Monday, September 16th 2024
ASUS Intros XG-C100C V3 10GbE PCIe NIC
ASUS over the weekend introduced the XG-C100C V3, a client-segment 10 GbE PCIe network interface card. The card features a ubiquitous RJ-45 connector that supports 803.2an (10 Gbps), and slower standards, such as 5 GbE, 2.5 GbE, 1 GbE, and 10/100 Mbps. The single-slot, half-height (low-profile) card features a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, and uses a Marvell AQtion AQC113 controller, with a heatsink. The card features dual-color link/activity LEDs. OS support includes Windows 11, Windows 10, and most recent desktop Linux distributions. The company didn't announce pricing.
51 Comments on ASUS Intros XG-C100C V3 10GbE PCIe NIC
802.3bz - 5GBASE-T & 2.5GBASE-T from 2016 specifies 5GBit/s and 2.5Gbit/s over Cat 5a and 6 cabling.
So in fact 2.5 and 5Gbit/s are not older but newer standards than 10Gbit/s ;)
Downside is that the Aquantia posts drivers for the old AQC107 on their web site, whereas drivers for the AQC113 have to be obtained from the vendor, and the vendors never update the drivers. You have to spend a lot of time hunting around for the latest driver version which is probably only posted for some newly announced motherboard with onboard AQC113. Also there were firmware updates for AQC107 and the firmware for AQC113 is either not updateable, or the tool is only available to OEMs.
I've used these drivers with an ASRock motherboard, ASUS and TP-Link PCIe NICs without a problem. There's no AQC113 firmware on Marvell's site, but I've successfully updated both older ASUS and TP-Link cards using the AQC107 firmware package from Marvell.
I think still better to grab a connect X 3 or 4, a sfp+ module and call it a day for half of the price.
That's not to say they're useless. You can buy a bunch of these, insert them in a RPi board or smth and build your own router. And that's just one example.
For consumer and small businesses, copper and RJ45 is going to live on for a very long time.
And more power only applies to current gen 10 Gbps cards, Realtek's 5 Gbps Ethernet controller only draws 1.7 Watts.
They should have a much lower power 10 Gbps solution in a year or two.
www.techpowerup.com/309465/realteks-5-gbps-ethernet-solutions-will-reduce-cost-and-power-draw-significantly The RPi doesn't have fast enough PCIe for these, you can't go beyond 5 Gbps.
This site has a bunch of tests www.jiribrejcha.net/2024/06/full-5-gigabit-ethernet-on-raspberry-pi-5-with-iocrest-realtek-rtl8126-adapter/
Also, none of the generally available Arm SoCs can do 10 Gbps, as it requires hardware NAT offloading which only the router SoCs have.
All of today's modern router SoCs have a secondary offload engine to handle the networking. Same here, got my OG Aquantia cards on a Black Friday sales in 2017 and I haven't looked back since.
More importantly, dirt cheap enterprise 10GbE SFP+ switches are all over the used market and Amazon alphabet-soup brands. Unless you're really really trying to re-use internal Cat5e/6/6A cables routed through your walls, it's a lot cheaper and easier to just go down the fibre or copper SFP direct-connect cables route, I think. I've been hearing and reading things like that* for about three years now, and we're still waiting, hopefully not for too much longer....
*specifically the multi-port controller ASICs that affordable switches would use
You need a noise insulated room to use old enterprise switches though... The 5-port 10Gbase-T ones are passively cooled. I was running like that for about six months, but it got annoying. I got lucky and got a really good deal on a Netgear GS110EMX for something like $170 at the time. Maybe, it depends which CPU you get, especially as most boards with those CPUs don't have two PCIe 3.0 x4 slots... or even x2 slots (which are still x4 physically). Well, that's what I was told last year at Computex, but it took them a year to get their 5 Gbps parts to market, but those are starting appear on most higher-end motherboards now and can be bought online fairly easily. I guess we'll have to wait and see if they deliver on the 10 Gbps promise, would be nice if they could manage to end up around 2-2.5 Watts.
I didn't know you could do firmware updates on the original model I until someone mentioned it above but its only for V1
www.asus.com/support/faq/1045619/
-38% €70.99
RRP: €114.95Now I know why! :D Good question, maybe the PCIe v4 boards costs more?
Also would briefly rant about ASUS' website,
Why is the tech companies fail so hard with such an easy task?
www.asus.com/searchresult?searchType=products&searchKey=XG-C100C&page=1
Site search gives no information about this product.
www.amazon.de/-/en/Network-Controller-Ethernet-NIC-Windows10/dp/B0D87439N7
It's all reference designs anyhow.
I picked up a pair of TP-Link cards based on the older AQC107 for the equivalent of €56 a few months ago.
What might be happening is that you have those offloads disabled or (which is also likely) that 10 gbe has a lot more packets to process.
I do not believe that there will ever be smart NICs or those with extra features that can take more of CPU load into the consumer space.