Realtek 10 GbE USB Adapters might be on the way?

[blunden]

I have been looking for this so badly, and finally a link, and it's not even a crazy price.
The motherboard in my gaming PC has a single 2.5G NIC, and I am getting at maximum 70MB/s so under 1G speeds. Before I upgraded the motherboard/CPU/RAM I was getting 1G speeds on my network.
Not sure why this ASUS motherboard (or the Intel 2.5G) don't want to give me more bandwith. I have 10G but my 10G switch does not support 2.5G so it goes down to 1G, I can see 1G being negotiated in the network card in Windows, but I get speeds more like 700mbps.

This USB should let me get 10G for my gaming PC, even if it is tested to only give me 9G it will be a massive upgrade! The PCIe slots are full (full customer water loop + vertical GPU) so no way to add a 10G PCIe card any more, been stuck on this slow NIC for over a year now, what a pain relief for 70 USD

Weird performance issue. Not sure what's going on there. A driver issue perhaps?

Is that 70 USD with tarrifs or something like that? Both the Diewu and the ZikeStor models are available for less than that, even with 25% VAT included.

For another 9 hours or so, the price I see for the ZikeStor $51.15 (including 25% VAT) + shipping on AliExpress. The Diewu is roughly $45 or so + shipping on Alibaba, I think.

 

[panchovix]

Just to add as info as well, I tested a big LLM (about 400GB size), offloading about 32GB via RPC from one PC to another.

Using a NIC at X1 3.0 (so like 6-7 Gbps max) netted me a lot more perf than the USB 10Gbps adapter, which effectively does 10Gbps.

I think, and pardon my ignorance, that is because latency? Prob PCIe has way less latency than USB.

 

[Jelle458]

Weird performance issue. Not sure what's going on there. A driver issue perhaps?

Is that 70 USD with tarrifs or something like that? Both the Diewu and the ZikeStor models are available for less than that, even with 25% VAT included.

For another 9 hours or so, the price I see for the ZikeStor $51.15 (including 25% VAT) + shipping on AliExpress. The Diewu is roughly $45 or so + shipping on Alibaba, I think.

I saw it on CyberMonday sale at 61.95 USD, and the shipping is 7.54 USD, so we are close to the 70 USD. I honestly didn't go bargain hunting. I have been hunting a USB 10G adapter for a very long time. I saw one in stock and pressed purchase.
It is likely something else out there is cheaper, but man I am going crazy about these slow speeds. EVERYTHING else in my house is 10G, now my own gaming PC i spend the most time on can FINALLY have (almost) the same speeds.
Only sad part is that delivery is between 24. December and 7. January. Gotta wait until after christmas.

Just to add as info as well, I tested a big LLM (about 400GB size), offloading about 32GB via RPC from one PC to another.

Using a NIC at X1 3.0 (so like 6-7 Gbps max) netted me a lot more perf than the USB 10Gbps adapter, which effectively does 10Gbps.

I think, and pardon my ignorance, that is because latency? Prob PCIe has way less latency than USB.

Do you have this adapter? Sucks if you didn't get the near 9G promised, man I almost regret it now. Can't be worse than what I already have though.
I have like 30x 10G NICs mixed SFP+ and RJ45 but they do not fit my system with vertical GPU and full customer water cooling. Just no space at all, even if I take off the bracket and just let the card hang loose in the PCIe slot it's too tall because of the vertical GPU mount.
I went as far as buying an M.2 to 10G PCIe thing also, but the vertical GPU is blocking my access to the M.2 connector which is behind a heatsink on the motherboard, I can't unscrew the heatsink with the GPU mounted, and to unmount the GPU I have to take out all the water (blue dyed, colors EVERYTHING) and I would be looking into a multi-day job at that point which I just don't feel like doing anymore.
Next time I upgrade I think I'll go with something easier to manage, like air cooling.
The temps are nice though, and the overclocking is no doubt better than on air.

 

[panchovix]

@Jelle458 I got this adapter and got the 9-10Gbps provided. Just that latency via USB for ethernet is higher than via a NIC or ethernet itself on the board, if I understand correctly.

 

[Jelle458]

Uh I hope the latency isn't too high. I did not even think about that. Sometimes I game online in high FPS stuff like CS2. If it adds latency there it won't be usable. I could run 2 connections but I don't think the system will know which to use for what software for the lowest latency.

Well when I get it I'd have to test. Thank you!

