thestryker S58_is_the_goat said: Call me when 10gbps switches cost this much… That's never going to happen unless there's a closeout because someone's shutting up shop. Realtek has done about the best anyone can hope for with the RTL8127 which has dropped prices significantly (NICs can be had for $35-45). I suspect for 10Gb RJ45 the per port cost is probably going to be around $25 so a really good sale might see an 8-port switch hit as low as $150. I've stuck with SFP+ for mine because the power consumption is lower as are the per port costs. The biggest drawback is wire length, but 7m is plenty for me so this is a non-issue. Reply
bit_user Here's the 4 + 2 switch I mentioned (now selling for $34): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNDSXHCK I replaced the power supply with a higher-quality model and propped up one side to encourage more convection. Was planning to do some more intrusive cooling mods, but never got around to it. The two ports are SFP+, which was fine because I already had a pair of SFP+ cards from ebay. Note that a lot of the cheaper SFP+ cards, on the used market, are x8. Reply
S58_is_the_goat It's a conspiracy I tell ya, after 20 years we went from 1gbps to 2.5gbps. If the cpu industry moved this slow we'd still be using Pentium 4's at 10ghz… Reply
gggplaya S58_is_the_goat said: It's a conspiracy I tell ya, after 20 years we went from 1gbps to 2.5gbps. If the cpu industry moved this slow we'd still be using Pentium 4's at 10ghz… The industry was supposed to move up to 10gbps, we waited, we waited, we waited some more, but nothing. Then they figured out that office buildings were wired with CAT5e and no one wanted to go through the hassle of ripping it all out and upgrading to CAT 6a. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQLn1wuwlMlmrvBiSwtdqHrTya3eBTUYyjtkr70SoiukeCz_1fFKJwjfuw&s=10 So the IEEE came up with 2.5gbe and 5gbe (802.3bz) in 2016 which would allow for the use of existing CAT5e. It takes several years after the standard is finalized for companies to make chips and components to support it. 2.5Gbe became the most prevalent because you didn't have to worry about the length, noise or the quality of the cable, as it is fully interoperable with gigabit infrastructure. https://www.fullcontrolnetworks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Aruba-MultiGig-standards.jpg Reply
bit_user S58_is_the_goat said: It's a conspiracy I tell ya, after 20 years we went from 1gbps to 2.5gbps. If the cpu industry moved this slow we'd still be using Pentium 4's at 10ghz… Well, not in terms of single-thread performance. CPUs have advanced very slowly, on that front, over roughly the same period since 1 Gbps went mainstream. I'm glad the 2.5 and 5 Gbps tiers were added, but it was done too late. If that had been done sooner, then we might actually be at 10 Gbps, now. It's hard to say, because 10 Gbps networking doesn't have quite the same mass appeal as 1 Gbps networking. A 1 Gbps LAN is still good enough, for most consumers. It's mainly data transfer between computers on a LAN that demands more – and that's not something the average person hardly ever does. Actually, 2.5 Gbps had started to catch on in 2019 and 2020, but the pandemic-related supply chain problems sort of hit the reset button on that, and it took a couple more years for 2.5 Gbps to gain its foothold in the mainstream market segment. Reply
bit_user gggplaya said: The industry was supposed to move up to 10gbps, we waited, we waited, we waited some more, but nothing. I was there, waiting with you! However, I think it was just too big a leap. gggplaya said: So the IEEE came up with 2.5gbe and 5gbe (802.3bz) in 2016 which would allow for the use of existing CAT5e. I think it wasn't "the IEEE", but rather some company that came up with it and then advanced it as an IEEE standards proposal. I forget which. gggplaya said: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQLn1wuwlMlmrvBiSwtdqHrTya3eBTUYyjtkr70SoiukeCz_1fFKJwjfuw&s=10 BTW, the funny thing about this graphic is that it's just wrong about datacenters using Cat 8. That's way too inefficient for them. They'd use either QSFP+ DAC cables or optical. It's really just consumers and commercial/office users that are still using twisted-pair. Reply
Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/network-switches/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/network-switches/save-a-whopping-62-percent-on-this-8-port-multi-gigabit-2-5g-ethernet-switch-in-amazons-early-prime-day-sale-upgrade-your-home-network-for-just-usd49#main
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