what slot to plug the asus xg-c100c card into

ASUS XG-C100C Review Rating

Summary

It is the cheapest pick on the market and it works as advertised on both Windows and Linux. Can't mutter really!

• Overall - ninety%

Pros

Affordable
Easier to implement than SFP+

Cons

• Buy from Amazon

The ASUS XG-C100C 10GbE nic has been effectually for a while at present. Amazon had it for £99 back in 2017, the price hasn't dropped much since then, you can pick it upwards for £80.99 currently, simply at this price, information technology easily the cheapest 10Gbps Ethernet selection on the marketplace.

If you don't mind using used parts and going downward the SFP connection route, 10Gbps networking can be a lot cheaper, merely information technology is less user-friendly to implement. You tin option up a Mikrotik Cloud Smart Switch for just £120 and used Mellanox Connectx cards for £30-l.

Affordable multi-gigabit switches (2.5Gbps and 10Gbps)

While the ASUS XG-C100C has e'er been affordable, switches are not. I covered the switches more item in a previous post, just for 10GbE you basically have Netgear GS110MX with only 2x10GbE ports and 8xGigabit at effectually £145, or the recently launched Zyxel XS1930-10 with eight x 10GbE RJ45 ports, then 2x 10-Gigabit fibre SFP+ port for about £440.

If you are willing to downgrade to 2.5GbE several new options, have launched recently making things much more affordable.

There is the Zyxel XGS1010-12 which is what I have bought and used in this review. This has 2x 10G SFP+ ports and 2x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports.

Or the best deal of all is the QNAP QSW-1105-5T with 5×ii.5GbE RJ45 ports. It is not available but nonetheless, but I accept information technology on backorder from Amazon for £108.00 and should be delivered onetime between 19 Aug – 24 Sep.

Features and Specification

• Hyper-fast 10Gbps Networking – Enjoy up to 10X-faster information-transfer speeds for bandwidth-demanding tasks.
• Complete Compatibility – XG-C100C is uniform with current network standards, including 10/v/2.5/1Gbps and 100Mbps, for seamless backward compatibility.
• Uniform with Windows and Linux – Supports Windows 10 and Linux Kernel 4.4 for flexible Os integration.
• RJ45 Port for Easy Migration – Hands upgrade to 10Gbps networking using standard copper network cables.
• Prioritize Your Games – Built-in Quality-of-Service (QoS) technology lets you prioritize bandwidth and supported gaming packets for a smoothen gaming experience.
• IEEE 802.3ab 1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet

Test set upwardly and

Day to day testing was washed through Zyxel XGS1010-12, then I was limited to ii.5Gbps. Yet, I also tested NIC with a straight connectedness to my server.

Both my server and primary PC used the PCIe3.0 10 eight slot, and my TerraMastert NAS used the 10GbE port. The card is backwards with PCIe iii.0/2.1/2.0 using four lanes.

All my cables are CAT6e which is compliant with 10Gbps, but brusk runs over CAT5e should besides piece of work.

10 Gbps Ethernet CAT Cablevision Compatibility – Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat6a

Many people will try and tell y'all to get Cat 7 or Cat 6a if you desire to achieve 10 Gbps, but this is non entirely accurate. Asus even have a prissy little graphic to show the requirements.

If y'all are on older Cat5e you need not worry too much, 10G should be possible up to 30M, at that place are non many cable in my dwelling running longer than this, though I do have some that wrap around the house.

Cat6 is 1 to exist conscientious of, information technology is not the same every bit Cat6a, with this you only become 55m, it is Cat6A that volition office at 10G over the full 100m.

There is no need to utilize Cat7 at all, simply information technology is rated at 100Gbps over 15m. If the price is similar, by all means, go for it, it has greater noise resistance then could exist a bit more than reliable, but it is unlikely to exist worth the cost.

PCIe Theoretical Max Bandwidth

If you use a lower PCIe, information technology may limit the bandwidth available, looking at some users reviews, this is the issue they may be experiencing.

PCIe iii.0 10 four runs at 3940MB/south, and x8 is 7880MB/southward so more than than enough.