 

[gxcreator]

Just got compact one from here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005010360798379.html

 

[Greg_E]

There are compact cards from Supermicro as well, I have a small pile of them installed in my HP T740 computers. Not as short as the above, but as short as an x16 slot, they are x520 based, but I believe Supermicro also has short x710 based cards with dual SFP+ cages. I've been told that the older x520 could be slowing thigs down due to the older PCIe standard so moving to x710 is probably worth doing if you don't already have a bunch of these.

I'd like to hear more user experiences with the USB 10g devices, I recently stepped my laptop up to a Realtek 2.5g USB device from Wavelink. I'd need a device with power pass through and a C port if this is possible.

 

[ms264556]

My m.2 adapter arrived, so my HP Mini is now rocking 10Gbe.

The details are on my previous comment, but to summarize...

The RTL8127 card doesn't require extra power, so all that's needed is the adapter, ethernet extension & a 3d printed bracket. My total cost including taxes and shipping was around $45.

The extension and m.2 adapter have ridiculously long cables. On the downside, I will feel shame every time I open my case. On the upside, there's no room for the card to float around, since it's surrounded by cables.

 

[Greg_E]

I've done worse to add extra hard drives to servers.

 

[MichaelTomas]

I thought I would post my findings for other users to see. I bought a Xikestore 10G USB 3.2 adapter from AliExpress for 45USD after coins + coupons a couple weeks back.

It recently arrived. The packaging was clean and well padded yet simple. The adapter was larger than expected. For whatever reason I expected it to be smaller, it's smaller than some 10G USB C/Thunderbolt adapters, but in line with others. The aluminum and finishing was honestly better than typical Ali Express cheap USB 10G NICS. There was some venting cuts on a plastic plate at the front to help with thermal management.

It included a well made and thick braided branded USB C cable, some simple paperwork and nothing else in the box.

I was able to get 1.050GB/s from my Windows 11 PC to my truenas server with a 50GB test file after downloading the drivers and placing it in a USB 3.2 20G port.

In a USB 3.2 10G port, I was getting 805MB/s on the same 50GB test file and that's with what I assume is an optimal scenario where traffic was going mostly in one direction. Still promising to see, but obviously a 20G USB C port the lowest one should go without bottlenecking performance too much. The previous AQC113 and AQC107 NICs would have trouble with USB C 3.2 20G so this is super promising.

I then tested it with my M2 air and M4 mac mini.

They both show up as 5G/2.5G/1G/100/10 adapters when I manually select the properties of the adapter adapter. If I test a 5GB Black Magic speed test file to the same truenas server I get 620MB/s write Air and 660MB/s write on my Mac m4 mini. The Mac mini wasn't picky with ports and gave the same speeds on the thunderbolt ports as the USB C 10G ports. If I manually select the speed at 5G it slows down to 550MB/s on my M4 mini and 520MB/s on my m2 air. To put that into perspective my M4 mini with the OEM AQC113 10G port gets 900MB/s.

The seller did mention OSX shows 5G, but gives better than 5G speeds. 5G has a theoretical maximum of 625MB/s, but that's without any overhead so their claim of over 5G is warranted. What was pleasant too was how the adapter stayed cool to the touch even though one end was plugged into a SFP+ 10G transceiver. I've heard some horror stories with cheap Chinese 10G USB C NICs so realtek's claim of a more efficient and thus cooler NIC is true. I'm hoping we'll eventually see those 10G speeds on OSX, but slightly over 5G in a thermally efficient and well made package is fine for me given what I paid for it. I might get a AQC113 USB C 10G NIC if I am really eager for reliable 10G on OSX and those funnily enough are quite stable on OSX which is the opposite of their reputation on Linux and Windows.

 

[John T Davis]

What was pleasant too was how the adapter stayed cool to the touch even though one end was plugged into a SFP+ 10G transceiver. I've heard some horror stories with cheap Chinese 10G USB C NICs so realtek's claim of a more efficient and thus cooler NIC is true.

This is why I'm so thrilled about these. Realistically, in my home office/homelab, I don't need rock solid 10 GbE. Better-than-2.5GbE is way more than enough. But the lower power usage and a NIC that doesn't get so hot that it burns me or throttles itself is a huge improvement.

Also, @ms264556 demonstrates that these are going to be huge for mini PCs that don't otherwise have a way to take a standard PCIe NIC.

