Friday, April 3rd 2020
Rivet Networks Announces Killer Ethernet E3100-series 2.5GbE NICs Based on Intel "Foxville" PHYs
Rivet Networks today formally launched its 2.5 Gbps Killer Ethernet E3100-series NICs targeted at gaming notebooks and motherboards. These 2.5 GbE solutions are based on Intel's i225-series "Foxville" PHY chips. The new E3100G is based on the i225-V, and is targeted at platforms that have chipset-integrated MAC (most Intel chipsets). The E3100X is based on the i225-LM, and has an integrated MAC, making it better suited for gaming notebooks with Ryzen 4000H-series processors. The software side of things is where Rivet's innovations are.
The Killer Prioritization Engine detects network traffic from games and prioritizes it. This should improve latencies when competitive gamers are also streaming on the side. Under extreme network stress (think gaming+streaming+downloads), Rivet claims the tech can improve gaming latencies by up to 3 times. Next up is GameFast tech, an optimized HSP component of the driver that reduces CPU utilization by up to 10% and the network stack's memory footprint by 20%, compared to other 2.5 GbE solutions. Lastly, there's support for DoubleShot Pro, Killer's network teaming tech that lets you combine bandwidth of your wired and wireless network interface for up to 4.9 Gbps bandwidth. The Killer Control Center 2.0 app gives you control over this and the other features.
The Killer Prioritization Engine detects network traffic from games and prioritizes it. This should improve latencies when competitive gamers are also streaming on the side. Under extreme network stress (think gaming+streaming+downloads), Rivet claims the tech can improve gaming latencies by up to 3 times. Next up is GameFast tech, an optimized HSP component of the driver that reduces CPU utilization by up to 10% and the network stack's memory footprint by 20%, compared to other 2.5 GbE solutions. Lastly, there's support for DoubleShot Pro, Killer's network teaming tech that lets you combine bandwidth of your wired and wireless network interface for up to 4.9 Gbps bandwidth. The Killer Control Center 2.0 app gives you control over this and the other features.
13 Comments on Rivet Networks Announces Killer Ethernet E3100-series 2.5GbE NICs Based on Intel "Foxville" PHYs
So now we going to have a period with 2.5Gbit, 5Gbit and then 10Gbit.
10Gbit is already old tech and forcing people to make small incremental upgrades should be a thing of the past.
It is irresponsible of the tech industry to create so much extra e-waste with pointless upgrade cycles like this.
2.5Gbit makes me happier than 1Gbit, but with SSD prices now, even a NAS with SSD's (2.5") would need 5Gbit. I think the cabling issue may be slowing progress and adoption. A quick search shows Cat6a & 7 shielded available but not like regular cat 6 or with prices like cat 6.
I'm still using an old intel pro/1000CT card, based on a chip from who knows when.
Or, you could admit that 10GBe is overkill for consumer use, and frequently still IS overkill, even 2.5GBe is going to largely only be used by powerusers, the reason it is getting traction after half a decade is because it can use the same cat5e cables and isnt much more expensive to make. It's only use int he home is for NAS applications, gigabit is sufficient to stream 4k video and even in places with great infrastructure 1 Gbit is the limit for internet access, and even then that speed is useless unless you are downloading large files, which unless you play games isnt that often.
We need more switches options, for 2.5GbE, 5GbE and 10GbE.
- 10GBe is not overkill for consumer use, admittedly having an 8 port 10GBe switch would be however having a switch with a couple of 10GBe ports (most of the consumer devices) is an excellent fit for consumer use as a NAS will really see a benefit from 10GBe (the majority of NAS setups will also see an improvement from 5GBe too) and you obviously need at least one computer on 10GBe to get that benefit.
- 2.5GBe is pretty much useless for power users (many of which are on 10GBe already) as 99% of things that bottleneck on 1GBe are going to bottleneck on 2.5GBe too. Hell just about the only situation where 2.5GBe will remove a bottleneck affecting 1GBe is when accessing a shared folder on a single HDD.
- In a consumer setup 10GBe can use the same Cat5e cables too, unless you have cable runs exceeding 55 meters in your house in which case it's likely to drop down to 5GBe.
- 2.5GBe devices might not be much more expensive to make compared to 1GBe devices, however they aren't much cheaper to make than 5GBe devices either and aren't anywhere near as good.
This is why a lot of us dislike the fact manufacturers are pushing this stop gap technology that they know buyers will want to replace in a year or two anyway, when they should be focusing on something decent with staying power like 5GBe or 10GBe.Intel 82579LM Gb card on my Dell Precision t3600. It's a decent Gb card but I'd need to get all new router, switch, etc to even bother upgrading
The pic shows the max transfer rate in Mbytes/sec