Does USB Ethernet Adapter Throttle?

[TimLampen]

Hi There,

 

I was wondering if there would be a noticeable difference between using a direct ethernet cable to my laptop, or using an ethernet to usb adapter connected to a usb 3.0 port.

 

Thanks,

Tim

[Mephi00]

It depends on what bandwidth your normal ethernet would run

Of its more than 5Gb/s it for sure does.

It might add a little bit of delay

[Electronics Wizardy]

for gigabit ethernet it normally doesn't matter, most usb3 to gigabit ethernet adapters I have used will easily get >900mbit/s,

 

A pcie nic(like the one built into most boards), generally has lower cpu over head and better driver compatibility so use it if you can.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Basically what they said, unless its a choice between Gigabit on-board and faster over USB.

 

USB-C 2.5Gbit Realtek to Switch to 10Gbit NAS:

PING 192.168.1.253 (192.168.1.253) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.274 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.249 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.270 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.265 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.202 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=0.216 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=0.195 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.253: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=0.173 ms

On-board Intel Gigabit to Atheros Gigabit NAS:

PING 192.168.192.253 (192.168.192.253) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.200 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.123 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.157 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.192 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.202 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=0.196 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=0.119 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.192.253: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=0.202 ms

As for CPU overhead, its there on USB but on modern hardware, not sure you'd notice the difference.

Any particular reason you are asking?