Just running a direct connection from my PC to my NAS (in addition to the one via my router) isn't that exciting. The bundle I want is 2 cards and a 4 port switch or router so I can have the core of a high speed network in place as additional machines are upgraded.
For now I don't mind setting up a 2nd direct connection to my server. As long as it is a separate vlan, it should not pose much of an issue. Going from my SSDs, to my 10-bay NAS should max out ~800MB/s instead of the 100MB/s I have now... that would be amazing!
It would be nice to see some copper-only 10GBe switches for lower prices. The NIC side has gotten cheaper, but the switch side is still pretty high per port. Granted, it's more helpful in the enterprise, but I know I would be smiling if I could get it at home for cheap, even if my full use of it would be limited (mainly backups for me).
Yeah, my problem exactly. The cheapest I ever found was still over €400 for a switch. Even Netgear's relatively new, "cheap" unmanager ones cost a bit too much (XS505M/XS508M, €400 / €525) to switch.
Awesome! I bought an Aquantia card I believe last Black Friday also with a discount I saw on Anandtech but the 5G card. This year I'll grab two 10G cards (the black PCB, I'm a sucker for that).
I wish anandtech would review some network chipsets so we could make informed decisions about what to use for gaming or transferring files. I am using an integrated AQC107 on my gaming desktop to connect to my 10Gbe switch for fast transfers to a few servers, but I don't have any idea how good or bad it is compared to other network chipsets from a latency, CPU, or FPS perspective. I assume it is fine, but the fact that it is so much cheaper than the competition makes me somewhat weary of it's impact on my system performance.
Reviewing networking hardware is actually quite difficult. Beyond peak throughput, there's a question of power, latency, congestion/QoS, and all having the right setup to do so. Power, for example, is a painful one to crack. There have been a lot of bad networking controller reviews over the years that go beyond a simple peak throughput test. I once asked our audience and the list of requirements was very long and beyond my expertise.
Thx for answering anyway. I have always been wondering whether AQC107 in the Mac are any good. But my guess ( hopefully I am right ) is that all NBase-T are good enough, the rest is just power usage and price.
I can tell you from experience that not all base-t 10Gb nics are good enough. There is so much going on in the hardware and software, unless you are a networking guru it's very hard to configure and track down issues. And even then there can be issues that can't be solved.
The catch is that most of the AQC-107 cards do not have Mac compatible firmware. macOS 10.3.3 (and only 10.3.3) has a "bug" in the ACQ-107 driver that'll update 3rd party cards with updated Mac firmware. Once that happens though, it'll work fine including AVB audio of the network capabilities. Pretty neat since macOS natively supports AVB audio output over the network. I have been leveraging this with VLC to output 7.1 audio from Blu-ray rips to a network DSP I also own.
Once the Aquantia NIC firmware has been flashed via the macOS 10.3.3 "bug" to work with macOS, then there may be a problem with finding working Windows drivers, if the machine is dual-boot: Windows & macOS.
Black goes with most things, but you could opt for the Pro model and get green.
Interestingly, it seems the difference between the 10G and 10G Pro is the former (!) has a SFP+ port (and smaller heatsink). I would've expected the "Pro" model to have the SFP+ and non-pro to have RJ45.
Also, if you've only got a x1 slot, you can opt for one of the 5G cards. The 10G models require a x4 slot.
The focus is on the hardware & software stack reduction in latency and bloat. Software stacks and hardware can absolutely add some ms to latency. It's dubious as usual. But it's silly to pretend that doesn't exist especially when enterprise solutions cost $$$$ for the very purpose of reducing latency with expensive ASICs & PCB layouts and a real-time OS within the system itself (router & switch).
Would be nice if they ran the same or a similar deal on Amazon UK. But the card in question is out of stock there anyway; only ASUS's branded equivalent is available - at ~£91 each: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071JR2ZW8/
That's what I used to say, too. Then I found 8 and 12 port 10Nbase-T switches from Buffalo based on Aquantia 4x chips (407 for the 10Gbit part). They retail at around $50/port and fit my definition of "affordable" since they are below the NIC price per port.
They are a bit noisy but I fixed that the hard way.
I've seen a Thunderbolt 3 version of the ACQ-107 announced from Akitio. I know Sonnet offers a Thunderbolt 3 10 Gbit Ethernet adapter as well but I am unsure of the chip being used for it.
The thing about the Aquantia ACQ-107/108 is that is also supports AVB which supports prioritization in both directions has well as hard bandwidth allocation at the switch level. This permits deterministic latency.
If Aquantia's software can encapsulate ordinary application traffic into an AVB stream, that'd actually be huge news. From the article though, it reads like this is just a rehash for previous QoS schemes.
