Tuesday, June 18th 2024
Realtek is Aiming to Make 5 Gbps Ethernet Switches More Affordable with New Platform
At Computex, Realtek was showing off a new 5 Gbps switch platform which is set to bring much more affordable high-speed Ethernet switches to the consumer market. At the core of the new switch platform sits Realtek's RTL9303 which is an eight port 10 Gbps switch controller. This was released a few years ago as a low cost 10 Gbps switch IC, but as it still required third party PHYs, it never really took off. The RTL9303 is built around an 800 MHz MIPS 34Kc CPU and supports up to 1 GB of DDR3 RAM as well as 64 MB of SPI NOR Flash for the firmware.
When combined with Realtek's RTL8251B 5 Gbps PHY, the end result is a comparably low-cost 5 Gbps switch. According to Ananadtech, Realtek is expecting a US$25 price per port, which is only about $10 more per port than your typical 2.5 Gbps switch today, even though some are as little as US$10 per port. When combined with a Realtek RTL8126 PCIe based 5 Gbps NIC which retails from around US$30, 5 Gbps Ethernet looks like a very sensible option in terms of price/performance. Admittedly 2.5 Gbps Ethernet cards can be had for as little as $13, but they started out at a higher price point compared to what 5 Gbps NICs are already selling for. Meanwhile, 10 Gbps NICs are still stuck at around US$80-90, with switches in most cases costing at least US$45 per port, but often a lot more. 5 Gbps Ethernet also has the advantage of being able to operate on CAT 5e cabling at up to 60 metres and CAT 6 cabling at up 100 metres, which means there's no need to replace older cabling to benefit from it.
Source:
Anandtech
When combined with Realtek's RTL8251B 5 Gbps PHY, the end result is a comparably low-cost 5 Gbps switch. According to Ananadtech, Realtek is expecting a US$25 price per port, which is only about $10 more per port than your typical 2.5 Gbps switch today, even though some are as little as US$10 per port. When combined with a Realtek RTL8126 PCIe based 5 Gbps NIC which retails from around US$30, 5 Gbps Ethernet looks like a very sensible option in terms of price/performance. Admittedly 2.5 Gbps Ethernet cards can be had for as little as $13, but they started out at a higher price point compared to what 5 Gbps NICs are already selling for. Meanwhile, 10 Gbps NICs are still stuck at around US$80-90, with switches in most cases costing at least US$45 per port, but often a lot more. 5 Gbps Ethernet also has the advantage of being able to operate on CAT 5e cabling at up to 60 metres and CAT 6 cabling at up 100 metres, which means there's no need to replace older cabling to benefit from it.
54 Comments on Realtek is Aiming to Make 5 Gbps Ethernet Switches More Affordable with New Platform
There are three main points of entry for now:
1: Workstation is a server data service connector and 1GbE RJ-45 gets too easily saturated to push the data several GB/hour from this socket.
This is the most common situation people have with a media server loaded with tons of raws and video. This is how they do backups/editing and it sucks.
Net speed gets frequently pinned 100% and latency is too high due to disk types and data sizes. General access and scrubbing are insufferable.
Basic 2x1GbE teaming or a 2.5GbE connection usually fixes it.
2: Workstation is connected to a NAS/DAS array and 2.5GbE somehow experiences a continuation of the above problems due to slow type of storage.
This is a less common problem as people in this situation typically opt for sata/m.2 SSDs over sata HDDs, so even non-RAID volumes should be fine.
The data sets used here are LARGE. Much larger than the photo/video editor situation in piecemeal.
Probably an animator/renderer or SQL DB admin doing wacky stuff with backup/migration or lots of networked Hyper-V jobs through one socket.
3. Network has a massive data chokepoint with the server on two disjunct networks for all media access between one or two local systems and the Internet.
This is a more common situation where the CPU, disk speed, data type and data size just don't matter because the network controller is too finnicky.
Consistent access to the server matters way more than anything else, so a direct 2.5/10GbE connection is optioned to satisfy the problem.
