Thanks ASRock for pushing the envelope forward. Not sure if the feature is particularly gamer oriented, when it's more of a prosumer feature, but 2.5G ethernet is welcome either way. Hoping routers, switches, and other networking products follow suit in the near future to provide affordable upgrades to home offices.
I think 2.5G could be quite useful in the future when you have a fiber connection that is capped at gbit having this extra bit of bandwidth can make sure the ethernet card isn't the bottleneck. Right now my provider caps out at 750mbit on fiber probably to prevent bottlenecks on the gbit routers they give us.
It should be pretty obvious that home users rarely have compelling reasons besides HD/4K streaming video through services like YouTube/Netflix. But we don't really need 2.5G from a internet provider to get benefits in the home office. We've been stuck on gigabit networking equipment for over a decade, far longer than most people ever even had access to true gigabit internet speeds, but even so, having gigabit networking in the home office has been useful for interconnecting devices/services available from one own's home.
There is next to no need for more than 1gig connection to the home. Your typical 'high speed' connection to a server is only going to be 20-60Mbps, and you can really only have so many active connections to the outside world at a time even with a home full of teenagers. That said; a 1gig connection to a home server can be extremely frustrating when moving large files, or doing backups from multiple machines. The ability to have at least a few higher speed ports for your main server/NAS and your main desktop/workstation would make a lot of people's lives better... just not $500-1500 better which is what it really costs today to upgrade your NICs and switch.
not sure why they would do that, nice to have a feature available, not so good when lions share of consumers are nowhere near the speed to take advantage of that specific feature.. wonder if they will have a "phantom" with a more "normal" lower latency (not killer based) ethernet solution as well, in theory at least it might save a few $ but allow some folks some more "choice" which is always nice to have ^.^
2.5G would be kind of fun for benchmarking transfers from SSD to SSD across the network, but beyond that, all my bulk backups are limited by the speed of large spinning discs on 1GbE connections for the most part. Does nothing to speed up games or downloads of games.
Even SSD to HDD. My NAS has 7 3TB HDDs. As long as it is a sequential write it can take anything a 2.5gbps pipe can throw at it. Going from my PCs SSD to a RAID of HDDs would be much improved with a bit more throughput. Being capped at ~103MB/s is soooo 2003
What is the holdup on not just putting 10gig NICs in things? Even if the average home network can only support 2.5 or 5gbps and not a full 10gig it would at least give people options, and manufacturers a standard target to hit. I just really don't like these partial standards between major roadmap standards. I mean, it is better than nothing, and I don't have a 2.5gig switch to plug it into, so why am I complaining. Also... still waiting for cheap home routers and switches that have 2-4 10gig ports for ~$150 (without it being a used device, or some industrial thing with lots of noisy fans).
Just buy some used Mellanox cards and do point to point. If it's for gaming you want low latency right? .. What games share more than 100 MB/Sec across the internet? .. ridiculous marketing.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
15 Comments
Back to Article
JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
Thanks ASRock for pushing the envelope forward. Not sure if the feature is particularly gamer oriented, when it's more of a prosumer feature, but 2.5G ethernet is welcome either way. Hoping routers, switches, and other networking products follow suit in the near future to provide affordable upgrades to home offices.qlum - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
I think 2.5G could be quite useful in the future when you have a fiber connection that is capped at gbit having this extra bit of bandwidth can make sure the ethernet card isn't the bottleneck. Right now my provider caps out at 750mbit on fiber probably to prevent bottlenecks on the gbit routers they give us.JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
It should be pretty obvious that home users rarely have compelling reasons besides HD/4K streaming video through services like YouTube/Netflix. But we don't really need 2.5G from a internet provider to get benefits in the home office. We've been stuck on gigabit networking equipment for over a decade, far longer than most people ever even had access to true gigabit internet speeds, but even so, having gigabit networking in the home office has been useful for interconnecting devices/services available from one own's home.CaedenV - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
There is next to no need for more than 1gig connection to the home. Your typical 'high speed' connection to a server is only going to be 20-60Mbps, and you can really only have so many active connections to the outside world at a time even with a home full of teenagers.That said; a 1gig connection to a home server can be extremely frustrating when moving large files, or doing backups from multiple machines. The ability to have at least a few higher speed ports for your main server/NAS and your main desktop/workstation would make a lot of people's lives better... just not $500-1500 better which is what it really costs today to upgrade your NICs and switch.
Flunk - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
Will be be compatible with the Phantom Gaming Network and Phantom Lapboard?Seriously, naming a serious of gaming motherboards after a massive industry failure like the Phantom is just a bad idea.
Samus - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
Please make one ITX.Dragonstongue - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
not sure why they would do that, nice to have a feature available, not so good when lions share of consumers are nowhere near the speed to take advantage of that specific feature.. wonder if they will have a "phantom" with a more "normal" lower latency (not killer based) ethernet solution as well, in theory at least it might save a few $ but allow some folks some more "choice" which is always nice to have ^.^Golgatha777 - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
2.5G would be kind of fun for benchmarking transfers from SSD to SSD across the network, but beyond that, all my bulk backups are limited by the speed of large spinning discs on 1GbE connections for the most part. Does nothing to speed up games or downloads of games.CaedenV - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
Even SSD to HDD. My NAS has 7 3TB HDDs. As long as it is a sequential write it can take anything a 2.5gbps pipe can throw at it. Going from my PCs SSD to a RAID of HDDs would be much improved with a bit more throughput. Being capped at ~103MB/s is soooo 2003Ian Cutress - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
Killer hardware is Intel based now.Dug - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
I hope it has lots of flashy lights. I won't buy anything without flashy light.CaedenV - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
What is the holdup on not just putting 10gig NICs in things? Even if the average home network can only support 2.5 or 5gbps and not a full 10gig it would at least give people options, and manufacturers a standard target to hit. I just really don't like these partial standards between major roadmap standards. I mean, it is better than nothing, and I don't have a 2.5gig switch to plug it into, so why am I complaining.Also... still waiting for cheap home routers and switches that have 2-4 10gig ports for ~$150 (without it being a used device, or some industrial thing with lots of noisy fans).
close - Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - link
Mostly the price of the hardware (NIC/switch) + cabling. Maybe also power.brunis.dk - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link
Just buy some used Mellanox cards and do point to point. If it's for gaming you want low latency right? .. What games share more than 100 MB/Sec across the internet? .. ridiculous marketing.Joffer - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
Or maybe the Realtek 8125 chip (2.5G ethernet)