To 10G or to 1G, that is the question.

[Skunkfoo]

So the R6E has 2 ethernet ports, a 10G and a 1G. My home network is a 1G network and I dont have any other 10G components.

My question is, which port should I use? Will I see any difference (good or bad) in using the 10G port over the 1G port?

One thing making me want to use the 10G port is the occasional message in the event logs from AquantiaNDMP saying "Aquantia 10G Ethernet connection : The network adapter has detected that the token ring cable is disconnected from the network adapter. Please reconnect the cable."

Another thing is that the 10G chip has a heatsink which I don't think the 1G port does (does it even need one?).

I don't know about you guys but I hate seeing anything in the event viewer and try to reduce all messages when possible.

[thr23]

You should use a 1G port, and can disable 10G in BIOS to make the events go away and to preserve some power. That heatsink there is not just for show, you know. Using 10G port with a 1G connection will offer no noticeable benefits.

[Quozzo]

I heard it uses lanes off the CPU, not that I'm hitting the limit since I'm only using 2 graphics cards.

[CharlieH]

Quozzo wrote:
I heard it uses lanes off the CPU, not that I'm hitting the limit since I'm only using 2 graphics cards.

If it uses lanes off the CPU then that would be weird. I am using all my lanes plus the 10G.

[Quozzo]

CharlieH wrote:
If it uses lanes off the CPU then that would be weird. I am using all my lanes plus the 10G.

I guess I heard wrong, or was lied to. Either way I'm now curious why there aren't two 10G ports?

[CharlieH]

Quozzo wrote:
I guess I heard wrong, or was lied to. Either way I'm now curious why there aren't two 10G ports?

Cost?
Heat?
Available bandwidth to the CPU w/o taking up PCIe lanes?

Not sure but given the fact 10G is very affordable today, especially if the chips come on the MB and you do not have to buy adapter cards, just a switch, I would like two myself. I usually buy a Intel X550-T2 card with dual 10G ports but that takes up PCIe lanes and my new build needed them all so I was happy to see at least 1 onboard 10G port. If Intel would provide more PCIe lanes like AMD this might be a mute issue.

[Abaidor]

After I finish my current build I will have one system freed that I was thinking of turning into a file server (if it is worth it power consumption wise vs NAS).

The PC is a Q9550 + 8GB RAM + A cheap Nvidia VGA.


So I wonder what if I bought an extra 10G card in order to connect my main PC with that one? Is it worth it or would a NAS connected to my main workstation PC through USB3 or Thunderbolt be equally fast while more efficient?


***EDIT****

I forgot to mention that I got a Rampage VI Extreme for the new system and 10G was a favoring feature.

[Korth]

Skunkfoo wrote:
My home network is a 1G network and I dont have any other 10G components.

So you won't be able to connect to anything at 10Gbps speeds anyways.

The PCIe3 lanes used by 10Gbps internet adapter are just extra tasks on the CPU and extra packets across the PCIe3 bus. Better to keep the CPU and PCIe3 bus focussed onto more important things.

Why aren't there two 10G ports?
Because few people will actually use even one 10G port. Not many people have (or could afford, or even have access to) 10G broadband internet. Not many people run networks at home with 10G/fiber hardware, the overwhelming majority of home users these days prefer wireless anyhow, and it hardly makes much difference whether your file transfer will take 5 seconds instead of 50 seconds unless you do a lot of these transfer quite often.
10G adds cost. 10G uses CPU/PCIe3 resources.
I'd personally prefer no embedded 10G anyhow, better to drop a PCIe3 card into a slot than to have the the mobo maker weld one in place for you.