Motherboard dual port ethernet, which to use?

Meddling-Monk

Meddling-Monk

Meddling-Monk

Associate
Joined
2 Sep 2013
Posts
2,243
OK, so I've got the Asus Proart X670E incoming, and it's a dual port ethernet motherboard, 2.5gb Intel and a 10gb Marvell Aqtion. Whilst I haven't upgraded the networks main switch to above 1gb yet (or have another device for 10gb yet, the Synology ds923+ is not available to purchase in UK just yet), I have seen that there's a QNAP 6 port switch that offers 2x 10gb and 4x 2.5gb that I can swap in for the gigabit switch I've got in place right now.

So I wanted to check in with everyone on which nic to use from the motherboard, the 10gb one? Or the 2.5gb one?

Logic would suggest the 10gb will have the greatest bandwidth, but I'm wondering (since I'm going to be gaming a might bit more than needing a large throughput to transfer files; for now at least...) if the 2.5gb one might actually be the faster one for gaming? And actually should be the one that's used for gaming and internet? In my particular case, if I do grab that QNAP 10gb + 2.5gb switch, the new rig will end up using the 10gb port on the switch anyway, just going from the 2.5gb on the motherboard if it's the better one to use instead.

I do suppose that it's just a quick port swap with the cat6 ethernet cable if it was slower to use the other one, but just wondered if there's an obvious answer to this or not that I'm not seeing.

Thanks all for any info on this. :)
 
If your internet isn’t faster than 2.5Gb and your LAN is restricted to 1Gb then it won’t make a blind bit of difference which NIC you use.
 
As above, unless you get a 10gb switch with the 10gb QNAP, it won't make a difference. Personally I'm leaning more on Intel since their drivers network tends to be better, but wouldn't hurt to see if you have any issues with Marvell.
 
I'm aware that it'll go to the slowest link. That's not really the question I was posing, although I suppose I didn't really phrase it well enough so that's my fault there. :)

Assuming I have the 10gb Synology DS923+, then obviously the NAS and this motherboard both being connected to the 10gb ports would yield the greatest speed between each other. On the Internet site of things with only 1gb at the modem stage, obviously that'll only go at 1gbps no matter if I'm using the 10gb or the 2.5gb port on the motherboard connected to whatever port so long as it is 1gbps or higher.

My question was really more if anyone is aware of if the Marvell Aqtion 10gb connection here, might experience issues compared to the Intel connection, as sometimes stuff like drivers or how they were intergrated onto the motherboard may create unexpected slowdowns during use compared to "each other". :: edit :: As @Orcvader mentioned there as I was typing this. :)

But as Orcvader said, might be something I'll just have to test out when I grab the switch and the new NAS to see if there's any real impact by going the 10gb Marvell connection over the Intel 2.5gb.
 
You going to want it in the 10gb port then if your synology goes 10gb. Think about it.

Internet will only go 1g anyway, so it makes no difference if you are wanting to transfer over the net.

PC > Synology = 10Gb
PC + Synology + net = 1GB max. no matter what port you have it in.
 
Last edited:
Just connect at the fastest links you have, 1Gb internet is irrelevant, connectivity to NAS is the critical thing, if you want to transfer big files to and from NAS, no point in using 1Gb or 2.5 if you have 10 as they are slower, of course it then all becomes dependant on what speed drives anf CPU is in the NAS

I use dual 10Gb on my PC and NAS and can transfer to and from the NAS at 20Gb from its SSDs, nice and fast with smb multichannel, minimal waiting. Mine are all Intel NICs but reckon the Aquantia should be fine, its provided with so much hardware these days it can't be that bad.

If the NAS is mainly for you, you can direct link your PC 10Gb and NAS 10Gb without need for a switch for fast remote storage and use the 2.5Gb for internet etc. not as easy to setup but plenty of youtube guides.
 
Last edited:
connect the 10gbps to the NAS as a dedicated line and connect the 2,5gbps to the switch for WAN.

you will have direct 10gb link to NAS without other network traffic taking up bandwidth on that link while you are transferring files to NAS.

mobo with dual ports are a true blessing tbh
 
Meddling-Monk said:
My question was really more if anyone is aware of if the Marvell Aqtion 10gb connection here, might experience issues compared to the Intel connection, as sometimes stuff like drivers or how they were intergrated onto the motherboard may create unexpected slowdowns during use compared to "each other". :: edit :: As @Orcvader mentioned there as I was typing this. :)
Click to expand...

