LAN Brands, Intel, Realtek, Aquantia, Rivet Networks

[G1K777]

Hi, I'm looking at the X570 Mainboards and would like to know if there is any difference between those LAN brands.

Does Intel work better also on AMD? Is Intel more stable than Realtek etc?

[Windows7ge]

I have not been keeping up with their latest products but years ago the general consensus was:

 

Always buy an Intel NIC (supposedly higher quality)

Avoid Realtek (supposedly lower quality)

 

I can't comment on the other brands. Things may be different now so take that with a grain of salt.

[Bananasplit_00]

i dont think what NIC is in it should be the main deciding factor tbh

[Wolly9102]

30 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Always buy an Intel NIC (supposedly higher quality)

Avoid Realtek (supposedly lower quality)

This is true for wifi cards. The realtek and Quallcomm's are crap. But for ethernet Nic's a realtek is just fine. I don't notice any difference between my old realtek equipped mobo and my current Intel one.

[Windows7ge]

2 hours ago, Wolly9102 said:

This is true for wifi cards. The realtek and Quallcomm's are crap. But for ethernet Nic's a realtek is just fine. I don't notice any difference between my old realtek equipped mobo and my current Intel one.

Part of it may have to do with features, features 95% of people will never use on their NICs. Intel may have better firmware when trying to run these functions (VLAN's maybe? Passing though to VMs? Jumbo Packets? RDMA?) than Realteks implementation.

 

This is just hypothetical. I'm not saying one way or the other. 

[Xplo1t]

Intel just has a lot of adoption of their adapters since the majority of servers, laptops and desktops over the years.  This has allowed them to build good interoperability between their networking and chipsets.  On an AMD platform, not sure it's matters as much, however Asmedia and Realtek seem to have issues at times.

[Alex Atkin UK]

10 hours ago, Wolly9102 said:

This is true for wifi cards. The realtek and Quallcomm's are crap. But for ethernet Nic's a realtek is just fine. I don't notice any difference between my old realtek equipped mobo and my current Intel one.

When I've tested I get consistently closer to Gigabit on Intel than Realtek.  Aquantia is relatively new and pretty much your only affordable option for 10Gbit on motherboards I believe.  As a home user, I doubt you'd ever be hitting the maximum anyway so any difference is unimportant unless its impacting actual CPU utilisation.

Same goes for if you want 2.5Gbit, Realtek is the only affordable option right now and even with a USB-C adapter I can get 2.25Gbit.  Not really worth worrying about the fact I might get higher with a different brand, as if that was the be-all then pay the premium for 10Gbit instead. (I can't anyway, as I have no empty PCIe slot)

[Alex Atkin UK]

10 hours ago, Wolly9102 said:

This is true for wifi cards. The realtek and Quallcomm's are crap. But for ethernet Nic's a realtek is just fine. I don't notice any difference between my old realtek equipped mobo and my current Intel one.

That depends, Qualcomm is often the only viable option when trying to setup an Access Point.  Its generally your best bet on a router when wanting to run OpenWRT.

[Donut417]

On 8/24/2019 at 8:46 AM, G1K777 said:

Hi, I'm looking at the X570 Mainboards and would like to know if there is any difference between those LAN brands.

Does Intel work better also on AMD? Is Intel more stable than Realtek etc?

WiFi wise Intel is regarded on having some of the best chip. Cable modem wise you would want to go with a modem with Broadcom, as Intel has failed hard with the Puma 6 chip. Ive even heard that the Puma 5 and 7's have issues as well. Router wise I think Broadcom also has chips that are more friendly to open source firmware. So it really depends on the device.