Hardware Recommendations Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people seeking specific hardware recommendations. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm from India.
Please recommend:
INTEL X710-DA2
you will need the corresponding SFP to plug a rj45 cable in
your comment below: I'm actually looking for x1 lane, these only support x8 lanes
https://www.cgdirector.com/guide-to-pcie-lanes/
PCIe Bandwith Transfer Rate Bandwidth x1 (per lane) x4 x8 x16
PCIe 1.0 2.5GT/s 250 MB/s 1.00 GB/s 2.00 GB/s 4.00 GB/s
PCIe 2.0 5GT/s 500 MB/s 2.00 GB/s 4.00 GB/s 8.00 GB/s
PCIe 3.0 8GT/s 984.6 MB/s 3.94 GB/s 7.88 GB/s 15.75 GB/s
PCIe 4.0 16GT/s 1969 MB/s 7.88 GB/s 15.75 GB/s 31.51 GB/s
you said a 10gig nic card, to get 10gbps you cannot do that with just 1 pcie lane. The X710-da2 nic card is pcie 3.0 x8 lane, shown as 7.88 GB/sec bandwidth which is 7.88 * 8 = 63 gbps. If you had a x1 pcie 3.0 nic card then 0.9846 * 8 = 7.87 gbps so while the NIC card could transmit across cat6/7 cable at 10gig speeds the motherboard wouldn't be able to send it data fast enough over just one pcie lane. So I don't think you will find a pcie 3.0/4.0 x1 NIC that is 10 GbE.
And a quick search I don't really see any PCIe 4.0 10GbE NIC's, and what little I do see refers to them being x4. Also network is duplex so also divide by 2. so a pcie 4.0 x1 @ 1969 MB/s = 15.7 gbps but for duplex network that'll max out at 7.87 gbps. So at best you might find a pcie 4.0 x4 nic that's 10GbE it would at least I think be physically possible.... whether anyone ever makes one I dunno. I suspect they would simply standardize on NIC's using 8 pcie lanes, especially when NIC's now almost always have more than one rj45 port.
I've been working with these a while. I picked up a pair of X540-T2 - they're 'server' cards, so run a little hot, though there's a version with a fan. The T suffix means native copper support so you don't need a SFP.
They're PCIe 2.1 x8 for TWO ports, and you can run a single port at full speed (tested by speed test) on a x4 slot with no issue. The x550 is a newer version that'll work on x4, but I've not found them cheap on the secondary market. They're about 90usd + shipping on aliexpress, but prices vary wildly - as of 2023. they're down to as low as ~20 USD or less. They are EOL but the current intel drivers support them. They won't downgrade to 2.5 or 5 gbps, so you'll need a 10gig copper capable switch or connect them directly. On windows the drivers are excellent and easy to use, and as older cards they're well understood. They have a mild tendancy to overheat, so run it on a system that's capable of cooling it. While both these cards are "obsolete", they're common and supported with current drivers.
I've not tried it yet, but most modern low cost 10Gbps cards are based off Aquantia chips - they'll work with the 'slower' multigigabit standards and are about the same price as my x540 for a single port. They do PCIe x4 and seem a better option in quite a few ways. I believe asus sells one, as well as various chinese vendors like comfast.
