Recommended PCI-E Network cards/routers beyond 1gbit ports

[AssaTM]

Hi all, as we are approaching a world where internet speeds/internal network transfer speeds are surpassing our 1gbit ports, I was wondering if there are any recommendations on what setup I should be looking towards in the future to fully utilise the faster speeds? I see 2.5gbit ports are available as are 10gbit.

My router currently offers Dual WAN, however if the ethernet ports are only 1gbit, what purpose does this serve? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you

 

[AssaTM]

It was the Virgin Gig1 with the Super Hub 5 2.5Gbit port that got me thinking mainly. Currently in Modem mode you cannot utilise it's full potential due to the 1Gbit Ethernet ports, however with the new Hub supporting a 2.5Gbit port, plus my Router supporting it as well it seems like a quick win to buy a NIC for the PC ready for that future proofing.

For example I had my eye on this:

▷ ASUS XG-C100C 10GBase-T PCIe Network Adapter | OcUK (overclockers.co.uk)

Which seems decently priced for what it is, unless theres any drawbacks i'm unaware of?

 

[AssaTM]

I appreciate all of the help in the thread so far, thank you However, the one thing I'm now stuck on is which PCI-E NIC do I buy that supports 2.5Gig and is actually well recommended? As I was eyeing up the Intel chip mentioned but I did read about the issues it has faced, and then people don't recommend the ASUS either?

 

[AssaTM]

Exactly this - even if your 1150Mb? connection is being "limited" by a gig port, are you really missing out on that ~150Mbps? Surely it's better to have some bandwidth "spare" for other devices (e.g. those on wifi or other cabled devices), rather than saturating the whole of your connection with a single download

I agree, however i'm only providing my router with 95% of total speed that can be dispersed and then saturated amongst devices, so i'm losing 5% of bandwith on nothing other than the limitation of a port which seems absurd to me