Friday, October 5th 2018

Realtek Bringing 2.5 Gbps Gamer/Focused Ethernet Connections to the Mainstream Market

Realtek in June announced their new family of multi-gig, 2.5 Gbps-enabling chips, to be integrated in all manner of consumer electronics in the short run. The family of controllers are of the integrated ASIC type with self-contained firmware and self-contained, single-chip solutions. The 2.5 G push will be spread out across three chips: the RTL8125 PCIe 2.0 x1 controller for PC applications; the RTL8156 USB 3.1 controller for dongles and docking applications; and the RTL8226 transceiver for routers and switches.

Of course, this isn't as big a jump as could have been done; however, remember that Realtek plays in the high-volume, low cost market, and slower adoption rates in the mainstream market are par-of-the-course. Realtek's 2.5G Ethernet controllers have now been deployed first on ASRock's new Z390 Phantom Gaming series motherboards, and are being marketed as one of the biggest selling points for the new series of motherboards.
Source: AnandTech
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40 Comments on Realtek Bringing 2.5 Gbps Gamer/Focused Ethernet Connections to the Mainstream Market

#26
Camm
Would prefer 10Gb/s to become ubiquitous over 2.5, but I'll take any upgrade personally.

People can argue about its utility, but I'm not sure why any of us are arguing about the ability to do things faster.
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#27
Makaveli
noel_fs
People doesn't even have 100mbps yet but lets give them 2.5gbps isntead of quality heatsinks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm on a 500Mbps connection and 1 Gbps is available.

That graph doesn't speak for everyone.
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#28
lexluthermiester
GasarakiIt's called progress. If everything ever made was just what people need at this moment in time, there would be no progression.
Yes but to have true progress in this area of tech we also need ISP's to increase bandwidth and speeds to match. While fiber is being deployed all over the place, most people are still on DSL&Cable, both of which such by comparison.
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#29
remixedcat
Oh and the stuff about Intel NICs is true they do have good performance. Most servers use them followed by Broadcom NeteXtreme. Very few Realteks or anything else in the datacenter market.

Intel's wireless cards have been more stable lately than BCM/QCA/RTL/MTK. Hence why more enterprise laptops ship with those insted of the cheap realtek or mediatek crap you find in HP consumer laptops that is a nitemare. BCM is stable as long as you don't have any recent windows 10 build. Still finicky on my Dell Latitude E5420, but not near as bad as my win 10 tablet's BCM is.
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#30
king of swag187
Makavelii'm on a 500Mbps connection and 1 Gbps is available.

That graph doesn't speak for everyone.
That graph is wildly inaccurate, and besides the use of this is for NAS's and the like
I personally have 300/30, but I think the average in the US is somewhere around 25/5?
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#31
AnarchoPrimitiv
I think the jump should be made to 5gbps at least....I went ahead and made a 10GBase-T home network with a refurbished netgear 28 port switch and it's had so many advantages that I honestly couldn't go back to 1gig and although I'm sure many would be happy with a 2.5x increase in speed, I feel like 2.5gbps is an extremely temporary stopgap that'll be phased out before it's even widely adopted. I think 10gig equipment in another year will be cheap enough to argue for its widespread adoption, and that's why I dont see the point in buying a switch with a 2.5gig limit.
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#32
Jism
TheLostSwedeHuh? Welcome to 2018, lots of people have 10Gbps at home. I'm connected to my NAS over 10Gbps and it makes it act like it was local drives in my PC. The bonus is that I don't need to sit and listen to the spinning rust noise. Yes, 10Gbps is still costly, hence why 2.5 and 5Gbps is happening, although at least for now, 5Gbps isn't really much cheaper than 10Gbps.

With Realtek stepping into the 2.5Gbps arena means that we're going to see sub $10 costs for 2.5Gbps and as pointed out above, it runs over normal Cat 5e cables, so no need for fancy cables to make it work, unlike 10Gbps.

Why wouldn't you want faster Ethernet? No-one backs up over their network? Copies files? Or is everyone really using Wi-Fi and that's it? I would go crazy if I had to put up with Wi-Fi speeds for backups.

This is NOT a marketing scheme, it's a real thing and it has tangible benefits for most people. No, it's not going to improve gaming, no it doesn't require a faster internet connection. It will require faster switches/routers though, which is a downside of it, but it still works with Gigabit hardware. There are no downsides to this, only upsides.

But hey, let's only make things that are just good enough to what we need today. Why bother trying to improve things? Let's go back to coal power and two stroke engines while we're at it, or why not, steam engines...
Haha, ok, your right about the NAS and home network thing. But still, offering 2.5Gb and calling it a gaming nic does'nt change any of your "gaming experience" in the first place. The Killer NIC was a busted nic interface which showed that it would not perform better compared to a Intel nic.

I hate the trends these days, gaming this, RGB that, every manufactor is jumping on that bandwagon and barely a few stick to real sexy hardware designs. You dont need to RGB the shit out of components to be honest.
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#33
R-T-B
JismHaha, ok, your right about the NAS and home network thing. But still, offering 2.5Gb and calling it a gaming nic does'nt change any of your "gaming experience" in the first place
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. But we are arguing there ARE other benefits, gamer or not.

In other news, I just finished upgrading my network to CAT-6A PIMF in anticipation for 10Gbps and I can tell you most users aren't going to like the fact that you are supposed to ground/earth the cable shield somehow...
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#34
Xajel
RavenlordYou are wrong. It's just higher bandwidth, not speed. It can only increase speed if You are fully utilizing 1GB ethernet.
No sir you're wrong, While having more bandwidth doesn't mean always more speed if the latency gets worse for example. But the 2.5, 5.0 & 10gbps standards are using higher clocks than regular 1gbps. That means the latency also should be lower too.