That last one is pretty much where I'm at with millions of files, thousands of gigantic images, some iSCSI volumes and an ISP that randomly makes everything go poof.
All the basic 1GbE connections are routed through their shitty little XB3 unit and this is what prompted me to look at SFP in the first place.
The poof is extremely annoying and dangerous to data when it happens. It may as well be an overheat+reboot because same result. The 10GbE SFP option solves it entirely.
My HP QLogic rebrand NC523SFP and SolarFlare SFN5122F averaged ~$20/each from auction and I used a cheap Cisco DAC to connect them. I would not opt for QLogic again as I had to rig the device with a fan just to exhaust an insane amount of heat produced from this card but other than that, it works great. You literally cannot lose.
That's what I did. So in terms of discount enterprise hardware, 10GbE is CHEAP CHEAP but has its own price. It's all PCI-E g2x8 era junk. If you're interested in this, great. Just use best discretion and maybe avoid QLogic if you're worried about heat. The passive heatsink on that thing is enough to cook lotto tickets, as in it will physically burn you if you do a shutdown and want to pull the card. It's an odd one out. Other stuff is built correctly.
At least back then, OMV wouldn't allow me to connect through my NAS and onto the rest of the network.
Some NAS appliances allow you to do this, but not all.
Of course using some prefabricated NAS which doesn't have a faster Ethernet port makes that impossible, but most NAS vendors have offerings with > 1 Gb ports, or can use PCIe cards.
The 1GbE connection on my server is a very pitiful but full duplex nVidia ethernet controller going straight to the modem over a 1ft cable.
I use a few of these short cables for close device links like Xbox and NIC teams.
If your device only has one ethernet port, you could probably add an additional ethernet controller.
This could be 1GbE redundant, 1GbE team, a progressive 2.5GbE link or 10GbE SFP before prices start coming unglued from reality.
Most 1GbE and 2.5GbE ethernet cards are fully featured devices that need a PCI-E x1 connection. All the old 10GbE SFP stuff needs a PCI-E x8 link.
The dual 10GbE models seem to use the full x8 lanes and half of them seem to be perfectly fine for single 10GbE connections. You won't miss it.It helps some but it really depends on the type of connection used.
Samba activity is slow. Like REALLY slow. This is pretty much what it's like when I'm going over old archives and caching explorer thumbnails over the network:
At first you might think wow, there's literally no point to this...And you might be right.
That HDD activity is half the speed of 1GbE, so ~62MB/s.
Now think about that again. That HDD activity...
Of course the response time, r/w speed and general transfer rates improve significantly when it's an SSD.
The only way I'm connecting an SSD to such an old system is if I cut my PCI-E x1 slot and add a LSI WarpDrive after RAID mode reflash, which I'm not even sure is a good idea but the option is always on the table I guess.
You might think that cute little 1.6GHz single core Athlon CPU would never be able to push so much data to saturate 10GbE and you might even be right about that.
Verifying ~100GB of Steam game data in an iSCSI connection hosted by one very GIANT HDD...
While copying ~20GB of DVD images from a separate slower HDD, over the same SFP connection looks like this:
Definitely overtakes nVidia 1GbE and is less hassle because it won't get disconnected without something catastrophic like a power failure.
I have total confidence in your ability to speed past these figures if you simply use SSDs on host+target when moving data around. ✔
www.servethehome.com/xikestor-sks3200m-4gpy2xf-review-managed-4-port-2-5gbe-switch/
Although I generally am satisfied with gbit for consumer use, NAS at gbit is very reasonable, and I also dont see a need for a internet connection faster than that speed as well unless I was hosting content then I might want it for upload capacity.No, $60 isnt cheap.
I mean at gigabit mainstream prices. Circa $10-20
2.5gbit seems to have the same fate as bluray, it never replaced its predecessor as mainstream.
Gigabit provides a nice acceptable chokepoint for an Internet gateway, that much I understand.
