MOBO is bottleneck to 1Gbps isp?

[RaputerXpert]

1000 Mbit is = to 1 Gbps, correct?

My motherboard's Ethernet max is 1 gigabit, So if I upgrade my ISP service to 1 Gbps it will never allow those bumps above 1 GB similar to those bumps I get with my 300 Mbps service where it will go to 350 or 400 Mbps sometimes.

 

So what can be done?

 

BTW, to go from 300 Mbps to 1 Gbps will cost $10 more per month.

[Zando_]

1000 mbps = 1 gbps yes. Bits, not bytes, gigabit speed is 125MB/s. And yeah, if your ISP allows slightly over gigabit, you won't be able to pull that as your NIC can't run any faster. That should not effect your decision to upgrade IMO, as gigabit is already a flat 2-3x increase over what you were getting. If you need/want that speed then it's worth the $10 jump. I used to have near gigabit (800mbps, commonly ran at 900mbps though) and found I didn't really take advantage of it, so I dropped down to 400 to save the money.

[BobVonBob]

Yes, you'll be capped to 1 gigabit if you buy gigabit internet. Your modem, router, switch, wiring, and network adapter (one or more of these may be the same device, ISPs usually give you a modem/router/switch combo unit) all probably cap out at 1 Gbps, so you won't get any faster than that. But, if you are going to take advantage of the gigabit networking, it's certainly not bad even if you don't sometimes get 110% of the advertised speed.

 

Keep an eye out for other benefits gigabit might bring too. For instance I have gigabit internet from my ISP because the gigabit plan doesn't have a data cap. I don't really take full advantage of the higher speed, but in an average month I will easily double the data cap of the lower speed plans. The upcharge to remove the data cap on the lower speed plans makes them the same price as gigabit, so why not?

[Zando_]

6 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

Keep an eye out for other benefits gigabit might bring too. For instance I have gigabit internet from my ISP because the gigabit plan doesn't have a data cap. I don't really take full advantage of the higher speed, but in an average month I will easily double the data cap of the lower speed plans. The upcharge to remove the data cap on the lower speed plans makes them the same price as gigabit, so why not?

Didn't think of this part. Higher download also often includes higher upload speeds, either a bit higher on coax (for me it hops from ~20mbps to 40+) or a lot higher if it's fiber as that'll be 1000/1000 vs 300/300. Overkill for most, but if you back anything up to the cloud or upload videos etc, can be quite nice. 

[OhioYJ]

39 minutes ago, RaputerXpert said:

So what can be done?

Well as mentioned you don't need to do anything about. However if you really wanted to, you could add a faster network card? You aren't stuck with what's built into your motherboard?

[Blue4130]

2 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

Well as mentioned you don't need to do anything about. However if you really wanted to, you could add a faster network card? You aren't stuck with what's built into your motherboard?

You could, but then you would probably just be limited by the ONT/ converter. Most are going to be 1gbe. I doubt many isp's are giving out hardware that has 2.5 or 10 gbe ports.

[OhioYJ]

13 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

You could, but then you would probably just be limited by the ONT/ converter. Most are going to be 1gbe. I doubt many isp's are giving out hardware that has 2.5 or 10 gbe ports.

My 2.5 GbE pfsense firewall port goes to a 10 GbE port on my ONT. So they are out there.  I primarily tried to keep my networking at least 2.5 GbE though for transfers between machines, not necessarily because I thought it was really holding my internet back.

 

I used this Intel card for my TrueNas build to get 2.5 GbE to it.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, OhioYJ said:

My 2.5 GbE pfsense firewall port goes to a 10 GbE port on my ONT. So they are out there.  I primarily tried to keep my networking at least 2.5 GbE though for transfers between machines, not necessarily because I thought it was really holding my internet back.

 

I used this Intel card for my TrueNas build to get 2.5 GbE to it.

They are out there, but I think it is still far from normal to have an ISP give out ONT with faster than gigabit ports. Heck, there are still ISP's that give out routers with 100mb ports, though that it getting much more rare.

[Donut417]

15 hours ago, RaputerXpert said:

So what can be done?

Depends on the ISP. You're ISP might only offer up to 1 Gbps, which means they dont over provision on that tier of service. If they offer more than 1 Gbps then you need equipment with faster Ethernet. For example Comcast my ISP offer up to 1.4 Gbps down I think currently. For me to get that service my option would be to buy an S33 cable modem that has a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port and find/build a router with a 2.5 Ethernet ports. 

