ASUS Intros XG-C100C V3 10GbE PCIe NIC

[Daven]

I’m still struggling to get gigabit in all my home/office devices. I have a 1 Gbps up/down internet connection and you would be surprised how many cheap smart TVs, home built-in ethernet jacks, phone pass thrus, etc still use 10/100.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Should I change my order?

Up to you, the AQC113 is a bit more power efficient and it supports 10 Mbps, but I guess you won't be using the card with a 10 Mbps switch?
The main reason to change would be future OS driver support, since it's a much newer controller, it will be supported for longer.

I’m still struggling to get gigabit in all my home/office devices. I have a 1 Gbps up/down internet connection and you would be surprised how many cheap smart TVs, home built-in ethernet jacks, phone pass thrus, etc still use 10/100.

Because most of those things don't need faster connectivity.
I "only" have 1 Gbps internet as well, but I run 10 Gbps between my PC and NAS.
When we moved, I got an 8-port 2.5 Gbps switch, as they're quite reasonable now, even though I don't have a lot of stuff taking advantage of it today, as that switch is likely to last me at least 5, if not 10 years and it wasn't that expensive.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

I can already smell the heat of it.

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.

No....that's no longer true...what, save $30 on an SFP nic just to spend that same $30 on a transceiver? And unless their computer is a meter or less from their 10Gig Switch/Router and they can use DAC, then what, they've got to buy fiber and all the tools necessary to work with it and not to mention the learning curve.

It's way easier to run cheap CAT6a in your walls and call it a day. The SFP route may have been advantageous 5 years ago, but not anymore unless you only need a single connection in the same room as your switch. I for one went the 10GBASE-T route right from the beginning and it made expanding my network much easier and cheaper.

Not only that RJ45 is a dead end road. There literally is nothing beyond 10gbit. 25, 40, 100 and 400 are all only fiber. and you can bend current fiber pretty damn well. Sure it needs a looser bent curve than cat5/6 for that matter but it's far from horrible. But yes a lot less power is needed for fiber connections.

Dead end? You cannot be serious...plus, I bet you in theyll be able to figure out a way to do 25gig over twisted pairs in a few years, and if you need more than 10gig, aggregate. Please tell me when 10Gig won't be enough for your average home and they need 25gig? The consumer market is literally just switching to 2.5Gig and you think 10gig is a dead end? You think your average home owner wants to buy fiber, the tools required for it and learn that skill? Or would they rather throw cheap and easy CAT6a in their walls or even use the CAT6a they might already have in their walls? My friend just moved into a new place and every room is already wired with CAT6a and it's not even a new build.

 

[ymdhis]

I'd love to see if anyone can test this card if it works full speed in a pcie 4.0 x1 slot (modern motherboards started shipping with open-ended pcie x1 slots so you can put larger cards in them, so a x4 card could fit). If it works at full speed in that, then you could theoretically use it even on an m.2 wifi slot with a riser. Which is cool because motherboards seem to trend towards not having any x1 slots whatsoever, but they often have m.2 wifi slots instead - especially in the mATX form factor.

Of course that wold also require the m.2 wifi slots to have key E and use pcie 4.0.

That could help small builds get smaller. Right now I have to use mATX for the extra PCIE x4 slot, used by a 10G controller (x550) for my NAS. If these things work at full speed on pcie 4.0 x1 from a m.2 wifi slot with a riser, I could either move down to ITX, or stay in mATX but use the freed up x4 slot for another m.2 drive.

 

[csendesmark]

Up to you, the AQC113 is a bit more power efficient and it supports 10 Mbps, but I guess you won't be using the card with a 10 Mbps switch?
The main reason to change would be future OS driver support, since it's a much newer controller, it will be supported for longer.

I assume you mean 10Gbps, and yes
My question is, on "power efficient" is it colder?
Less energy wasted on heat is great, this adapter is for my low energy "server" PC which is basically my NAS.
The mainboard is an Asrock N100M, and the current server is using about 20W total when only the main HDD is spinning.

Also I would take my time and rant about how cr*&#y the market is.
Regardless the shop I looking, is just hard to find good options.
Especially amazon... even I filter for 10Gbps, most of the results are worthless 1 and 2.5Gbps cards...
Or products from companies which I would not buy from.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I assume you mean 10Gbps, and yes

No, I seriously meant 10 Mbps, as the AQC107 doesn't support 10 Mbps, only 100 Mbps and up.