I'd expect the Intel one to have superior drivers, lower CPU usage and slightly lower power consumption, but I've never seen any testing done on this so could be talking nonsense. Asus also don't state what Intel LAN they're using (as far as I can see) which makes me suspicious it is the previously problematic I225-V and they don't want to tell you :o
 
Tetras said:
I'd expect the Intel one to have superior drivers, lower CPU usage and slightly lower power consumption, but I've never seen any testing done on this so could be talking nonsense. Asus also don't state what Intel LAN they're using (as far as I can see) which makes me suspicious it is the previously problematic I225-V and they don't want to tell you :o
Click to expand...

Yeah, one of the worries I had that lead to this line of questioning, was that I read that the Marvell Aqtion supposedly was linked through the USB4 bus instead of directly to the PCI bus, etc, which sounded like it might have added latency or other issues on compared to a LAN connected direct to the PCI bus. Hence the questioning (some games might be more adversely affected as an example when I do game, which will be more often now. But it sounds like from what everyone is saying that "shouldn't" be an issue on that front). I still haven't found any info on what Intel LAN they're using (for either one), so I guess I'll find out what that is on Wed when my RAM arrives and I can start up the system to find out and pick the appropriate LAN connection to use and what the network setup should change to (as suggested by @pc-guy and @sandys )

Thanks everyone. :)
 
Meddling-Monk said:
OK, so I've got the Asus Proart X670E incoming, and it's a dual port ethernet motherboard, 2.5gb Intel and a 10gb Marvell Aqtion. Whilst I haven't upgraded the networks main switch to above 1gb yet (or have another device for 10gb yet, the Synology ds923+ is not available to purchase in UK just yet), I have seen that there's a QNAP 6 port switch that offers 2x 10gb and 4x 2.5gb that I can swap in for the gigabit switch I've got in place right now.
Click to expand...

I have a DS923+ with the 10Gbe Interface, using the QNAP QSW-M408-4C switch, so 4 10x10GBe ports, and 8 1Gbps ports. Also have 1Gb up/down internet.

It works really well so far - even on the spinning drives I'm getting great performance. The only thing I'd say is that it is quite fussy on cables so make sure they're decent and support 10Gbe networking. If you're seeing 200-250MB (I got this originally) it's likely crappy cables.

It's still fairly fresh, and hasn't finished copying stuff from my old QNAP NAS, but so far the performance has been great.

Annoying that the NVME slots can only be used for read/write caching and not storage pools unless they're actual Synology NVME drives. I'm going to look to see if I can sort that via SSH - how hard can it be.

Anyway, can't answer your question on the drivers etc. My 10Gb interfaces are either on my Mac Studio/Mini or via Thunderbolt adapters.

The 10Gb cards seem really rare in the UK (E10G22-T1-Mini) as in I couldn't find any in stock - ordered from the US for US$235 including taxes/express shipping which isn't too horrific. Only took a couple of days to get here too.
 
Impossible to answer without more information. The chipsets and the drivers under your chosen OS are the more likely problem at this point than anything else.

Tetras said:
I'd expect the Intel one to have superior drivers, lower CPU usage and slightly lower power consumption, but I've never seen any testing done on this so could be talking nonsense. Asus also don't state what Intel LAN they're using (as far as I can see) which makes me suspicious it is the previously problematic I225-V and they don't want to tell you :o
Click to expand...

If only! ASUS have never bothered to admit to what version of the i225 they utilise and good luck getting them to RMA a board if it does have a garbage chipset revision, in fact good luck getting them to RMA anything quickly, but at this point on a newer board it’s pretty unlikely to be the first two and last I looked a v4 was in the works some time ago.

Leaning towards intel hasn’t really done anyone any favours for a while now, the networking side has had a rough few years, the TI buy-out yielded the Puma disaster(s) which wasn’t really an Intel issue, but they were left holding the can, the first two i225 hardware revisions were unfit for purpose and OEM’s DGAF, the Linux driver issues were frankly beneath what would be expected from a budget supplier like RTL, how is re-grading them to gigabit OK? Then leaving users with gigabit chipsets that slowed down to 40% bandwidth unless you manually switch off buffers sucked. Hard. Still, at least you then got 90% of what you paid for. That’s before we get to how they chose to try and mainline the fixes, which was a **** show and they were rightly called out for. The days of Intel being a byword for reliability and performance in networking are sadly a distant memory, one that will take some time to bring back to reality :(
 
Btw you can use both..

If your Synology has multiple ports, you could connect one port to your regular router or switch and leave it in DHCP mode, this can be a 1Gb switch etc. Then you can directly connect the 10Gb port from the Synology to your pc.

You'd have to statically set the IP on the Synology and your pc to be a different range to the rest of your network. IE set them as 10.10.10.10 and 10.10.10.11 , give them the same subnet and no gateway.

This would save you needing a 10Gb switch, especially a good idea if you only have the 2x 10Gb devices (your Synology and the PC).

Using this way, the PC and Synology would only use the 10Gb port when you manually access it using the IP address.
 
