News Akasa shows off 5 Gbps Network Card at Computex

[TheLostSwede]

It looks like the more affordable 5 Gbps network cards are nearly here, as Akasa was showing off a 5 Gbps NIC at Computex this week.
This is based on Realtek's 5 Gbps chips that they were showing at Computex last year.

Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/323315/...sb4-enclosures-power-accessories-cooling-gear

 

[d5aqoep]

A speed invented to milk consumers more and more. They should have jumped from 1gbe to 10gbe.

 

[TheLostSwede]

A speed invented to milk consumers more and more. They should have jumped from 1gbe to 10gbe.

No, it has absolutely nothing to do with consumers.
2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps were implemented so older cabling could be used, since 10 Gbps requires Cat 6a for runs longer than 50 meters.
2.5 Gbps runs fine of Cat 5E and 5 Gbps was intended for this as well, but it seems like this was changed to Cat 6 officially, even though it seems to be fine on Cat 5E in most instances.

The standards organisations that develop network standards most likely doesn't give a rats about consumers, instead they're coming up with solutions that are suitable for big corporations. This is also partially why 10 Gbps hasn't "trickled down" to consumer prices yet. Another issue is that all current 10 Gbps Ethernet controllers are costly, big chips that run hot and uses a fair amount of power. This new 5 Gbps Ethernet controller doesn't draw much more power than Realtek's 2.5 Gbps controller and it's barely any bigger and doesn't require a heatsink, unlike the Aquantia/Marvell chips.