Recommendations for a 10gbps NIC?

[katie279]

Hi all,

Looking to install some 10gbps NiCs in two PCs, any recommendations? (Seems to be a bit of a minefield of overheating chips and underperforming elements from the searches I've done, so any solid recommendations much appreciated!)

 

[RSR]

What medium are you thinking about using?

RJ45 - Copper

Intel X540-T1 (These are older cards now)
Intel X540-T2 (These are older cards now)
Intel X550-T1
Intel X550-T2

I know there is an Intel X7XX but I can't think of a model number off the top of my head)

SFP - OM3/4 - Fibre

Mellanox ConnectX 4
Mellanox ConnectX 5
Intel X710-DA

These are not cheap options but they will perform trouble-free.

 

[RavenLunatic]

TP-Link 10 Gigabit PCI Express Network Adapter (TX401) works well. I paid £90 each for 2 of them and they have been flawless. Been running them 24/7 in my server for 2 years without a problem.​

 

[Quartz]

Looking to install some 10gbps NiCs in two PCs, any recommendations?

How much PCIe bandwidth do you have available? Intel X540 works well if you have v3 x8 available and X550 if you only have v4 x4.

 

[ChrisD.]

Get second hand server NICs from eBay, from a reputable brand such as Broadcom, Intel, Mellanox etc, with the correct height PCI bracket and SFP module/RJ45 option. Most of mine are Intel X520's or Intel 82599.

 

[katie279]

How much PCIe bandwidth do you have available? Intel X540 works well if you have v3 x8 available and X550 if you only have v4 x4.

Hello, sorry not sure what you mean - how do I know this?!

 

[Quartz]

Hello, sorry not sure what you mean - how do I know this?!

The slot specifications should be detailed in the motherboard manual.

 

[katie279]

The slot specifications should be detailed in the motherboard manual.

I've got a GA-AB350-Gaming 3, so assume it's 32gb?!

 

[Meddling-Monk]

That motherboard might be a minor bit of an issue.

You only have 1 full PCI 4.0 (Or is it 3.0?, just checked it's confirmed PCIe 3.0) x16 slot that's fully wired according to the specs. Usually reserved for your GPU.

The second PCI 3.0 x16 slot is only a x4 wired slot. AND it shares bandwidth with your m.2 NVME drives as well if they are installed. So this is unlikely able to get the most from a 10gb network card. You can certainly fit one in, but full 10gb bandwidth is unlikely.

Your remaining slots are x1 slots (electrically wired, or physically actually a x1 slot), so wouldn't be able to saturate the 10gb card either.

It might not be worthwhile jumping to 10gb network with this motherboard. Not unless if you want to swap out your GPU to another slot.

For reference, I've got a 10gb card in a PCI 2.0 x4 Slot (Which should be more than 2GByte/second but as it's a shared channel it only nets me aroud 600-700MByte/second). Still OK. But not 10gb (950MByte+/second)

 

[Firestar_3x]

It might not be worthwhile jumping to 10gb network with this motherboard. Not unless if you want to swap out your GPU to another slot.

For reference, I've got a 10gb card in a PCI 2.0 x4 Slot (Which should be more than 2GByte/second but as it's a shared channel it only nets me aroud 600-700MByte/second). Still OK. But not 10gb (950MByte+/second)

Which is still a significant upgrade and would easily saturate a SATA SSD, for relatively small cost its worth upgrading.

 

[Meddling-Monk]

Which is still a significant upgrade and would easily saturate a SATA SSD, for relatively small cost its worth upgrading.

Oh without a doubt it's a worthy upgrade. I've certainly enjoyed my upgrade of it.

The only thing is, we don't know what purpose this network upgrade is for from the OP. And we also don't know how many other devices are plugged in and sharing the bus (on the system with that motherboard). All of which can impact on the throughput of the network. It might be that they want to share the m.2 NVME, in which case they might be scratching their head as to why they're getting such a strange number for network throughput instead of standard 1gbps/2.5gbps/5gbps/10gbps numbers. Which can lead to all sorts of diagnosis procedures that may end up ripping out fully functional stuff and replaced when it's entirely unnecessary as well, so just pointing out that there'll be issues for the OP to recognise if and when they attempt it.

 

[cee-S-dee]

I use a Intel X520 in my server. Just be cautious, mine was a Dell part (wasn't mentioned in the listing) and would stop the machine from posting with a certain amount of ram in it. I had to do a mod to the card (Block pins 5 & 6 on the pci-e connector) to allow it to post with all the ram. I also had to modify the firmware (Just a bit flip which can be done in linux with ethtool) to allow the use of any DAC/SFP+ Modules. Was a right pain, but was quite satisfying to get it full working in the end

If getting a x520, just make sure your getting a Intel variant.