Question about 2.5GbE LAN vs Gigabit LAN

[bunkindb]

I understand that the 2.5GbE supports up to 2500 mbps and the gigabit lan supports up to 1000mbps

Other than the speed it can go is there any difference as far as quality for a 100mbps download/50mbps upload

[_I_]

it could help only for lan traffic, copying files from pc to pc or nas etc..

each link between a switch/pc/router/modem/nas will be at the lowest devices speed

[bunkindb]

so 100 mbps download 50 mbps upload for gaming not gonna be a difference between a 1gbps driver and 2.5 gbps driver?

[CJM]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από bunkinLH:

so 100 mbps download 50 mbps upload for gaming not gonna be a difference between a 1gbps driver and 2.5 gbps driver?

No. Faster connections generally increase latency, and thus increase ping in multiplayer games. Generally not a noticeable difference, though.

Where you will see the biggest improvement is if you do any Steam Link Remote Play gaming to other devices, 2.5gbps should be able to accommodate 4k streaming quality.

[_I_]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από CJM:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από bunkinLH:

so 100 mbps download 50 mbps upload for gaming not gonna be a difference between a 1gbps driver and 2.5 gbps driver?

No. Faster connections generally increase latency, and thus increase ping in multiplayer games. Generally not a noticeable difference, though.

Where you will see the biggest improvement is if you do any Steam Link Remote Play gaming to other devices, 2.5gbps should be able to accommodate 4k streaming quality.

where are you getting this from?

faster connection is normally less latency, esp during busy times

remote play at 1080p60 uses less than 30-40mb/s
4k would be about 100-150mb/s

nowhere near close to the gigabit limit, unless streaming to 4+ lan pcs at 4k

best situation would be backing up 1+tb to a nas with raid setup, that has the 2.5g lan port that can take in or output data at over 1g/s

[Lord Flashheart]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από bunkinLH:

I understand that the 2.5GbE supports up to 2500 mbps and the gigabit lan supports up to 1000mbps

Other than the speed it can go is there any difference as far as quality for a 100mbps download/50mbps upload

It depends what you are doing.
If your PC has only a need to connect over the internet, then you probably do not need it.

As for me, have a 5 port 2.5 gigabit switch.
So 3 hings connect - my main PC.
Also another which is a server - Various virual machines - NAS. windows, lancache, opnsense router and others.
The third one is for media playback machine & use it for backups.
Oh and of course is connected to my opnsense router.

So the server is a NAS amongst other things. 1 gigabit is bit slow. The storage is hard drive based, so 2.5 gigabit connection does the job for me.

The biggest bonus for gaming is:

The windows 10 virtual machine updates all my games to a second copy/backup on the NAS.
It downloads through the lancache server. It is typically overnight.
So when updating games on my main machine, download speeds can be very fast.
The highest has been about 280MB/s


So if connecting to local storage or something similar, then it will be a benefit.

[Cathulhu]

A 2.5 Gigabit LAN port will only help if all devices in your local network, like router or other devices also have 2.5 Gigabit LAN ports.
Otherwise, you will always be limited to the lowest common denominator. Which is most likely 1 Gigabit in your LAN and the speed of your internet connection for outgoing stuff.

It's simply a bandwidth thing. Having a 2.5 Gigabit port running at 1 Gigabit will provide no different performance or quality than a 1 Gigabit port would.

[Illusion of Progress]

This is sort of like asking if a 1,500W PSU is more beneficial than a 1250W PSU if your system is only drawing 300W. Sure, the 1,500W unit might be better, or it might not, or most likely you won't notice anything different, because the differences won't come down to wattage if you're not able to utilize more than either provide. What difference could possibly be there will be down to if one is a much better unit in ways besides wattage.

The same applies here. No, a 2.5Gb NIC won't benefit a 100 Mb connection when a 1Gb connection is already ten times the utilized amount. So any difference won't be from speed, but from if one chip is better or worse than the other. A number of earlier 2.5Gb NICs were actually... let's say they could have been better. My Intel I225V has given me issues, and I've read of a lot of complaints of a Realtek one as well. So if you don't need the speed, there MAY be a reason to abstain, but this isn't saying you will have issues.

You're ultimately free to try. My wild guess is that you won't see a firm difference, unless you have bad luck like I did and one is actually far worse than the other in ways besides speed.

[CJM]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από _I_:

where are you getting this from?

faster connection is normally less latency, esp during busy times

I typically see the opposite. When testing local switches back in the day, the 10mbps switches had noticeably lower latency than 100mbps switches.

I never did actually isolate the cause... Likely a packet loss issue of some kind. Figure it had something to do with Windows managing the network traffic better knowing it wasn't a 100mbps WAN connection on the outside.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από _I_:

remote play at 1080p60 uses less than 30-40mb/s
4k would be about 100-150mb/s

Depends on encoding, compression, and quality settings, uncompressed 4k can be 16gbps.

2.5gbps is higher than 150mbps, which was the primary point anyway.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Illusion of Progress:

This is sort of like asking if a 1,500W PSU is more beneficial than a 1250W PSU if your system is only drawing 300W.

The PSU issue might be more pronounced. There are efficiency issues. Need to make sure the 80+ efficiency rating is top notch for a mere 300 watt power draw.

[_I_]

if you get higher ping on faster lan connections, something is wrong with your network or pc configs
wrong drivers or bad cables or using wifi with lots of interference

steam remote play uses hardware compression

[Illusion of Progress]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από CJM:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Illusion of Progress:

This is sort of like asking if a 1,500W PSU is more beneficial than a 1250W PSU if your system is only drawing 300W.

The PSU issue might be more pronounced. There are efficiency issues. Need to make sure the 80+ efficiency rating is top notch for a mere 300 watt power draw.

Yeah, it wasn't a perfect analogy (and that one particular thing was the one that came to mind as why), but the overall point I was making was that "both offer more than is necessary for this one factor anyway, so any differences will come from other factors" so I felt it fit well enough.

And even for that, I imagine the efficiency difference between two otherwise as-identical-as-possible PSUs in that case is still going to fall under "most people won't actually notice it offand". Like you won't see an operational difference (again, any that exist will be down to more than "one has more power ovehead"), and you probably won't see a meaningful power use or energy bill difference either, possibly next to none at all.