So in theory, a 2.5gbps connection should be faster in LAN parties even if the games doesn't use all the available bandwidth they have.
Posted on Reply
#35
Ravenlord
XajelNo sir you're wrong, While having more bandwidth doesn't mean always more speed if the latency gets worse for example. But the 2.5, 5.0 & 10gbps standards are using higher clocks than regular 1gbps. That means the latency also should be lower too.

So in theory, a 2.5gbps connection should be faster in LAN parties even if the games doesn't use all the available bandwidth they have.
False.
I have no idea what are You talking about.
More bandwith it's always more bandwith and it's theoretical value. What are You even comparing? Read second post about "Speed". There shouldn't be any differences in latency in local network, because both connected devices must be synced with same speed. Those higher clocks are needed because hardware must compute more network data at once, thats why those are using faster chips. Overall network data isn't being send faster, but can be computed faster and less amount of data is buffered which can result marginally lower latency. Still it depends on hardware manufacturer, not ethernet standard, which network processor is being used in our currently used hardware.
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#36
noel_fs
Makavelii'm on a 500Mbps connection and 1 Gbps is available.

That graph doesn't speak for everyone.
Yes, it speak for literally 99.9% world population, im talking with a 300mbps connection and have 1gbps connection avaliable which is useless for 99% consumers and if you need a really high speed lan connection just buy a pcie card 4head. But you know what everyone is gonna need independently which connection they have, a quality heatsink and hot this shit:
.
Posted on Reply
#37
Makaveli
noel_fsYes, it speak for literally 99.9% world population, im talking with a 300mbps connection and have 1gbps connection avaliable which is useless for 99% consumers and if you need a really high speed lan connection just buy a pcie card 4head. But you know what everyone is gonna need independently which connection they have, a quality heatsink and hot this shit:
.
It does not speak for 99.9% and you don't have the hard data to backup that claim.

You also can't just throw everyone under the Consumer bucket then assume their needs.
Posted on Reply
#38
noel_fs
MakaveliIt does not speak for 99.9% and you don't have the hard data to backup that claim.

You also can't just throw everyone under the Consumer bucket then assume their needs.
So you are saying that I can't do it but you can? Your arguments are just overwhelming.

Because I'm throwing everyone to the bucket of no one needs 2.5gbps and if someone that needs it go buy a 10gbps are you are set up for years. While you are saying the opposite I assume if you completely disagree with my statement, that is, you think everyone should have the 2.5gbps because not everyone is in the same bucket.
So you are actually doing the same as me by doing the opposite, with the exception I'm trying to be realistic, with that I mean, it might not be 99.99% world's population doesn't need a 2.5gbps connection, which I'm quite confident it is 99% but even if not, what would you say is it, 90%, 80%, 70% or are you gonna troll and say most people need it? Furthermore, how many people do you know that need or have just 1gbps in their homes?

So you are speaking for yourself and taking for granted that everybody should have 2.5gbps instead of quality heatsinks (for example) because you actually need it, but when I do throw everybody to the same bucket in a realistically manner your counter argument is that graphs from most pupulated/advanced countries doesn't backup my claim.

Just to clarify you, gaming is oriented for a consumer level, so yeah, I'm totally right throwing everyone to a consumer level. If you need high speed lan connections you don't buy gaming motherboards.
Posted on Reply
#39
Makaveli
noel_fsSo you are saying that I can't do it but you can? Your arguments are just overwhelming.

Because I'm throwing everyone to the bucket of no one needs 2.5gbps and if someone that needs it go buy a 10gbps are you are set up for years. While you are saying the opposite I assume if you completely disagree with my statement, that is, you think everyone should have the 2.5gbps because not everyone is in the same bucket.
So you are actually doing the same as me by doing the opposite, with the exception I'm trying to be realistic, with that I mean, it might not be 99.99% world's population doesn't need a 2.5gbps connection, which I'm quite confident it is 99% but even if not, what would you say is it, 90%, 80%, 70% or are you gonna troll and say most people need it? Furthermore, how many people do you know that need or have just 1gbps in their homes?

So you are speaking for yourself and taking for granted that everybody should have 2.5gbps instead of quality heatsinks (for example) because you actually need it, but when I do throw everybody to the same bucket in a realistically manner your counter argument is that graphs from most pupulated/advanced countries doesn't backup my claim.

Just to clarify you, gaming is oriented for a consumer level, so yeah, I'm totally right throwing everyone to a consumer level. If you need high speed lan connections you don't buy gaming motherboards.
lol its like you are arguing with yourself.

Where did I say everyone should have 2.5Gbps connections Quote that in my post please?

Your graph is incorrect, you don't have the data to back these percent claims and that is it.

I'm not the one posting graphs and making claims of percentages with no data to back it up the onus is on you to prove it not me.

I disagree with it and its that simple.

Have a good day sir.
Posted on Reply
#40
noel_fs
Makavelilol its like you are arguing with yourself.

Where did I say everyone should have 2.5Gbps connections Quote that in my post please?

Your graph is incorrect, you don't have the data to back these percent claims and that is it.

I'm not the one posting graphs and making claims of percentages with no data to back it up the onus is on you to prove it not me.

I disagree with it and its that simple.

Have a good day sir.
You are the one quoting me in the first place clearly disagreeing with me. My graph is incorret based in what, your dick length?

Lets quote people disagreening with them and when they argue something against I'm just gonna say I didn't have any argument so it's makes no sense replying to me.

You are retarded.
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