Intel 2.5G Ethernet Controller Support Continues Being Prepped For The Next Linux Kernel

[wswartzendruber]

We have a chicken and egg problem here. I cannot help but notice that Cat-5E is the norm for new construction. I believe this is done because Cat-6 and Cat-6A cost more and do not provide any present return on investment. So if this is the case, why should vendors put out products that go beyond 1 Gbps given there is little market for them?

In realizing this, Intel putting out a 2.5 Gbps adapter makes the most sense, as that is the part of NBASE-T that targets everyone's existing Cat-5E installations (for the full 100 meters). For those who do not know, this 2.5x speed increase over 1000BASE-T was achieved by applying 10GBASE-T's modulation at the lower frequencies Cat-5E can handle. This modulation also allows for 5 Gbps over Cat-6 (also at the full 100 meters).

[MrMorden]

There have been 2.5/5G cards for a while; but non-enterprise switches have been completely nonexistent for pretty much the entire time. Netgear's basic 10G unmanaged switch that supports 2.5/5 (XS508M) costs $600, which is a lot more expensive than it should be given how long the NICs have been out.

[M@GOid]

Only the cheap laptops have Fast Ethernet (many laptops don't have any ethernet ports too), and there I can understand it, as 99% of the laptop users will never even see a ethernet cable in their home.

I've never seen a modern x86 mobo with Fast Ethernet from normal OEMs, can you make some examples? I'm curious.

I think the gigabit wifi router vanishing thing is local to your country, or some jackass is inflating prices of what is cheap in the rest of the world. I can get a new TP-link AC1200 for like 60 euros, on Ebay I can get loads of used gigabit stuff for 40 euros or so.

The fast Ethernet is on the kind of mobo no self respect user will buy. I have seem some, but they are not really common. Of course you have the ARM boards, but those are not on my mind when I cited this.

As of routers, is not the case where I can't find them, jut they are not as cheap as they used to. TP-Link and others used to offer some cheap Gb routers, but now you will only find them on more sophisticated models. That opened a wide gap between cheap, 100/150mbps wifi routers and the cheapest one with Gb Ethernet. Of course you can find cheap used stuff, but this is something I noticed on the market here in Brazil.

A while ago I saw a review on the Small Net Builder website, where the reviewer said that most common users will not really take advantage of a Gb router, and the market adjusted accordingly. Them I saw that situation when I tried to shop for a new unit and given up, since I don't have a need for up to date routers.

[hajj_3]

A lot of you guys are mocking 2.5Gbps ethernet, you shouldn't. 10Gbps ethernet chips use around 8 watts, 5Gbps and 2.5Gbps use way less. Laptop manufacturers aren't going to put 8watt ethernet chips in laptops but they might be willing to put a 2 watt 2.5Gbps port. Also gigabit ethernet bottlenecks modern mechanical harddrives. 240MB/s is around the max you can get from a 7200rpm brand new 3.5" harddrive yet gigabit ethernet can only manage around 105MB/s. A 2.5Gbps ethernet port should let you max out your harddrive speed. A 2.5Gbps ethernet chip in a switch will allow 2 x 1 gigabit ethernet ports to max out simultaneously instead of having to share 1Gbps between the 2 ports.

[torsionbar28]

I've been on gigabit ethernet for the entirety of my owning-computers-life.

You're making me feel old, lol. My first home Ethernet network was on 10 Base-2 (thin coax) at 10 Mb/s. I thought I was hot stuff, sharing my 2400 bps dial-up internet connection with my neighbor, by running guerrilla Ethernet across the yard to his house! That was probably 1992 or so. I held off on upgrading to 100 Mb/s Ethernet for a while, because I didn't like the cables - those little plastic RJ45 connectors were so fragile compared with the coax BNC T-connectors and terminators. Gig-E was great for the datacenter when it was new, but the switches required big loud fans to keep them cool, so not really suitable for home use. I didn't upgrade to Gig-E at home until they had shrunk the chips enough that they could be passively cooled with no noisy fans. Now we're in the same boat with 10g. I guess it will be a while yet before 25g or 40g Ethernet makes it into the home. The 25g Ethernet we have at work has some real monster fans and heatsinks on the cards! Amazing how LAN speeds have ramped up over the years.

