First motherboards with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet: the connections will fly more than 1 Gigabit

[Blexfraptor]

Who was going to tell us that the 1 Gigabit Ethernet connections were going to fall short. Currently, all PC motherboards have 1 Gbps Ethernet ports, as well as fiber optic routers, since they are necessary to have high transmission speeds. However, today there are already devices that can saturate these connections, for which the 2.5 Gbps Ethernet controllers have arrived; that is, 2.5 times faster than the current ones.

ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming: the new boards have 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports
And the first motherboards to use these drivers will be the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming, its new series compatible with the 9th generation of Intel processors that have been unveiled today. These motherboards make use of the new controllers that Realtek has designed and has brought to the "mainstream", as there are currently plates in the enthusiast range that have controllers up to 10 Gbps; although at prohibitive prices (such as the ASUS Rampage VI Extreme). In total, the company has designed three:

RTL8125: PCIe 2.0 x1 driver for PC motherboards
RTL8156: USB 3.1 driver for dongles and docks
RTL8226: controller for routers and switches

Of the six motherboards that ASRock has presented, four of them will carry the Dragon RTL8125AG controller. In addition, some models will also have Dual LAN:

Z390 Phantom Gaming 9: RTL8125AG 2.5 Gbps and Intel I219 V 1 Gbps. WiFi 5
Z390 Phantom Gaming 6: RTL8125AG 2.5 Gbps and Intel I219 V 1 Gbps
Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI / ac: RTL8125AG 2.5 Gbps. WiFi 5
Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI: RTL8125AG 2.5 Gbps
Z390 Phantom Gaming 4: Intel I219 V 1 Gbps
Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX / ac: Intel I219 V 1 Gbps. WiFi 5

These drivers were presented at Computex 2018, but did not have much impact. However, as we see they do, because they are going to open the door to much faster network connections in our homes. Whoever buys a laptop with NVD SSD, or has added one of these to his computer will know what we are talking about. It is not uncommon for these units to reach speeds of 2.7 and up to 3.3 Gbps in the Xiaomi notebook.

Interestingly, these drivers are the first "multi-gig" that do not reach 5 Gbps. Probably this has been done to keep the cost low, something that is in line with Realtek's strategy of high manufacturing volume and low cost. The company is guiding these controllers to gaming, where they have a software called Realtek Dragon that prioritizes game data packages to avoid lag spikes.

It will be necessary to have Cat.6 Ethernet cables to take advantage of these speeds
Thus, with these speeds it is possible to be transferring files faster in our local network with compatible devices, or being able to download something from the Internet at 1 Gbps and be able to also obtain files from our NAS at the same time. Be that as it may, it is clear that better speeds are needed in the home, especially if in the coming years some operator ventures to offer fiber optic speeds higher than 1 Gbps.

The fact that there are such fast drivers can also lead us to take a look at the Ethernet cabling we have in our homes. If you look at your Ethernet cable, it most likely is Cat.5e, which has a maximum speed of 1 Gbps. To get more speed you need the following, Cat.6, which reaches 10 Gbps. These cables are slightly more expensive, and only allow that speed in distances of up to 55 meters, for the 100 meters in which the 5e guarantees 1 Gbps. To get 10 Gbps in 100 meters it is necessary to go to a Cat.6a.