[RaputerXpert]

15 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

I used this Intel card for my TrueNas build to get 2.5 GbE to it.

Could you, or anyone else, help me find or suggest a card closer to a max of say 1.5-1.75 Gb/s...something cheaper?

 

I am in no way judging you, but $80+ for me seems very high.

 

Thanks OhioYJ  

[Lurick]

35 minutes ago, RaputerXpert said:

Could you, or anyone else, help me find or suggest a card closer to a max of say 1.5-1.75 Gb/s...something cheaper?

 

I am in no way judging you, but $80+ for me seems very high.

 

Thanks OhioYJ  

You either get 1 gig or 2.5gig, there isn't something in between and that's about as cheap as they get for something reliable.

[OhioYJ]

2 hours ago, RaputerXpert said:

I am in no way judging you, but $80+ for me seems very high.

There are tons of cheaper options. $80, is because it's Intel. It will have the best compatibility across the board. No driver worries when running Linux, FreeBSD, etc. Things like WOL just work, etc. You'll notice most of the ones in the $30 range are ones that have the RealTek chipsets, which tend to have more issues, especially if you are running anything other than Windows.  So yes, $80 for a NIC, is painful, in some use cases, worth the extra money, as it will save you some headache.

 

If you are just surfing the internet, from Windows, a cheaper one is likely ok?

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

There are tons of cheaper options. $80, is because it's Intel. It will have the best compatibility across the board. No driver worries when running Linux, FreeBSD, etc. Things like WOL just work, etc. You'll notice most of the ones in the $30 range are ones that have the RealTek chipsets, which tend to have more issues, especially if you are running anything other than Windows.  So yes, $80 for a NIC, is painful, in some use cases, worth the extra money, as it will save you some headache.

 

If you are just surfing the internet, from Windows, a cheaper one is likely ok?

To be fair, I've got two Realtek 2.5Gbit USB adapters and they have none of the problems traditionally found with Realtek NICs.  They work absolutely perfectly on Linux, Windows as I think I briefly tested one on MacOS too.  The only catch is they don't support as much functionality such as VLANs on Linux, as Realtek stopped making drivers for newer kernels once the generic USB Network driver was functional for it.

I'd still choose Intel given a choice though (such as for PCIe cards), I only choose Realtek as they seem to be the only ones making USB versions, which was necessary for my laptop and a Mac Mini M1 running Linux.

 

That said, on Gigabit you'll still potentially benefit from the extra speed if another client on the network needs to download while your PC is maxing out at Gigabit, so its not necessarily lost bandwidth.

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

To be fair, I've got two Realtek 2.5Gbit USB adapters and they have none of the problems traditionally found with Realtek NICs.  They work absolutely perfectly on Linux, Windows as I think I briefly tested one on MacOS too.  The only catch is they don't support as much functionality such as VLANs on Linux, as Realtek stopped making drivers for newer kernels once the generic USB Network driver was functional for it.

For the most part that's been my experience too. I primarily use Linux. That $80 card above was purchased for my TrueNAS box that has a built in Realtek 2.5 GbE chipset. It "worked" fine. However WOL did not work fine. It would work if you shutdown the PC in a very specific manner. I forget what the magic handshake was to make it work. However with the Intel card, it works every time, no matter what. It's those little things, that make ensure my motherboards now have Intel chipsets...

[Alex Atkin UK]

9 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

For the most part that's been my experience too. I primarily use Linux. That $80 card above was purchased for my TrueNAS box that has a built in Realtek 2.5 GbE chipset. It "worked" fine. However WOL did not work fine. It would work if you shutdown the PC in a very specific manner. I forget what the magic handshake was to make it work. However with the Intel card, it works every time, no matter what. It's those little things, that make ensure my motherboards now have Intel chipsets...

Ironically I've seen plenty of people having issues with the Intel i225, I think even some on the supposedly fixed B3 variant.

 

Although personally that's what I had to replace my gaming PCs AQC107 based 10Gbit card with, as it was somehow crashing the entire network stack.  Funny thing, I had to put that card in my new NAS/Server build recently as I couldn't find the full-height bracket for my Intel X520 NIC - and its performing BETTER than the Intel with no drop outs for far.

 

Thus is the way with these things, its never as simple as brand X is good.