I'm hoping we'll eventually see those 10G speeds on OSX, but slightly over 5G in a thermally efficient and well made package is fine for me given what I paid for it. I might get a AQC113 USB C 10G NIC if I am really eager for reliable 10G on OSX and those funnily enough are quite stable on OSX which is the opposite of their reputation on Linux and Windows.

Realtek tends to get around to Mac OS … eventually. I wouldn't buy one of these if you need 10 GbE on a Mac today, because it might be months or longer. They prioritize Windows and to a lesser degree Linux (their Linux driver release schedule seems to be improving, anecdotally, compared to where it was a few years ago).

Apple uses Aquantia NICs for all the 10 GbE NIC build-to-order upgrade options on their machines. I don't know who's doing the heavy lifting--Aquantia or Apple--but Apple demands rock solid 10 GbE performance and so the Aquantia drivers are probably better on Mac OS than anywhere else--even if they pretty much require jumbo frames being properly configured on your Mac/switch for best performance (at lesat on my network).

 

[Jelle458]

I thought I would post my findings for other users to see. I bought a Xikestore 10G USB 3.2 adapter from AliExpress for 45USD after coins + coupons a couple weeks back.

It recently arrived. The packaging was clean and well padded yet simple. The adapter was larger than expected. For whatever reason I expected it to be smaller, it's smaller than some 10G USB C/Thunderbolt adapters, but in line with others. The aluminum and finishing was honestly better than typical Ali Express cheap USB 10G NICS. There was some venting cuts on a plastic plate at the front to help with thermal management.

It included a well made and thick braided branded USB C cable, some simple paperwork and nothing else in the box.

I was able to get 1.050GB/s from my Windows 11 PC to my truenas server with a 50GB test file after downloading the drivers and placing it in a USB 3.2 20G port.

In a USB 3.2 10G port, I was getting 805MB/s on the same 50GB test file and that's with what I assume is an optimal scenario where traffic was going mostly in one direction. Still promising to see, but obviously a 20G USB C port the lowest one should go without bottlenecking performance too much. The previous AQC113 and AQC107 NICs would have trouble with USB C 3.2 20G so this is super promising.

I then tested it with my M2 air and M4 mac mini.

They both show up as 5G/2.5G/1G/100/10 adapters when I manually select the properties of the adapter adapter. If I test a 5GB Black Magic speed test file to the same truenas server I get 620MB/s write Air and 660MB/s write on my Mac m4 mini. The Mac mini wasn't picky with ports and gave the same speeds on the thunderbolt ports as the USB C 10G ports. If I manually select the speed at 5G it slows down to 550MB/s on my M4 mini and 520MB/s on my m2 air. To put that into perspective my M4 mini with the OEM AQC113 10G port gets 900MB/s.

The seller did mention OSX shows 5G, but gives better than 5G speeds. 5G has a theoretical maximum of 625MB/s, but that's without any overhead so their claim of over 5G is warranted. What was pleasant too was how the adapter stayed cool to the touch even though one end was plugged into a SFP+ 10G transceiver. I've heard some horror stories with cheap Chinese 10G USB C NICs so realtek's claim of a more efficient and thus cooler NIC is true. I'm hoping we'll eventually see those 10G speeds on OSX, but slightly over 5G in a thermally efficient and well made package is fine for me given what I paid for it. I might get a AQC113 USB C 10G NIC if I am really eager for reliable 10G on OSX and those funnily enough are quite stable on OSX which is the opposite of their reputation on Linux and Windows.

That is really interesting.

I can't find head or tales in the crazy naming scheme that is USB. Did you use a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port for the test? My gaming PCs motherboard is an ASUS X670E-F which has that port on the back, and I am not using it. When I google it, it looks to be a 20G USB C port. I did not expect anything but a 10G port, but you've made me hopeful that I can get the full 10G speeds from this adapter, when it finally wants to show up.

 

[blunden]

Apple uses Aquantia NICs for all the 10 GbE NIC build-to-order upgrade options on their machines. I don't know who's doing the heavy lifting--Aquantia or Apple--but Apple demands rock solid 10 GbE performance and so the Aquantia drivers are probably better on Mac OS than anywhere else--even if they pretty much require jumbo frames being properly configured on your Mac/switch for best performance (at lesat on my network).

Aquantia was the only somewhat modern, power efficient and reasonably priced option for new 10GBASE-T NICs for a long time. If Apple somehow helped identify firmware and driver bugs, part of that might've helped other platforms as well.

I personally haven't had any issues with the AQC113 NICs in my fanless mini PC that I use as a 10 Gbps Linux server, but the traffic pattern for it is admittedly shorter bursts of high bandwidth rather than long file transfers at that speed.

