Add 10 Gigabit Networking to Your PC for Cheap!

Sometimes you just need a faster connection to do what you want to do. Today we take a look at a way to add a 10Gb network connection to your PC for cheap (relatively speaking). Oh and it's pretty easy too!

Hardware mentioned in video:

#Mellanox
#Networking
#Computers

[bluegizmo]

I've owned a Juniper EX4200 switch for awhile now and it has two 10 gig SFP+ ports along with all the 1 gig RJ-45 ports, so I just bought two of these same Mellanox cards, one for my main PC and one for my UnRAID NAS server. I got the cards a few days ago, now I'm just waiting on the two 3 meter DAC cables that I ordered from FS. It took them about a week to ship the cables as I ordered the Dual Compatibility DAC cables, which means they put different SFP+ modules on each end of the cable depending on your needs (Mellanox compatible on one end and Juniper compatible on the other end in my case). I've already booted my system with both cards and updated the firmwares, and removed the Flexboot rom as it was causing boot issues with my system (it kept causing my PC to reboot as soon as the Flexboot screen appeared).

[BigFourHead]

thanks for this info. Saved me a lot of time looking up this info.

[hansenracin]

Hey, new to some of this, have a basic understanding of things. I’m looking for the best network card that can handle 5 gig fiber optic speed. Been trying to research a lot on the web and not really finding anything to help. When looking at the pci pci e etc, which one produces the best speeds? Assuming got the right equipment. Trying to make sure I buy the fastest card I can get my hands on. And plugs into the right slot. Any suggestions to look for ? Or suggestions on better slots to use ?

[Wrenchmonkey]

Iperf is a better test of the card, since it's not bottlenecked by disk i/o.

Also, altering the MTU (9000bit jumbo frames) can help give you better throughput speeds.

[wric]

HaveThunderbolt: then use ext storage drive. Nas switch nic all drives costs 4x if not more.

[majorgear]

I enjoyed the video . I already picked out an 8 sfp+ switch and dac cables for my setup, but I’m undecided on which NICs to get for my 2 proxmos servers .

They are both running TrueNAS Scale servers along with my Plex server, so I figured that I would speed them up to serve files and movies faster.

From the research I’ve done so far, Mellanox and the Intel X520 cards seem to be pretty popular.

I might get the same one you showed in the video, as long as it will work with my OS(Debian).

[antonisautos]

Asus makes a 10G rj45 pcie card. $99. You can make your own router out of 10th gen intel motherboards and add a $99 pcie to 10G networking card and use the built in 10G port for the wan if you want. I got one for $123 and the cpu/ram for $140. As far as storage goes to load pfsense... a cheap 30 dollar nvme boot drive or sata ssd that's low capacity like 128Gb or less will work just fine. A PSU can be had pretty cheap and a lot of the cheaper 10th gen intel cpus come with a cooler already. Additionally you can get yourself a netgear 8 port all rj45 10G switch for about 400 bucks.

This video is a year old. So these prices and component availability was probably much different.

[vinylmonster]

That 10Gbe PCIe card by Asus (Aquantia) get hot, they are inadequately cooled and throttles speeds - unlike the other Intel 10Gbe PCIe cards which are readily available online

[chrisr]

does anyone know of a dongle to test multi gb internet speed ethernet to usbc adapter for either 2gb or 5 gb internet speed?

[Infinity]

Very helpful video. 👍
I'm planning to build a home NAS server using Truenas and my "Old" PC (Ryzen 7 1700x 32GB RAM) a 10gbit connection from my Editing PC to the NAS server would be absolutely amazing. SFP+ seems to be a good solution, it's a lot cheaper. I've tried 2.5gbit once for editing directly from the NAS. It was sort of working with Davinci Resolve but I experienced some very nasty shit with After Effects & Premiere every now and then. Like footage that was not being found, dynamic link not working, Premiere taking ages to start/open projects etc.

[Jeffmd]

Do you HAVE to have a switch to run a 10gbps SPF+ connection? I’m looking at a gaming router that has the 10gbps WAN for internet connection 6-1 gig RJ-45 ports and 1 10gbps SPF+ port. Can I just get a 10gbps SPF+ pcie card and just run the cable straight from the gaming router to the card installed on my PC?

[Dk-cmdi]

so if my router only has a normal ethernet port for 10g than i need to get a card like wise to that or is there a dongle of sum sort that can be a ethernet on one side and SPF+ on the other?

[KobkG]

I setup something similar but notice I cant play vr with my setup. I don't think windows or vr software knows how to handle the bandwidth. I get glitches and errors my network is not fast enough. I am using fiber between the sfp adaptors so it is not a cable issue. So if any of you use quest vr think twice about going above 1 gigabit.

[dancetracks]

Did you need to install drivers for the ConnectX-3 card for windows 10, or was it plug N play? Thanks.

[OptimFam]

what is a CONVERGED Card? Not a normal NIC network card?

[paulengle]

The answer is probably no, but is there a way to add a 10 gigabit switch to my computer without having to open the case up and add items to the motherboard?

[LazyTurtle]

Purchaed Low Profile HP NC523SFP 593717-b21 593742-001 593715-001 10Gb network card, added to HP Z840...but getting error during boot time...

[monkeyvideo]

Thanks for the video it is very timely. I have two questions:
1) When buying a transceiver what is the difference between a D-Link version and a Cisco? Aren't they all SFP+ slot compatible? I am on the fence between RJ45 and OM3 for my two 60-70 foot runs. I see many state transceiver compatibility with x, y and z brands or require you to choose a manufacture version.
2) When setting up the IP address in windows why are you using a subnet address versus an unused address like one higher than the address for your MB network connection. (Not sure if this is obvious to anyone smarter than me)
thanks in advance for any help.

[tankdemon]

What is the top speed possible by a NIC connected to a PCIe generation 2.0 x4 slot, or a PCIe generation 2.0 x16 slot wired for x4? ? Can it use a 10gb NIC? Why or why not?

[kmo]

sas disk needed for that speed 10gb-14gb