person with multiple years of gigabit speed at home and I still have an incredible difficulty saturating a single device at 1gb, let alone 1.5. To be quite frank I've only been able to saturate in theoretical (waste) scenarios and not in actual/heavy quality usage.

Reconfiguring your LAN for 10 gig could be fun and even useful under certain use cases, but for WAN purposes could still be overkill.
Click to expand...


This is [H]. Overkill doesn't exist. A lot of people have home labs, some have huge storage arrays, etc.. Justification? Because we can. :)

If anything, I'd see it as fun and futureproof. 1.5 Gbps is fast as fuck. I'd be content with 1Gpbs. Cool thing is that if shit starts stuttering or you get lag, it's not your network connection that's the problem. I'm stuck with 25 Mbps. I'm envious of anyone with a good fiber connection > 100Mbps.
 
Gatecrasher3000 said:
Hi everyone,
I just got a new apartment and for the first time will be getting fibre internet, as its offered in my new building. I will be ordering my new ISPs fastest service they offer at 1.5Gbps. Because my server and home PCs all have 1Gbps cards built into them, I will need to start looking for a NIC capable of handling a 1.5Gbps speed.
Therefor, can any of you recommend a good 10Gbps NIC, I have never needed to buy a NIC so I’m not sure what chipsets/features I should be looking for.
An when I say ‘good’, I mean one that has updated drivers, is stable, and will work with my Windows 10 systems.
I have been hearing good things about the Intel X540T2, however I thought I could find a NIC that was less expensive.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Intel X550-T1 - use it to day trade, game, and (PC) product testing... costs a bit more, works well.
 
I just upgraded my test 10gige network to a full one with a real switch and LACP, pci-e flash on all hosts...

I use a mix of intel x540, x550 and a few aquantia 10gige nics. All copper, plugged into a netgear 10gige switch.
 
acquacow said:
I just upgraded my test 10gige network to a full one with a real switch and LACP, pci-e flash on all hosts...

I use a mix of intel x540, x550 and a few aquantia 10gige nics. All copper, plugged into a netgear 10gige switch.
Click to expand...

What do you think of the aquantia nics, are you having good luck with them?
 
nEo717 said:
What do you think of the aquantia nics, are you having good luck with them?
Click to expand...

I just installed two Aquantia 10GB NICs this week. After fighting a misconfigured system and getting things straightened out, I'm liking them a lot.

13GB xfers in <10sec are nice
2700X_to_1600x_SSD_thruput.jpg
 
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