When you're doing Internet and LAN stuff over the same link, how much of it is your monthly bandwidth budget?
How much of it is just data that you're looking up over the LAN?
The difference isn't CPU, memory, HDD speed or any of that. It's the SIZE of the data and how much of it you use.
So far, all of the 2.5 Gbps switches have been multi-chip devices, with not only a switch IC, but also PHYs.
Products like this, is likely to lower costs, but so far it seems like the switch makers aren't in a hurry to do the race to the bottom thing.
www.techpowerup.com/309289/maxlinears-8-port-2-5-gbps-switch-is-tiny-single-chip-solution
You can get some really cheap ones from Alibaba and the likes, but prices have halved over the past 12 months alone.
The cheapest option on Amazon is $36, which is $9 per port, if we don't count the two SPF+ ports.
www.amazon.com/STEAMEMO-2-5G-10G-SFP-Compatible/dp/B0CYGXM1B4/
This one is $8 port, but no SFP+.
www.amazon.com/Unmanaged-2-5GBASE-T-Switching-Backwards-Compatible/dp/B0D2HTB7MQ/
As I also pointed out, you can now get a 2.5 Gbps NIC for under $15, which again is half of what they were a year ago.
Most motherboards also comes with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet as standard now, unless you go really bottom shelf.
On top of that, most NUC like systems come with one, if not two 2.5 Gbps ports now as well.
The bigger issue here is, do consumers understand the benefits of wired networks over WiFi?
People seem to be ok with spending $500+ on a router, but not $50 on a switch.
Personally, I've been running 10 Gbps between my NAS and my desktop since 2017 and when we moved now, I got a 2.5 Gbps switch, so all the Ethernet jacks in the place can do 2.5 Gbps now. My NAS is still in Taiwan though, but I will be bringing it over later this year. I obviously have a suitable switch for that as well, but I'm not a typical consumer.
My switches I like to use something compatible with OpenWRT, and 2.5 Gbps seems such a big premium even ISPs are struggling to source all 2.5 Gbps port devices, nearly all of the high end stuff they used is a single 2.5 Gbps for WAN and four 1 Gbps ports for LAN. (which is what my Wax 206 is).
For a switch that has no AP, no built in USB ports, I would expect to pay no more than £20-30 for it.
It is good prices are coming down, but they not where they need to be.
Where I think 2.5 Gbps needs to be, is the new base line, budget motherboards come with it, £10 switches come with it, all four port routers/switches have it standard and then have 5 Gbps replace it as its current price point.
Hopefully if Realtek achieve what this thread says, it then might have a domino affect of pushing 2.5 Gbps down further.
My Pfsense NUC is a four port i226 device though. That thing was crazy value, I do suspect the wholesale cost of a stripped down NIC on a PCB and associated ports probably isnt a lot more than gigabit, I expect its a case of they sell it as much as possible on the retail level as the market tolerates it. The new way of selling tech.
My existing network setup is like this.
2.5 Gbps ONT connected to 2.5 Gbps i226 port on Pfsense firewall/router.
2.5 Gbps Pfsense i226 port connected to repurposed 2.5 Gbps port on Netgear WAX 206.
This means I could have a multi gigabit internet connection and utilise it, but not to a single device.
Then rest of my LAN is all gigabit or 6th gen wifi, my PC is a 2.5 Gbps Realtek, but its connected to a gigabit port on the Wax 206.
I might be guilty of doing as you described focusing on good wifi, I guess it is because for me I dont wire everything up, I already have huge cable clutter, and I feel anything from the high 100s up to gigabit speeds is good enough for me.
Also, not everything is about internet speed, as already pointed out multiple times in this thread.
As for routers with multiple 2.5 Gbps ports, yes, they've been a bit slow coming, but they'll become the baseline with WiFi 7.Good for you, but that's not how technology works. Go and look how much a 1 Gbps switch used to cost just 10 years ago.According to you.And they'll most likely get there in 2-3 years, which is a LOT faster than it took for 1 Gbps.
