The Best 10G Network Card to Speed Up Your Network

10g-network-card10G networks are the present and future of network connectivity in homes and small offices, thanks to speeds up to 10Gbps, we can squeeze the maximum performance of NAS servers to achieve the best read and write speed. Today in RedesZone we are going to indicate which are the best network cards with 10G ports, both for PCs and for servers, so you only need to buy a 10G switch and also its corresponding wiring.

The manufacturers of 10G network cards are launched models with 10GBASE-T ports , that is, we can connect the typical Ethernet network cable with RJ-45 connector, but 10G network cards with SFP + ports for fiber are also launched, so we must take into account how we want to connect the network card to the switch (with the typical RJ-45, or with a transceiver plus fiber cable). All these cards are connected to the PC or server through a PCIe port on the motherboard, necessary to achieve high wired speeds.

In this article we have classified the best network cards in two clearly differentiated sections, first we will talk about network cards with 10G ports with the 10GBASE-T standard, and then with SFP + port.

Network cards with standard 10GBASE-T (network cable with RJ-45)

Network cards with the 10GBASE-T standard will allow us to transfer data at speeds of 10Gbps Full-Duplex. When buying a 10G network card with this type of port, we must check some very important features:

  • Do you have only one 10G port or have several?
  • Is the cooling passive (totally silent) or does it have a fan for active cooling?
  • Does it support Multigigabit speeds with the NBASE-T standard? This feature will allow us to synchronize at speeds of 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps.

Once we consider these issues, we go with the list and the main characteristics of the different models.

ASUS XG-C100C

This ASUS network card is the best value in the market and is mainly focused on home use for PC, although it can be installed perfectly on any server as it has compatibility for all operating systems. Only one available PCIe 2.0 x4 port is required to click on the board.

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates a single 10GBASE-T port, compatible with Multigigabit speeds, so it is capable of synchronizing at speeds of 100Mbps / 1Gbps / 2.5Gbps / 5Gbps, and of course, at speed 10Gbps This network card incorporates auto-negotiation, auto MDI / MDIX, and also supports Jumbo Frames up to 16K. This model also supports VLAN Tagging and priority queues.

This network card model has passive cooling with its huge heatsink at the top, this is ideal to place on our PC or server and make it completely silent.

EUR 84.99

D-Link DXE-820T

This D-Link DXE-820T network card is specifically focused on a business environment, where we install this network card on a high-performance server. However, you can also install it on a normal Windows PC since it is compatible with all operating systems (Windows Server 2008 (x86, x64) / 2008 R2 (x64), Windows Server 2012, RHEL 6.4 / 6.5 (x64), RHEL 5.9 (x64), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.2 / 11.3 (x64) and Solaris 11 / 11.1) Although it also supports many others such as Debian or Windows 10, you will not have compatibility issues. Only one available PCIe 2.0 x8 port is required to click on the board.

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates two 10GBASE-T ports, so we can achieve speeds of up to 20Gbps Full-Duplex because it supports Link Aggregation and also Teaming Port, ideal for aggregating links and getting Super fast speed. This network card incorporates auto-negotiation, auto MDI / MDIX, and also supports Jumbo Frames of up to 9K, but without a doubt, a very important feature is that it supports VLANs, IPMI, and is even capable of doing checksum offload to TDP, UDP and IP, so that the main CPU of our computer does not have to perform this work. Finally, it also supports TCP segmentation, QoS and up to three CoS classes.

A very important detail is that it does not support Multigigabit with NBASE-T, that is, we can synchronize at speeds of 100Mbps / 1Gbps and 10Gbps, but we will not synchronize at speeds of 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps. This model of network card has active cooling with its huge heatsink at the top, and a fan to properly cool the network card chipset.

 

EUR 361.75

Edimax EN-9320TX-E

This Edimax network card is very similar to the previous ASUS, has a very good value for money and is mainly focused on domestic use for PC, although it can be installed perfectly on any server since it has compatibility for all operating systems . Only one available PCIe 2.0 x4 port is required to click on the board.

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates a single 10GBASE-T port , compatible with Multigigabit speeds, so it is capable of synchronizing at speeds of 100Mbps / 1Gbps / 2.5Gbps / 5Gbps, and of course, at speed 10Gbps This network card incorporates auto-negotiation, auto MDI / MDIX, and also supports Jumbo Frames up to 16K. Another very important feature is that it supports VLANs, and is even able to do checksum offload to TDP, UDP and IP, so that the main CPU of our computer does not have to perform this work. Finally, it also supports TCP segmentation, QoS and up to three CoS classes.

This model of network card has passive cooling with its heatsink at the top, this is ideal to place on our PC or server and make it completely silent.

 

EUR 114.49

QNAP QXG-10G1T

This network card from the manufacturer QNAP is compatible for both PC and home use, as well as servers, especially on their NAS servers to provide them with 10G connectivity if they do not have 10G ports by default. Only one available PCIe 3.0 x4 port is required to click on the board.