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DanNeely - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
Just running a direct connection from my PC to my NAS (in addition to the one via my router) isn't that exciting. The bundle I want is 2 cards and a 4 port switch or router so I can have the core of a high speed network in place as additional machines are upgraded.CaedenV - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
For now I don't mind setting up a 2nd direct connection to my server. As long as it is a separate vlan, it should not pose much of an issue. Going from my SSDs, to my 10-bay NAS should max out ~800MB/s instead of the 100MB/s I have now... that would be amazing!romrunning - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
It would be nice to see some copper-only 10GBe switches for lower prices. The NIC side has gotten cheaper, but the switch side is still pretty high per port. Granted, it's more helpful in the enterprise, but I know I would be smiling if I could get it at home for cheap, even if my full use of it would be limited (mainly backups for me).nagi603 - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Yeah, my problem exactly. The cheapest I ever found was still over €400 for a switch. Even Netgear's relatively new, "cheap" unmanager ones cost a bit too much (XS505M/XS508M, €400 / €525) to switch.CheapSushi - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
Awesome! I bought an Aquantia card I believe last Black Friday also with a discount I saw on Anandtech but the 5G card. This year I'll grab two 10G cards (the black PCB, I'm a sucker for that).oRAirwolf - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
I wish anandtech would review some network chipsets so we could make informed decisions about what to use for gaming or transferring files. I am using an integrated AQC107 on my gaming desktop to connect to my 10Gbe switch for fast transfers to a few servers, but I don't have any idea how good or bad it is compared to other network chipsets from a latency, CPU, or FPS perspective. I assume it is fine, but the fact that it is so much cheaper than the competition makes me somewhat weary of it's impact on my system performance.Ian Cutress - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
Reviewing networking hardware is actually quite difficult. Beyond peak throughput, there's a question of power, latency, congestion/QoS, and all having the right setup to do so. Power, for example, is a painful one to crack. There have been a lot of bad networking controller reviews over the years that go beyond a simple peak throughput test. I once asked our audience and the list of requirements was very long and beyond my expertise.iwod - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Thx for answering anyway. I have always been wondering whether AQC107 in the Mac are any good. But my guess ( hopefully I am right ) is that all NBase-T are good enough, the rest is just power usage and price.Dug - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
I can tell you from experience that not all base-t 10Gb nics are good enough.There is so much going on in the hardware and software, unless you are a networking guru it's very hard to configure and track down issues. And even then there can be issues that can't be solved.
Kevin G - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
The catch is that most of the AQC-107 cards do not have Mac compatible firmware. macOS 10.3.3 (and only 10.3.3) has a "bug" in the ACQ-107 driver that'll update 3rd party cards with updated Mac firmware. Once that happens though, it'll work fine including AVB audio of the network capabilities. Pretty neat since macOS natively supports AVB audio output over the network. I have been leveraging this with VLC to output 7.1 audio from Blu-ray rips to a network DSP I also own.vailr - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Once the Aquantia NIC firmware has been flashed via the macOS 10.3.3 "bug" to work with macOS, then there may be a problem with finding working Windows drivers, if the machine is dual-boot: Windows & macOS.CaedenV - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
"color matching for any gaming PC"Any color you want, as long as its black
-Henry Ford
mode_13h - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
Black goes with most things, but you could opt for the Pro model and get green.Interestingly, it seems the difference between the 10G and 10G Pro is the former (!) has a SFP+ port (and smaller heatsink). I would've expected the "Pro" model to have the SFP+ and non-pro to have RJ45.
Also, if you've only got a x1 slot, you can opt for one of the 5G cards. The 10G models require a x4 slot.
koaschten - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
I am confused, how does this network card and software influence ping/latency beyond my home router?koaschten - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
(sarcmark)CheapSushi - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
The focus is on the hardware & software stack reduction in latency and bloat. Software stacks and hardware can absolutely add some ms to latency. It's dubious as usual. But it's silly to pretend that doesn't exist especially when enterprise solutions cost $$$$ for the very purpose of reducing latency with expensive ASICs & PCB layouts and a real-time OS within the system itself (router & switch).GreenReaper - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Would be nice if they ran the same or a similar deal on Amazon UK. But the card in question is out of stock there anyway; only ASUS's branded equivalent is available - at ~£91 each:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071JR2ZW8/
CrazyElf - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
One big bottleneck remains the lack of affordable 10G RJ45 switches. This is perhaps the biggest barrier to true 10G adoption.abufrejoval - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
That's what I used to say, too. Then I found 8 and 12 port 10Nbase-T switches from Buffalo based on Aquantia 4x chips (407 for the 10Gbit part). They retail at around $50/port and fit my definition of "affordable" since they are below the NIC price per port.They are a bit noisy but I fixed that the hard way.
abufrejoval - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Is anyone selling the USB 3.0 variant of the 108 chip set?Or perhaps even a USB 3.1 variant of the 107?
I have some portable workstations that I'd like to connect at something better than 120MB/s to my 10Gbit LAN server with its SSD based Steam cache.
Kevin G - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
I've seen a Thunderbolt 3 version of the ACQ-107 announced from Akitio. I know Sonnet offers a Thunderbolt 3 10 Gbit Ethernet adapter as well but I am unsure of the chip being used for it.Kevin G - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
The thing about the Aquantia ACQ-107/108 is that is also supports AVB which supports prioritization in both directions has well as hard bandwidth allocation at the switch level. This permits deterministic latency.If Aquantia's software can encapsulate ordinary application traffic into an AVB stream, that'd actually be huge news. From the article though, it reads like this is just a rehash for previous QoS schemes.
vailr - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Something to consider before purchase: the Aquantia 2.5 & 5.0 Gb PCIe NICs only require PCIe 1x slots, while the 10 Gb NIC requires a PCIe 4x slot.Godaniabilo - Thursday, November 22, 2018 - link
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