 

[Greg_E]

My Mini-NAS sometimes sees slightly longer transfers and has suffered through many benchmarks and been OK, it's an onboard AQC too. It does have "constant" light use as the VMs are stored on the mini-NAS.

 

[panchovix]

That is really interesting.

I can't find head or tales in the crazy naming scheme that is USB. Did you use a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port for the test? My gaming PCs motherboard is an ASUS X670E-F which has that port on the back, and I am not using it. When I google it, it looks to be a 20G USB C port. I did not expect anything but a 10G port, but you've made me hopeful that I can get the full 10G speeds from this adapter, when it finally wants to show up.

All X670E boards have a USB 3.2 gen2x2 port IIRC. X870E upgraded it to USB4 but there are some internal headers that are still 20Gbps.

 

[Jelle458]

All X670E boards have a USB 3.2 gen2x2 port IIRC. X870E upgraded it to USB4 but there are some internal headers that are still 20Gbps.

I have been checking images and this is the I/O side of the board I have:

There is 1 port called "SS 20" which I believe would be 20Gbps, but the issue for me is that it seems like because it's gen2x2 it is two streams of 10G, and I am not sure that would make the Xikestor external 10G understand that there is two streams, or if it just uses this port as a 10G port, and I would need to use USB4 before getting the full potential of the external 10G LAN port.

The 2.5G port is horrible. I only got this board because I need the SPDIF, and it seems the cheapest from this generation that has it. If I could choose 1G Intel NIC that would be a lot better, but alas it does not sound as good on the spec sheet.

 

[panchovix]

I have been checking images and this is the I/O side of the board I have:

There is 1 port called "SS 20" which I believe would be 20Gbps, but the issue for me is that it seems like because it's gen2x2 it is two streams of 10G, and I am not sure that would make the Xikestor external 10G understand that there is two streams, or if it just uses this port as a 10G port, and I would need to use USB4 before getting the full potential of the external 10G LAN port.

The 2.5G port is horrible. I only got this board because I need the SPDIF, and it seems the cheapest from this generation that has it. If I could choose 1G Intel NIC that would be a lot better, but alas it does not sound as good on the spec sheet.

It should be the SS20 port. USB4 port would be worse actually, because it is either 10Gbps or 40Gbps, not double streams of 10Gbps.

 

[Shonk]

The manual is clear there is 1 x 20Gbps port on the back
and the front C port is also 20Gbps

Im really not sure how people struggle with this

 

[Jelle458]

It should be the SS20 port. USB4 port would be worse actually, because it is either 10Gbps or 40Gbps, not double streams of 10Gbps.

Thank you. I honestly did not look up any of this, it has very little interest for me, but I wasn't sure if 2x 10G would be the same as 20G. I know trunking with ethernet does not work like that, so maybe USB did not too.

The manual is clear there is 1 x 20Gbps port on the back
and the front C port is also 20Gbps

Im really not sure how people struggle with this
View attachment 46903

Sure, the port type is clear, what isn't clear is the speed. I'd have to go look up what the speed of this port is, instead of just writing it.
You can call me lazy for not looking it up, but also I didn't know if 2x 10G == 20G. When moving a 100GB file on the network, having a trunked link won't give me double speed, and I actually still think if the could be an issue for the dongle.

I got email today that it is delivered at my address. I can test it on 1G speeds for now, the 10G setup isn't done yet as the electrician has burned me 4 times now. Still waiting on his visit to do the last 2 hours of work.

 

[joeribl]

Thank you. I honestly did not look up any of this, it has very little interest for me, but I wasn't sure if 2x 10G would be the same as 20G. I know trunking with ethernet does not work like that, so maybe USB did not too.



Sure, the port type is clear, what isn't clear is the speed. I'd have to go look up what the speed of this port is, instead of just writing it.
You can call me lazy for not looking it up, but also I didn't know if 2x 10G == 20G. When moving a 100GB file on the network, having a trunked link won't give me double speed, and I actually still think if the could be an issue for the dongle.

I got email today that it is delivered at my address. I can test it on 1G speeds for now, the 10G setup isn't done yet as the electrician has burned me 4 times now. Still waiting on his visit to do the last 2 hours of work.

SS20 is USB 3.2 2x2, that's exactly what the dongle needs to achieve 10 Gbit Full Duplex, so 10 Gbit up and 10 Gbit down.