So, a quick browse into Device Manager, and I see that the 2.5gb Intel NIC is none other than a I225-V but thankfully it's revision 3, so anyone who grabs one of these boards (X670e Proart) will escape the fate of some other recent motherboards that use the previous versions. *shudders*

As for the 10gb connection (I can only tell you it's revision 3 as well according to the Device Manager, and the name is Marvell AQtion 10gb Network Adapter), I don't have all devices on hand yet, but given @MacRS4 also using 10gb via Thunderbolt (so somewhat similar to that used on this motherboard) then it's unlikely to be a noticeable factor then when in use. So I'm glad to have heard no issues from someone in a somewhat similar situation (network to usb4/thunderbolt to pci, etc). :)
 
Sin_Chase said:
Meh....10Gbit really necessary for a domestic NAS outside of huge data transfer?

I would use the Intel NIC because it's Intel.
Click to expand...

I'd agree. :) I'd have been happy to stick at 1gb to be honest :). It might take longer, but it's fast enough to still get things done. But I'm ever more being requested by (slightly) extended family to help archive material as well (and restore if possible), whether it's photos or videos (and somehow they keep finding more and more such items and bring them to me to work on), and this can add up quickly in what I need to transfer over from the capture devices storage to a storage pool on the NAS. Or pull from again when they're requested to be returned to family or a copy returned so it's still archived there on the NAS.

The major issue is however, the NAS. It's a DS215J, with terrible encryption read and writes, meaning I'm looking at 15-25MB speeds at best. A far cry from ~110MB (at least 4x slower), which I know the NAS can do without encryption. So as I was set on upgrading the NAS so I could transfer faster (on 1gb network), the old main rig died and I was looking for a new one. Out of the available motherboards, the Asus Proart X670E was the only one worth the money really, since it had USB4 and 10gb as well as the other features of the X670E chipset. And by the time the new rig was settled on and obtained, the DS923+ was released. So as I was going to have two devices that were 10gb capable (as I found out the DS923+ is available and can be fitted with 10g), and the hardlines are Cat6 already, so that's why this upgrade was more of a chance thing that came together.

As for the Intel NIC, I'm likely to do something similar to what you and everyone have suggested, and go with a direct connection to the NAS via 10gb and go with general network (+internet) access via the Intel 2.5gb. Although I may need to check on the number of available hardlines that I had lain down, as there may not be enough to do that without a further addition as I certainly wasn't expecting to go (partially) 10gb so soon at home.
 
TBH if you need stupidly fast often enough to make it worth while going 10Gbe, a case for more local NVMe can probably be made in many situations. Even in the VM example above, 10Gb is great for throwing images around the LAN, but upload is still capped at 1Gb which negates any advantage of 10Gb outside of LAN.

Once you get gigabit class WAN, it changes the way you view cloud storage, especially if symmetrical. Sadly for those on VM the 52Mbit upload brings you back to reality, though a modest increase seems likely in the new year looking at the business plans.
 
I use fast NVMe stuff locally. Takes me about 45-60 minutes ish to throw a 250GB image set up to our DC over the 1Gbe upload - that's absolutely fine by me as usually by then I'm done on the set anyway so I don't care if it's 15 minutes or 90. The upload locally is useful for backing up snapshots of estates during the development cycle of something. Currently for example I'm working on collapsing multiple Skype platforms into one, so I have three virtual estates running each about 250GB. Just makes life so much easier if I can go grab a coffee when moving stuff around rather than having to schedule time and work around such things. Doing that over 1Gbe becomes difficult - each 250Gb set takes about an hour, compared to about 10-15 minutes ish currently. One takes planning, the other is a coffee run.

If it's all you do most working days it makes a huge difference! I'm of course self-justifying the costs here.

I get it's an unusual use case. Do I notice it for anything more 'normal'? Erm, probably not tbh! In fact unless I'm on my work Studio/Laptop or Mini chances are I'm connecting over WiFi (6) or 1Gbe anyway.

You're absolutely right on the upload - I use my WAN much how I'd use my machine on a desk in the office. I just don't think about it. My NAS backup is about 15TB on Backblaze B2, and I've about 4TB on OneDrive. You just don't think about it anymore.

If you do have fast internet and use other local stuff you can run in to contention. For for example 1Gb internet + a NAS over 1Gb. Start copying stuff over 1Gbp from the NAS and of course your internet is then less accessible as you're trying to do it all over one 1Gb connection. I used to use aggregation to get around that but even so it's not a patch on 10Gbe. 2.5Gbe would sort that out.

Anyway, I'm boring even myself which for this time on a Friday is some kind of personal record.

I see Synology now have those 10Gbe cards in stock in the UK for the DS923. 140 quid. Plus the switch which was about 400 quid I think, it's saved me enough time to be worth it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom