10gbe network card recommendations?

Adam4kq · September 12, 2019

Thanks for taking the time to read and recommend!

We have a professionally installed 10gbe network in our office to connect individual workstations to a pair of 120TB NASs (we are a small television production company). As the office geek, when it came time to upgrade our computers, the job fell to me to build seven new PCs. Everything went very smoothly, but since then I've had two of the seven 10gbe network adapter cards fail, which is starting to make me question the quality of the cards I purchased. So far, it's been no issue to just swap them out and exchange them, but rather than do this dance every few weeks or so, I'd love it if the experts here could recommend something more robust and reliable than what I've originally purchased. I understand it will cost more, but down time at the wrong moment can be a disaster for us.

The ones we have now are the Asus XG-C100C. I purchased these because the price was extremely reasonable, and I've had a lot of positive experience with Asus components. Also, all of the motherboards I spec'd for these machines are Asus, so I figured it might had off any compatibility issues. I did read up, and at the time there were no significant negative reviews on them.

EDIT: Forgot to add, looking for a card with an RJ45 style port, to save me from having to re-do all of the cable runs in the office!

If anyone has any recommendations on better options, I would be extremely grateful.

Cheers!

-Adam

For Science! · September 12, 2019

6 minutes ago, Adam4kq said:

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Perhaps also post a picture of one of the PCs? There may also be an underlying reason why so many cards have failed in a short amount of time.

Anghammarad · September 12, 2019

Try to go for Intel or Melanox 10g adapters... but no matter what brand, those beasts need cooling... so the cases need a good airflow cooling that cards.

mariushm · September 12, 2019

The ASUS cards use an Aquantia chipset which doesn't really have negative reviews, and isn't known to fail often.

It is a chip that heats quite well, but the Asus card has a decent heatsink so heating shouldn't be an issue.

If you don't mind sticking to same chip or you want something cheaper, there's Aquantia made cards on Amazon for 80$ :

Aquantia AQtion 10G Pro : https://www.amazon.com/Aquantia-NIC-5-Speed-Ethernet-Network/dp/B07B3G4S4J/

Aquantia AQtion 10G Gaming (just blue pcb i think) : https://www.amazon.com/Aquantia-NIC-5-Speed-Ethernet-Network/dp/B07C5VLVFF/

Adam4kq · September 12, 2019

24 minutes ago, For Science! said:

Perhaps also post a picture of one of the PCs? There may also be an underlying reason why so many cards have failed in a short amount of time.

Like, a picture of the internal arrangement? I can do that later when I take a computer out of service. Is there something I should be looking for? I made sure that each of these machines has plenty of airflow and cooling, and we work in a climate-controlled office.

EDIT: Also should have mentioned: One was dead out of the box, the other failed after two weeks in a machine.

ANOTHER EDIT: If it helps, these machines were built inside Fractal Design Define R6 cases, with two 140mm front intake fans, one 140mm rear exhaust fans, and a Corsair H100i 240mm AIO top mounted with top exhaust. The cases were changed to the open internal configuration (removal of the HDD cage). Other specs are as follows:

Processor: i9 9900K

Motherboard: Asus Maximus XI Hero

RAM: 64GB Corsair Vengance 3200MHz

Storage: 1TB M.2 NVME, 2TB HDD

GPU: Asus Strix OC RTX 2080ti

PSU: Corsair RM850x

-Adam

mariushm · September 12, 2019

Something more expensive would be the Intel x540 cards. Search for X540-T1 (single 10g) or X540-T2 (dual 10g), you'll find them starting from around 110$:

t1 : https://www.ebay.com/itm/X540T1-X540-T1-Original-Intel-10GB-CONVERGED-NETWORK-ADAPTER-X540T1BLK/181971243921

t1 : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-X540-T1-Ethernet-Converged-Network-Adapter-Card-W-Blue-Sticker-on-Back/193083422038

t1 : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-X540T1BLK-Ethernet-Converged-Network-Adapter-X540-T1/323830681264

t1 : https://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-Intel-X540-T1-10G-RJ45-1-Port-S-Ethernet-Converged-Network-Adapter/113848670276 (low profile)

t1: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-X540-T1-Single-Port-PCI-E-x8-Ethernet-Converged-Network-Adapter-OEM-RJ45/192269890125?epid=2244542631 (asian seller)

You can buy with low profile bracket, and buy separate standard height bracket, they cost <5$ on ebay, you can exchange brackets easily

t2 : 80$ Dell OEM version with fan : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Intel-X540-T2-Dual-Port-10GBASE-T-Server-Adapter-Dell-Version-DP-N-03DFV8/152816808755

t2 : 82$ same as above, asian seller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/INTEL-X520-T2-10GB-DUAL-PORT-ETHERNET-SERVER-ADAPTER-DELL-JM42W-Both-brackets/123841412561

t2 : 100$ same as above, asian seller : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Dell-X540-T2-Genuine-CONVERGED-DUAL-PORT-NETWORK-ADAPTER-K7H46-3DFV8-10GbE/123136079032

t2 but passive heatsink asian seller : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-X540-T2-10G-Dual-RJ45-Ports-PCI-Express-Ethernet-Converged-Network-Adapter/122370953362

t2 passive heatsink asian seller : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-OEM-X540-T2-10G-PCI-Express-Dual-RJ45-Ports-Ethernet-Network-Adapter/192132236585

99$ Supermicro AOC-STG-i2T (Intel X540-AT2), asian seller : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-AOC-STG-i2T-Dual-Port-10GbE-Ethernet-PCI-E-Adapter-NIC-Intel-X540-AT2/123565161586