[SOLVED] 2.5G Lan and cat8 cable

Aug 12, 2021
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Just bought a msi b550m mortar mobo and it says it has a 2.5G Lan port. I was looking for some good ethernet cables and have seen that cat8 cables can get speeds up to 40Gbps. If I use one of those in my mobo, will I only get 2.5 Gbps?
 
Solution
To actually use a 2,5g port you need much more than just a cable. It provides no benefit for internet use, you don't see more than 1gbit offered and even then most servers have artificial limits on them to prevent people with fast connection from over utilizing the server.

It all depends on what you plan to do with the fast connection. One example would be if you have a NAS and needed to copy data quickly. The NAS would also need a 2.5g or faster port and you would need a switch/router with multiple 2.5g ports. Even then this is not enough. Both your PC and the NAS need to have disk systems that can exceed 1gbit. Normal dumb hard drives can bottleneck you.

Unless you actually know what you are going to use it for...
Just bought a msi b550m mortar mobo and it says it has a 2.5G Lan port. I was looking for some good ethernet cables and have seen that cat8 cables can get speeds up to 40Gbps. If I use one of those in my mobo, will I only get 2.5 Gbps?
You can use cat6a which supports 10GE. Assuming a good cable, you will get a max of 2.5Gb. You have to have switches or a router that support faster than 1Gb to get 2.5Gb.
Don't spend extra for "faster" cable. It won't change anything.
 
To actually use a 2,5g port you need much more than just a cable. It provides no benefit for internet use, you don't see more than 1gbit offered and even then most servers have artificial limits on them to prevent people with fast connection from over utilizing the server.

It all depends on what you plan to do with the fast connection. One example would be if you have a NAS and needed to copy data quickly. The NAS would also need a 2.5g or faster port and you would need a switch/router with multiple 2.5g ports. Even then this is not enough. Both your PC and the NAS need to have disk systems that can exceed 1gbit. Normal dumb hard drives can bottleneck you.

Unless you actually know what you are going to use it for 2.5g ports are more marketing than anything else. Most people will never use it, and we have seen lots of driver issues with 2.5g ports on motherboards.
 
Solution