[Slithery]

We have a chicken and egg problem here. I cannot help but notice that Cat-5E is the norm for new construction. I believe this is done because Cat-6 and Cat-6A cost more and do not provide any present return on investment.

New construction is Cat-6 whenever I've wired a property. Cable cost is pretty much irrelevant between 5/6 as the installation costs are orders of magnitude higher.

Although I do always leave myself some way of pulling new cables just in case of future breakthroughs/upgrades

[wswartzendruber]

Although I do always leave myself some way of pulling new cables just in case of future breakthroughs/upgrades

I just ran shielded Cat-6A STP the first time around. Grounded at the patch panel.

[edwaleni]

10GbE is around $140 a managed port in the enterprise space. You can get a unmanaged port for around $85 a port. Widespread adoption usually occurs when it gets below $50 a port.

The biggest issue is RF interference and cable lengths with 10GBASE-T. Many of the NIC's adaptively turn down the speed based on the quality cable used. And you can't run down to the local store and get new SC fiber after you accidentally step on it or close the rack door on it and crimp it. (for home lab users that is)

I skipped it and use Infiniband adapters and run Ethernet over it. With coax, I see about 8Gbps.

Honestly, many of the mid-priced consumer boards I tested couldn't even handle the throughput. This maybe why Intel is keeping the speed limits artificially low. So they can keep the low cost consumer boards cheap.

[starshipeleven]

A lot of you guys are mocking 2.5Gbps ethernet, you shouldn't. 10Gbps ethernet chips use around 8 watts, 5Gbps and 2.5Gbps use way less. Laptop manufacturers aren't going to put 8watt ethernet chips in laptops but they might be willing to put a 2 watt 2.5Gbps port.

I wasn't among those that asked for ultraslim bullshit requiring ultra-low-power components for no real reason.

I would gladly have a 5-10Gbit ethernet over a random low-end "dedicated" crap laptop card that is just wasting power.

Also, most OEMs are also trying to remove ethernet ports just because they need to make stuff slimmer, not just because of power consumption.

Also gigabit ethernet bottlenecks modern mechanical harddrives. 240MB/s is around the max you can get from a 7200rpm brand new 3.5" harddrive yet gigabit ethernet can only manage around 105MB/s.

Filesharing has a ton of overhead, realistic speeds are more like 80 MB/s for SEQUENTIAL multiGB transfers and much less for transfers involving small files due to latency involved.

Which is why a 10Gbit ethernet is interesting, you can parallelize more and workaround a bit the latency issue.

[starshipeleven]

A while ago I saw a review on the Small Net Builder website, where the reviewer said that most common users will not really take advantage of a Gb router, and the market adjusted accordingly. Them I saw that situation when I tried to shop for a new unit and given up, since I don't have a need for up to date routers.

I repeat that I'm not seeing this in the EU. See here for example Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...gigabit+router

You can get a new gigabit wifi router for 50-60 UK money thingy, which translate in 56 to 67 euros, which isn't a lot here.

I'm pretty sure they were not selling gigabit stuff for 30 euros or less at any point in time here. And that they never stopped selling Fast Ethernet stuff, it just became cheaper with time.

That reviewer is right, most people don't need it, as they only need wifi for internet access. Ethernet ports are rarely used in most home setups.
Many also have already a decent home router and just need a bucket of cheap access points to have decent coverage in their house.
I can get a bunch of new fast-ethernet wifi-n access points for like 15-25 euros, I did set up pretty great home wifi networks by just pulling a ethernet wire and attaching one of these things on the other end of the house.

This imho is why Fast Ethernet stuff is still available at all, and dirt cheap at that. Because people use mostly wifi, which won't reach anywhere near Fast Ethernet anyway.

I didn't see the swap and price markup you saw in Brazi, maybe you actually had that, maybe you are mistaken, I can't say. I'm just saying that I don't think it was a global phenomenon.