And the lower cost 5 Gbps parts will most likely replace the current 2.5 Gbps at their current price points in 2-3 years too.Realtek aren't the only ones making 2.5 Gbps, also as pointed out above. In fact, MaxLinear was first with a single chip 2.5 Gbps switching IC with build in PHYs. They have several different models that ranges from 5 to 12 ports.Right, I bet you didn't pay £50 for that, more like £300. How come you were willing to pay for it?So get a 2.5 Gbps switch then and stop moaning about it.Well, some of us are lucky and live in modern homes with the wiring in the walls and outlets in most rooms, some of us live in a cottage from the 1700's and can't wire up the place, nor get decent WiFi in more than one room due to the stone walls...
The pfsense unit is a mini PC, its not just a bare bones switch PCB, it includes a N100 CPU, and was £130 including RAM, NVME, tax and delivery. The thing is not even remotely comparable to what goes in a switch. I didnt even buy it for the i226 ports, I brought it to uplift my CPU on my firewall to ensure it could power gigabit PPPoE, it just so happened it came with those ports. Likewise with the NIC on my PC, I didnt buy a new motherboard to get a 2.5 Gbps NIC.
ONT supplied by Cityfibre one of UK FTTP providers, so the fact that part of my LAN is at that speed is it just went that way, it wasnt deliberate.
As to getting a expensive 2.5g switch, and not moaning about it, did you miss the part where I am satisfied with speeds in the higher 100s to gigabit. Why would I spend probably in excess of £400 to uplift to 2.5 Gbps speeds when I am not particularly motivated to do so, this is my point, its not mainstream pricing, its expensive enough enough that you have to want it.
It is what it is, not all of us will pay extra for things just because they newer, we need to justify what we spend and feel we getting value for it, I probably wouldnt even be utilising a 2.5 Gbps LAN either as my NAS is spindles. This is my point about 2.5 Gbps needing to become default and cheap.
Sorry if taking part in this thread you see it as moaning.
Why would a switch cost £400?
This is available for £45, admittedly more than in the US, but it's hardly going to make you starve for the week.
www.amazon.co.uk/VIMIN-Port-2-5Gbase-T-SFP-Ethernet/dp/B0C5D4MYRF/
Same company does a managed 5-port version for £53.
www.amazon.co.uk/VIMIN-Port-2-5Gbase-T-SFP-Ethernet/dp/B0CT3B541Z/Well, maybe you don't use your network enough to need it, that's one thing, but to complain about the cost of something, that you then claim you don't actually need, despite half or more of your devices actually supporting it, is a bit odd.It's the way you go about complaining about cost, then saying you buy things on the cheap, yet you spent £130 on a box to run pfsense on, which you most likely don't need, but someone on the internet told you was a lot more secure than using a consumer router, that just makes me wonder. I guess we prioritise different things. I believe my router has a good enough firewall, so I spent my money on a cheap switch that allow me to shuffle files around my network at a higher rate, as to me, that's more valuable.Considering the IEEE 802.3bz standard, which 2.5 and 5 Gbps Ethernet is part, only was ratified in 2016, that would've been impossible.
However, R-T-B is correct.
10GbE might've been ratified nearly 2 decades ago, but Power needs and Cost kept it away from the SOHO/Consumer space.
2.5GbE and 5GbE are (for the data rate) *much* more power efficient, on much newer (and better cost-optimized) ICs. I'd have to do some detailed research to be certain but, I'm confident that 5GbE uses well-less than half the power that 10GbE used. [BTW, 10GBASE-T NICs get freaking hot!]
TBQH @ this rate,I'd expect a *new* 10GbE over Twisted Pair (AKA: 10GBASE-T) standard inside the next several years. (one derived from IEEE 802.3bz)
IEEE 802.3ch 10GBASE-T1 has been ratified and (also) implemented recently.
So, yeah...
The automotive industry got new generation low-power 10G Ethernet over Twisted Pair, before the rest of the market. :mad::banghead: