zlacker

>>janand+(OP)
> Up to 2 Gbps downlink

> 2.5 Gbit/s PoE to upstream switch

Can anybody explain to me why these supposedly premier networking devices are lacking so much in bandwidth? I get it that mmWave is really only ever realistically going to hit 2.5G over the air, but is there any reason why they're not willing to provide at least 10G copper, or an actual SFP port? Hell, even Macs support 10G these days. I never understood this. Do they mean 2 Gbps downlink per client, or per device in total? If it's the former, 2.5G wired seems like a major bottleneck to any serious consumption.

If a single client at 2 Gbps is all the promise of 5G amounted to, well, it would be disappointing to say the least.

>>tucnak+p9
The whole 2.5 G spec is a weird step for ethernet speeds too. It's unfortunate it took off.

>>fulafe+5b
They said the same thing about 40G but hey, I've loved it for bridging the gap between my two (10G and 100G, respectively) Mikrotik switches. You can have a dozen Gigabit ports, as well as up to four true 10G devices on your aggregation switch, and neither would be bottlenecked by traffic to and from the backside. This has been a massive boon. However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what?

>>tucnak+Yc
1x PCIE 3.0 has 8 Gbps raw speed - for 2.5Gbps duplex Ethernet you'll need 6~7 Gbps of raw link to CPU.

For 5Gbps and higher, you'll need another PCIE line - and SOHO motherboards are usually already pretty tight on PCIE lanes.

10GbE will require 4x3.0 lanes

>>u8080+9j
Are motherboards commonly using PCIe 3.0 for onboard peripherals these days? I wouldn’t expect it to save them much money, but my PCIe knowledge is constrained to the application layer - I know next to nothing about the PHY or associated costs.