My question is, on "power efficient" is it colder?
Less energy wasted on heat is great, this adapter is for my low energy "server" PC which is basically my NAS.
The mainboard is an Asrock N100M, and the current server is using about 20W total when only the main HDD is spinning.

It should run a bit cooler yes, but I don't know by how much, as I don't have one. The AQC107 do run quite toasty.

Also I would take my time and rant about how cr*&#y the market is.
Regardless the shop I looking, is just hard to find good options.
Especially amazon... even I filter for 10Gbps, most of the results are worthless 1 and 2.5Gbps cards...
Or products from companies which I would not buy from.

Amazon's search function is ass, for a lack of a better word. It's even worse here in Sweden, as the translations are just awful.
If you search for AQC107 or AQC113 (with or without C at the end) you tend to be able to find the right stuff if you're looking for these types of cards.
Here's another one and as you can see, apart from the printing on the heatsink, it's identical, even the price and the 10% off deal is the same.

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Network-Controller-Ethernet-NIC-Windows10/dp/B0D87439N7/

If cost is what matters, this card is €36 and change.

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Microconnect-PCI-E-AQC107-10GbE-Brand/dp/B0CKJ2M6PX

 

[LabRat 891]

Was going to ask if the AQC113 supports 2.5G and 5G; The Gigabyte NIC w/ same chipset, *does* support 2.5/5/10G over Telephony.

Gigabyte Unveils New 10GbE NIC: Marvell AQtion AQC113C Controller

Gigabyte releases 10GbE NIC for creators.

www.tomshardware.com

So, I assume Asus' does as well.

a Gen4x1 version sure would be nice, tho. -my X570's x4 slot is occupied w/ a QNAP switched NVMe expander, and is otherwise equipped with Gen4x1 slots.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Was going to ask if the AQC113 supports 2.5G and 5G; The Gigabyte NIC w/ same chipset, *does* support 2.5/5/10G over Telephony.

Gigabyte Unveils New 10GbE NIC: Marvell AQtion AQC113C Controller

Gigabyte releases 10GbE NIC for creators.

www.tomshardware.com

So, I assume Asus' does as well.

a Gen4x1 version sure would be nice, tho. -my X570's x4 slot is occupied w/ a QNAP switched NVMe expander, and is otherwise equipped with Gen4x1 slots.

All of the Aquantia (now Marvell) Ethernet controllers have always supported 2.5 and 5 Gbps speeds.

 

[csendesmark]

No, I seriously meant 10 Mbps, as the AQC107 doesn't support 10 Mbps, only 100 Mbps and up.

It should run a bit cooler yes, but I don't know by how much, as I don't have one. The AQC107 do run quite toasty.

Amazon's search function is ass, for a lack of a better word. It's even worse here in Sweden, as the translations are just awful.
If you search for AQC107 or AQC113 (with or without C at the end) you tend to be able to find the right stuff if you're looking for these types of cards.
Here's another one and as you can see, apart from the printing on the heatsink, it's identical, even the price and the 10% off deal is the same.

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Network-Controller-Ethernet-NIC-Windows10/dp/B0D87439N7/

If cost is what matters, this card is €36 and change.

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Microconnect-PCI-E-AQC107-10GbE-Brand/dp/B0CKJ2M6PX

I ordered this TRENDnet TEG-S762 which can do 100/1000/2500/5000/10000, no 10Mbit

Multi-Gig Switches – 6-Port 10G Switch | TRENDnet - TRENDnet TEG-S762

www.trendnet.com

Why is 10Mbps so important?

 

[TheLostSwede]

I ordered this TRENDnet TEG-S762 which can do 100/1000/2500/5000/10000, no 10Mbit

Multi-Gig Switches – 6-Port 10G Switch | TRENDnet - TRENDnet TEG-S762

www.trendnet.com

I presume you're aware that only has two 10 Gbps ports? Nice piece of kit otherwise. I have an 8-port 2.5 Gbps switch from them as my main switch for our place.

Why is 10Mbps so important?

It's not and I honestly don't know why Marvell put it back, as Aquantia dropped it. I guess it's for some kind of backwards compatibility.

 

[csendesmark]

I presume you're aware that only has two 10 Gbps ports?