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates a single 10GBASE-T port , compatible with Multigigabit speeds, so it is capable of synchronizing at speeds of 100Mbps / 1Gbps / 2.5Gbps / 5Gbps, and of course, at speed 10Gbps This network card incorporates auto-negotiation, auto MDI / MDIX, and also supports Jumbo Frames up to 9K.

This model of network card has passive cooling with its heatsink at the top, this is ideal to place on our PC or server and make it completely silent.

 

EUR 111.01

If you are going to install this network card in Windows or Linux operating systems, you will need to install the corresponding drivers. If you are going to use it on a QNAP NAS server, it will automatically recognize it without problems. The chipset of this network card is Aquantia AQtion AQC107, and you must download the drivers from its official website.


QNAP QXG-10G2T-107

This network card from the manufacturer QNAP is compatible for both PC and home use, as well as servers, especially on their NAS servers to provide them with 10G connectivity if they do not have 10G ports by default. Only one available PCIe 3.0 x4 port is required to click on the board (although the specifications indicate that it is PCIe 2.0 x4 really is PCIe 3.0 x4).

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates two 10GBASE-T ports , compatible with Multigigabit speeds, so it is capable of synchronizing at speeds of 100Mbps / 1Gbps / 2.5Gbps / 5Gbps, and of course, at the speed of 10Gbps This network card incorporates auto-negotiation, auto MDI / MDIX, and also supports Jumbo Frames up to 9K.

This model of network card has active cooling with its heatsink at the top and a fan, however, we have verified that the fan is quite silent, but logically you will not have zero noise as with the previous model.

 

EUR 111.01

If you are going to install this network card in Windows or Linux operating systems, you will need to install the corresponding drivers. If you are going to use it on a QNAP NAS server, it will automatically recognize it without problems. The chipset of this network card is Aquantia AQtion AQC107S, and you must download the drivers from its official website.


QNAP LAN-10G2T-X550

This network card from the manufacturer QNAP is compatible for both PC and home use, as well as servers, especially on their NAS servers to provide them with 10G connectivity if they do not have 10G ports by default. Only one available PCIe 3.0 x4 port is required.

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates two 10GBASE-T ports . If we install this network card in Windows operating systems, we will not have compatibility with Multigigabit speeds (2.5Gbps and 5Gbps), we will only have 1Gbps or 10Gbps speeds as with all cards that do not support NBASE-T. In Linux operating systems we will have support for NBASE-T, so it is capable of synchronizing at speeds of 100Mbps / 1Gbps / 2.5Gbps / 5Gbps, and of course, at a speed of 10Gbps. This network card incorporates auto-negotiation, auto MDI / MDIX, and also supports Jumbo Frames up to 9K.

This model of network card has active cooling with its heatsink on top and a fan.

 

EUR 320.52

We recommend you access the official website of the QNAP LAN-10G2T-X550 where you will find all the details.

Other very interesting cards that QNAP has for PC and servers with the QM2 , but these not only have 10G ports, but also have slots to install SSD and accelerate system performance.

Network cards with 10Gbps SFP + port

ASUS XG-C100F

This ASUS network card is exactly the same as the ASUS XG-C100C model, but instead of having a 10GBASE-T port, it has an SFP + port to use DAC cables or a transceiver and fiber optic. This model is mainly focused on domestic use for PC (using the appropriate wiring), although it can be installed perfectly on any server since it has compatibility for all operating systems. Only one available PCIe 2.0 x4 port is required to click on the board.

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates a single SFP + port, supports Jumbo Frames up to 16K, VLAN Tagging and also supports different priority queues. This network card model has passive cooling with its huge heatsink at the top, this is ideal to place on our PC or server and make it completely silent.

EUR 98.00

We recommend you access the official website of the ASUS XG-C100F where you will find all the technical details.


Edimax EN-9320SFP +

This Edimax EN-9320SFP + network card is very similar to the previous ASUS with SFP + port, has a very good value for money and is mainly focused on domestic use for PC, whenever you are going to use DAC cables or use a transceiver and fiber optics. These types of connections can be used perfectly on a PC, but also on a server as it has compatibility for all operating systems.

The main feature of this 10G network card is that it incorporates a single SFP + port , so we can synchronize at speeds of 1Gbps or 10Gbps, depending on the DAC cable you connect. This model supports Jumbo Frames at 16K, queues of QoS, VLANs, and is even capable of doing checksum offload to TDP, UDP and IP, so that the main CPU of our computer does not have to do this work.

This model of network card has passive cooling with its heatsink at the top, this is ideal to place on our PC or server and make it completely silent.

EUR 114.49

We recommend you access the official website of the Edimax EN-9320SFP + where you will find all the technical details.