I purchased a Trendnet 7080-ES switch in 2019 . It has served me well with multiple PCs using PCIe Aquantia AQN-107 NICs at 10 Gbps speed.
Today, I received a USB 3.0 NIC from Cable Creation . This is a 2.5 Gbps NIC using the Realtek 8156 chipset. I installed it on a Windows 10 system. Windows 10 automatically recognized the NIC. However, once I started running into performance issues, I updated the NIC drivers to 10.38.20.117 from the Realtek website, dated 1/17/2020 .
This is the result of an iperf test between two systems. They are directly connected by a 10ft CAT6 cable. IP addresses are manually configured on each system. The client is using the Realtek NIC on Windows 10. The server is using the Aquantia AQN-107 NIC on Ubuntu 18.04. Both sides are configured with 9KB jumbo frames.
This is about as good a result as can be expected - 99% of the 2.5 Gbps link speed. The difference is mostly TCP and IP overhead. I then connected the machines to the 10 Gbps ports of a Netgear unmanaged GS110MX switch, using CAT6 cables. This was the result :
Finally, using the same CAT6 cables, I moved both systems to the Trendnet TEG-7080ES switch. This is the result of the performance test :
As you can see, the card can't even deliver 1 Gbps in this case. We are very far from the link speed - only about 23% !
The Trendnet TEG-7080ES admin console shows the following :
Today, I received a USB 3.0 NIC from Cable Creation . This is a 2.5 Gbps NIC using the Realtek 8156 chipset. I installed it on a Windows 10 system. Windows 10 automatically recognized the NIC. However, once I started running into performance issues, I updated the NIC drivers to 10.38.20.117 from the Realtek website, dated 1/17/2020 .
This is the result of an iperf test between two systems. They are directly connected by a 10ft CAT6 cable. IP addresses are manually configured on each system. The client is using the Realtek NIC on Windows 10. The server is using the Aquantia AQN-107 NIC on Ubuntu 18.04. Both sides are configured with 9KB jumbo frames.
D:\Downloads\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3 -c 192.168.1.237 -t 10 -O 10 -i 5 -R Connecting to host 192.168.1.237, port 5201 Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.1.237 is sending [ 4] local 192.168.1.236 port 61654 connected to 192.168.1.237 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-5.00 sec 1.43 GBytes 2.45 Gbits/sec (omitted) [ 4] 5.00-10.00 sec 1.43 GBytes 2.45 Gbits/sec (omitted) [ 4] 0.00-5.00 sec 1.44 GBytes 2.47 Gbits/sec [ 4] 5.00-10.00 sec 1.43 GBytes 2.45 Gbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 2.87 GBytes 2.47 Gbits/sec 0 sender [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 2.86 GBytes 2.46 Gbits/sec receiver iperf Done.
This is about as good a result as can be expected - 99% of the 2.5 Gbps link speed. The difference is mostly TCP and IP overhead. I then connected the machines to the 10 Gbps ports of a Netgear unmanaged GS110MX switch, using CAT6 cables. This was the result :
D:\Downloads\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3 -c 192.168.1.237 -t 10 -O 10 -i 5 -R Connecting to host 192.168.1.237, port 5201 Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.1.237 is sending [ 4] local 192.168.1.236 port 63175 connected to 192.168.1.237 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-5.00 sec 1.28 GBytes 2.19 Gbits/sec (omitted) [ 4] 5.00-10.00 sec 1.29 GBytes 2.22 Gbits/sec (omitted) [ 4] 0.00-5.00 sec 1.29 GBytes 2.22 Gbits/sec [ 4] 5.00-10.00 sec 1.30 GBytes 2.23 Gbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 2.59 GBytes 2.22 Gbits/sec 0 sender [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 2.59 GBytes 2.22 Gbits/sec receiver iperf Done.While this is slower than a direct connection, the speed is still much higher than 2 Gbps, and about 88% of the 2.5 Gbps link speed.
Finally, using the same CAT6 cables, I moved both systems to the Trendnet TEG-7080ES switch. This is the result of the performance test :
D:\Downloads\iperf-3.1.3-win64>iperf3 -c 192.168.1.237 -t 10 -O 10 -i 5 -R Connecting to host 192.168.1.237, port 5201 Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.1.237 is sending [ 4] local 192.168.1.236 port 61997 connected to 192.168.1.237 port 5201 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.00-5.00 sec 325 MBytes 545 Mbits/sec (omitted) [ 4] 5.00-10.00 sec 312 MBytes 524 Mbits/sec (omitted) [ 4] 0.00-5.00 sec 325 MBytes 546 Mbits/sec [ 4] 5.00-10.00 sec 364 MBytes 610 Mbits/sec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 689 MBytes 579 Mbits/sec 10231 sender [ 4] 0.00-10.00 sec 689 MBytes 578 Mbits/sec receiver iperf Done.
As you can see, the card can't even deliver 1 Gbps in this case. We are very far from the link speed - only about 23% !
The Trendnet TEG-7080ES admin console shows the following :