It has two of 10G and four more of 2.5G ports, and for my use case only 2 of 10G ports are needed.

 

[TheLostSwede]

It has two of 10G and four more of 2.5G ports, and for my use case only 2 of 10G ports are needed.

One oddity though, it lacks 5 Gbps support.
I have one of these and it does 5 Gbps.

TL-SX105 | 5-Port 10G Desktop Switch | TP-Link Sweden

As the flagship 10G product, TL-SX105 is a 5-port 10G desktop switch, providing up to 100 Gbps of switching capacity. Reliable, lightning-fast connections and the lowest possible latency make it ideal for gaming and small office and home office use.

www.tp-link.com

Even my old Netgear supports 5 Gbps. That sucker runs hot though. It also costs a lot more now, than what I paid for it some years ago.

Plus Switches - GS110EMX | NETGEAR

Need a managed wired switch for your small business network? Check out GS110EMX Plus switch with 8-Port Gigabit ports & 2-Port Multi-Gig ports. Buy now!

www.netgear.com

 

[csendesmark]

I see nothing which is costing in that range, and fanless while supporting 5Gbps speed, but it should be fine at 10Gbps
As of now, I am fine with if 10Gbps reverts to 2,5Gbps, since that is about the speed of the HDDs which I have.
On the long term, Hope it will work fine at 10Gbps

 

[Ravenas]

There are far cheaper cards in the US for $70 or less.

I have seen quite a few cheaper versions that lack certain feature sets. Not to say they are all this way.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I have seen quite a few cheaper versions that lack certain feature sets. Not to say they are all this way.

The Aquantia cards are largely reference designs, with a few exceptions, so not sure what's missing.

I see nothing which is costing in that range, and fanless while supporting 5Gbps speed, but it should be fine at 10Gbps
As of now, I am fine with if 10Gbps reverts to 2,5Gbps, since that is about the speed of the HDDs which I have.
On the long term, Hope it will work fine at 10Gbps

It was more that I was confused that it lacked 5 Gbps, since it's been around for so long on switches by now. I don't actually understand how it can be missing.
But yes, nothing else wrong with that switch and it should be plenty fine at 10 Gbps.

 

[csendesmark]

@TheLostSwede I have a question regarding this data rates on ethernet.
When both device knows 10000/5000/2500/1000/100/10 rates
They connect and settle the top speed at 10G, but they are set a lower rate when higher speeds are not needed?
Like CPUs running on a lower frequency during idle time?

 

[billeman]

@TheLostSwede I have a question regarding this data rates on ethernet.
When both device knows 10000/5000/2500/1000/100/10 rates
They connect and settle the top speed at 10G, but they are set a lower rate when higher speeds are not needed?
Like CPUs running on a lower frequency during idle time?

If it negotiates at 10G , it will stay at 10G. It will not go down because there is less load. It might go down to 10M/100M if you shutdown the PC (for example, if Wake On Lan is enabled).

 

[TheLostSwede]

@TheLostSwede I have a question regarding this data rates on ethernet.
When both device knows 10000/5000/2500/1000/100/10 rates
They connect and settle the top speed at 10G, but they are set a lower rate when higher speeds are not needed?
Like CPUs running on a lower frequency during idle time?

Looks like you were given a good answer above.
I will just add that you can manually force a lower speed, but auto negotiation is what you most likely will want to use.

 

[csendesmark]

Then the 100 and 10Mbps protocols are basically useless...
I don't mind if mine does not knows 5Gbps

 

[Xajel]

AQC113 is PCIe3.0x2 or PCIe4.0x1. Why is no one introducing an x1 card for board which don't have an x4-slot?

I mainly blame motherboard manufacturers for not adopting open-ended PCIe x1 slots forcing you to use only x1 cards.

Answering your question; AIC makers try to please both PCIe 3.0 & PCIe 4.0 users by making the card bigger. If they made it x1 length it won't work at full speed on PCIe 3.0 slots, and that's exactly why I blame motherboard manufacturers for not using open-ended PCIe x1 slots, thankfully most manufacturers now use physical PCIe x16 slots for electrical x4 & x8.

Then the 100 and 10Mbps protocols are basically useless...
I don't mind if mine does not knows 5Gbps

I guess these are just there because they work, and good as they work even with some damaged or miss-terminated cables

 

[efikkan]

AQC113 is PCIe3.0x2 or PCIe4.0x1. Why is no one introducing an x1 card for board which don't have an x4-slot?