PCIe Bandwidth	PCIe 1.0	PCIe ii.x	PCIe 3.0	PCIe 4.10
x1	250MB/due south	500MB/s	985MB/s	1969MB/due south
x4	1000MB/s	2000MB/s	3940MB/s	7876MB/due south
x8	2000MB/s	4000MB/s	7880MB/s	15752MB/s
x16	4000MB/s	8000MB/due south	15760MB/south	31504MB/s

Windows Installation

Concrete installation on both computers was easy, you just open up yous PC, slot information technology into a free PCIe slot. There are no additional cables similar you sometimes find on Wi-Fi cards.

However, in Windows, the carte du jour wasn't automatically detected, and so I had to switch back to my old NIC and download the drivers. A niggling disappointing because Windows picks upward nearly everything I put in it. Nevertheless, the installation was quick, piece of cake, and no bug were encountered.

Ubuntu Linux Installation

On a brighter notation, my Ubuntu server identified the carte immediately with no additional drivers, which is a relief because getting Mellanox SFP cards to work was a nightmare for me.

With it being Ubuntu server, I had to manually change the settings in the Netplan YAML file to the right NIC.

Performance

Most of my daily utilize is done via two.5Gbps through the Zyxel XGS1010-12 switch.

While limited to 2.5Gbps, the NIC performs exactly as expected. Large files transfers cap out at 280MB/southward staying consistently at this speed with no drops.

Using CrystalDisk on an SMB share of an SSD, the results were similarly impressive with write speeds hitting 296MB/south.

Linking upwardly my server and PC directly I am able to easily striking the summit write speeds of the SSD at around 500MB/s,

With my storage being the limiting gene of speed, moving to Jperf to test network speeds, I was able to striking speeds consistently above 9300Mbps with averages of 9450Mbps.

Toll and Competition

Amazing the ASUS XG-C100C has remained the cheapest option since launch sometime in 2017. Which shows how glacially slow the adoption of 10GbE has been within the consumer market.

The Buffalo LGY-PCIE-MG-WR is very shut, priced at but £82.49 simply looking at the specification they simply confirm back up for Windows 7-ten and Windows Server 2012 through to 2016.

The QNAP QXG-10G1T is priced at £97.98 it is equipped with the Aquantia AQtion AQC107 NIC that supports 10/5/2.5/1Gbps and 100Mbps speeds. It can then be installed in a Windows/Linux PC or compatible QNAP NAS.

10Gtek have an Intel X540 based menu for £175.99 which supports a wide range of operating systems including Windows and multiple versions of Linux. It uses PCI Limited 2.i X8.

So StarTech has an Intel X550 based bill of fare for £225.94 and even a dual-port choice for not much more at £267.14.

It is worth mentioning motherboard as well, many new models at present characteristic multi-gig ports, simply if you lot desire 10GbE, you are looking at paying quite a big premium. The cheapest AMD X570 motherboard I can observe with 10GbE is the MSI AMD Ryzen PRESTIGE X570 CREATION priced at around £440. The cheapest X570 options commencement at £153, and the cheapest model with ii.5GbE is the MSI Mag Tomahawk at around £220. So if y'all specifically want 10GbE rather than all the other features a premium motherboard offers, it will cheaper to buy this card.

Overall

So far the ASUS XG-C100C has worked without error, existence compatible with both my Linux and Windows systems and existence the cheapest pick on the marketplace. What more can y'all inquire for?

It may non offering quite the same level of performance some of the more expensive Intel-based cards accept, but domicile users and SOHO users will see little benefit from spending on a lot more for pocket-size performance gains.

With the shift to multi-gigabit networking, there is at present little reason for me to keep spinning hard drives in my PC as everything they store can be placed on my NAS or sever, and I can access them at the same speed every bit I would directly (give or accept).

With the premium cost 10GbE motherboards cost, buying a carve up card is a far more toll-efficient method to get 10GbE, though yous volition sacrifice a PCIe slot for it.

Overall, this is superb for my usage scenario, and I will probably purchase some other.

Last update on 2022-04-04 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

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Source: https://mightygadget.co.uk/asus-xg-c100c-10-gbps-ethernet-pci-e-network-interface-card-review/

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