Wednesday, May 31st 2023
Realtek's 5 Gbps Ethernet Solutions Will Reduce Cost and Power Draw Significantly
Realtek has decided to take consumer Ethernet speeds to a new level later this year with a family of 5 Gbps parts that are unlike anything its competitors have announced so far. The RTL8126-CG PCIe 3.0 x1 controller is a tiny QFN56 chip that measures 8 by 8 millimetres and consumes up to 1.7 Watt in use. This is unheard of when it comes to 5 Gbps solutions today, most of which are based on cut-down 10 Gbps chips. Realtek has verified the RTL8126-CG with stacked connectors for motherboards, as this was a requirement from the motherboard vendors. This solution should be available on most of the boards that were announced at Computex with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet support.
The company also has the RTL8251B-CG single port PHY which comes in the same packaging and same size as the PCIe controller. It's intended for use in 5 Gbps switches and should help bring down the cost, power consumption and thermals. Finally Realtek was showing off the RTL8157-CG, which is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) based 5 Gbps Ethernet bridge, which comes in a slightly different QFN68 package, but still apparently measures 8 by 8 millimetres. This one is expected to launch sometime in Q4 of this year. All three solutions are capable of delivering 5 Gbps Ethernet over Cat 5e cables of up to a 100 meter in length. We weren't given an exact price point of these solutions, but it sounded like the RTL8126-CG should end up at US$5 or less, which should be compared to at least US$20-30 for most similar solutions in the market today. It looks like the market for faster Ethernet is really getting interesting and Realtek is apparently planning a 10 Gbps solution for next year.
The company also has the RTL8251B-CG single port PHY which comes in the same packaging and same size as the PCIe controller. It's intended for use in 5 Gbps switches and should help bring down the cost, power consumption and thermals. Finally Realtek was showing off the RTL8157-CG, which is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) based 5 Gbps Ethernet bridge, which comes in a slightly different QFN68 package, but still apparently measures 8 by 8 millimetres. This one is expected to launch sometime in Q4 of this year. All three solutions are capable of delivering 5 Gbps Ethernet over Cat 5e cables of up to a 100 meter in length. We weren't given an exact price point of these solutions, but it sounded like the RTL8126-CG should end up at US$5 or less, which should be compared to at least US$20-30 for most similar solutions in the market today. It looks like the market for faster Ethernet is really getting interesting and Realtek is apparently planning a 10 Gbps solution for next year.
59 Comments on Realtek's 5 Gbps Ethernet Solutions Will Reduce Cost and Power Draw Significantly
Also, Synology's CEO takes a page from Nvidia's Jensen circa 2023 when he rhetorically asks about his company's newest NASes: "But will it run Crysis?"
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Sorry, ahem, Realtek... This is fantastic news. 5GbE USB options have been expensive for what they offer given the overhead. STH did a wonderful review of them a while back if memory serves?.
The lower power draw also makes these more affordable with less heat dissipation needed. My Marvell card in one machine kills its connections when it gets taxed with a lot of bandwidth because of heat, though admittedly it's in a 2U with not the best airflow.
It'd be nice to see hopefully as well good software support in virtualized environments, but that may be a [network] bridge too far (thank you, I'll be here all week, and try the meatloaf).
Now everyone just needs Fiber internet :P
Or I choose for fiber, not sure yet.
XGS-PON+ is the future Not docsis.