Well, if the chip and wiring is compatible, then you should be able to put the card in a x1 slot and have full performance, if not, then there is some overhead etc.
For comparison, the ASUS Pro WS W790E board have x4 PCIe lanes wired up to two Intel X710, uncertain whether this is 3.0 or 4.0 speed.

A nifty device for sure, but plagued by the classical problem: you need other 10Gbps-capable devices and a 10Gbps-capable router to put it to good use.

As TheLostSwede mentioned you can connect two computers directly, but it isn't a pain like he alluded to. (And you don't need different cables like in the old days!)
All you need is to set up static IPs on each end (important: in a different IP range), and add the machines to the hosts file if you want to refer to them by name. It takes a few seconds and it works like a charm.
(This isn't unusual in the server space either, either machines connected directly to each other or to two sets of switches.)
It's only about three years since I had to do this when staying with family, something crazy with frequent dropouts and constant relegated to 100M speeds (typically what you get when you connect a bunch of crappy consumer gear together). The computer and server were in the same room, so I just ran a cable between them and problem solved.

This is actually way smarter than having e.g. a unmanaged 8-port 1G switch connected to a 5-port 10G switch and a bunch of desktops, laptops, server/NAS, TV, access points, streaming devices etc. etc. to a single network, there is bound to be issues. If you can, having two separate networks is actually preferrable.

This actually scales fine up to 3 devices without a switch; just buy a card with dual 10G NICs (e.g. Intel X550-T2), then each of the three computers (e.g. server + desktop1 + desktop2) is connected to each other. It will be super fast and reliable. If you need more than three devices with fast networking, then switches become the practical solution.

I was actually very tempted to do a setup like this, and almost bought a stack of them on ebay back in February. (it was 2x X550-T2 for $80 used)

Not only that RJ45 is a dead end road. There literally is nothing beyond 10gbit. 25, 40, 100 and 400 are all only fiber. and you can bend current fiber pretty damn well. Sure it needs a looser bent curve than cat5/6 for that matter but it's far from horrible. But yes a lot less power is needed for fiber connections.

RJ45 is no more dead-end than fiber is. 100 and 400 G fiber is actually four pairs of fiber, good luck with running that around your house. And there are so many incompatibilities with transceivers and fiber or direct attach copper. Not to mention these are stiff and fragile. These really are designed for server racks, not to be run throughout an office or home. If you have your computers/servers close together in a single room, you can certainly do it (and I have considered it myself), but that would be the furthest you can push it realistically before resorting to base-T Ethernet.

I bet you in theyll be able to figure out a way to do 25gig over twisted pairs in a few years, and if you need more than 10gig, aggregate.

They already have, 25GBASE-T and 40GBASE-T have been ratified standards for years, and recently there have been a lot of Cat 8.1 cables entering the market certified for these speeds. But there is a complete lack of NICs and switches so far, but the moment the market (primarily office and workstation market) is large enough, everything is ready for deployment.

-----

I think that the introduction of 2.5G and 5G Ethernet is unnecessary market segmentation, by now, 10G should cost about what 1G did 10-15 years ago, and in my opinion should have been the standard for desktops by now. Don't get me wrong, 2.5G is a good improvement over 1G, but if you're wiring up a whole home, then you'll probably need 12-16 ports, and those switches are hard to come by. The ones I've seen from e.g. TP-Link are approaching 10G pricing anyways. And 5G, that's pretty much missing in action. Both 2.5G and 5G switches will never get a large market penetration before 10G eventually takes over anyways. This is all an effort to make us upgrade over and over again. When you build your network, you better plan a little bit ahead, so 10G might actually be a worthwhile upgrade.

As to what speeds you will actually need/utilize, this depends on what you do, but for reference here is what approximately the speeds translate to:
1G - ~120 MB/s
2.5G - ~330 MB/s - roughly the speed of a single modern large HDD (~250-300 MB/s)
10G - ~1.2 GB/s - roughly the sustained speed of a typical "fast" M.2 drive (~0.5-1 GB/s when caches are depleted)
If you want to go beyond this, like 25G or 100G, then you'll need faster storage on both ends to saturate this in any meaningful way. When LTT tested 100G, they used a card with 8 or so M.2 SSDs in RAID0 (which is ridiculous), so for now you'll need proper high-end enterprise grade U.2 SSDs. This might change 5 years down the road, but you'll likely still need lots of PCIe lanes to feed the NICs and the SSDs, so >10G networking will probably be a HEDT/workstation thing.

 

[Ravenas]

The Aquantia cards are largely reference designs, with a few exceptions, so not sure what's missing.

I'm certainly not an expert in usability on these cards, however, I have heard some have issues with magic packets, wol, and sleep.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I'm certainly not an expert in usability on these cards, however, I have heard some have issues with magic packets, wol, and sleep.

As I already mentioned, I've used my two cards since the end of 2017, one in Windows and on in my NAS running Open Media Vault and apart from an early issue with AMD Ryzen compatibility (which Aquantia fixed within two weeks of me reporting it to them), I haven't had any issues whatsoever. WOL works, sleep works, never used magic packets.
Yes, the ACQ107 cards did need a few firmware updates to be perfect, but it's been a long time now since there were any issues that weren't fixed in firmware.

Maybe stop reading old wife's tales on the internet? There's so much crap being spread in favour of Intel as the only company to use when it comes to NIC's, yet they f-up their 2.5 Gbps so badly that they dropped the LAN connection entirely and this can't be fixed, as it's a verified hardware bug that Intel doesn't seem to have manged to solve over multiple hardware revisions. This is why Realtek is the go to option for 2.5 Gbps.

You're of course free to invest your hard earned cash into whatever product you want and I'm not telling you to buy the Aquantia/Marvell cards.

 

[efikkan]

I'm certainly not an expert in usability on these cards, however, I have heard some have issues with magic packets, wol, and sleep.

Not to mention performance inconsistencies and overheating.
The bigger question is whether they are good enough, and that depends on what you compare them to and what your requirements are. If the comparison is Intel X550, then there will be few disputing that those have rock solid drivers for both Windows and Linux (they have been used in the server space for a good reason), but these enterprise cards have limited retail availability and could be very pricey in some regions. So unless you're browsing the used market or "new" cards on Ebay, then the pricing will be in a different league. Not to mention if you need a switch, what kind of NICs will be used in that one, as you'll be unlikely to buy a super-expensive enterprise switch to go along with it.

There is also the older Intel X540 (which is very cheap used), but be aware of the limitations of this one. It's fairly old, so it lacks compatibility with 2.5G/5G devices, along with various other network features (which I can't recall), but most importantly it uses a x8 PCIe 2.0 slot, so unless your computers have x8 slots to spare, this one is probably not the first choice.

But regardless of which ones you would consider, remember that these cards needs to have a little bit of air-flow, even the Intel ones.
So it all boils down to what your requirements are; are you looking for something proven to have top reliability for the critical server you are somehow hosting in your basement? Or are you just hooking up your desktop to your NAS and wants file transfers to be quicker?

 

[danc]

Just ordered my XG-C100C V2 card from Amazon, since it has a great deal going on now:
-38% €70.99 RRP: €114.95
Now I know why!

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?

Search - Search product page｜ASUS Global

asus official site

www.asus.com

Site search gives no information about this product.

V2 is already using AQC113, it can do 10G on PCIE4x1.

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bbs.kakaku.com

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bbs.kakaku.com

I am not sure why Asus made a V3. In fact, they never listed V2 on their website.

Was going to ask if the AQC113 supports 2.5G and 5G; The Gigabyte NIC w/ same chipset, *does* support 2.5/5/10G over Telephony.

Gigabyte Unveils New 10GbE NIC: Marvell AQtion AQC113C Controller

Gigabyte releases 10GbE NIC for creators.

www.tomshardware.com

So, I assume Asus' does as well.

a Gen4x1 version sure would be nice, tho. -my X570's x4 slot is occupied w/ a QNAP switched NVMe expander, and is otherwise equipped with Gen4x1 slots.

AQC113 can do Gen4x1 10G. So long your X570 has physically open ended Gen4x1 slot, Gigabyte and Asus NIC works for you.

https://www.marvell.com/content/dam/marvell/en/public-collateral/ethernet-adaptersandcontrollers/marvell-fastLinq-edge-product-brief.pdf

https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/jdx39d/_/kgqfef9