Discussion Why aren't there any PCIe x1 v3 or v4 NBASE-T adapters out there? Or why isn't NBASE-T just built in?

abufrejoval

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Jun 24, 2017
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10GBase-T has been a very long wait and I understand that much of it related to PHY power and the economy of scale in cloud data centers.

On the other hand, now that NBase-T switches are getting to $50/port or lower, I'd like to see more options on the NIC side of things.

But for some reason every 10GBase-T and NBase-T NIC (single or double) seems to be stuck at x4 lanes as if PCIe v1 was still ruling the world, while at v4 you can actually run 2 10Gbit ports through a single lane: How did we wind up in a situation where there are plenty of USB 3.2 10Gbit ports on modern motherboards, but the same datarate on Ethernet is both a $150 premium on X570 motherboards and grabbing four lanes of 20 Gbit bandwidth?

Makes me want to run TCP/IP over USB, which for some reason seems more difficult (and expensive) to get than SCSI over USB (you try getting FCoE or iSCSI on a budget!).

We have HDMI with Ethernet side channels, Display Ports which seem to be essentially PCIe, Thunderbolt aka USB4 which is everything except Ethernet while I really just want to put half a dozen PCs under my desk into a fabric that is as fast as the bus they connect to. I don't really mind if it's not Ethernet, I'll take a USB or, better yet, an Inifinity Fabric switch, perhaps with an Ethernet uplink or router. I'd actually use RDMA before Ethernet, or accept SCSI over NFS any day: Ethernet was once thought to be the better alternative to Infiniband for economical HPC... Today I wonder why?

I used to run networks over parallel port cables, even ran TCP/IP over a serial port and a modem in the old days, IP over Fibre-Channel wasn't a hit, but possible, Mellanox Connect-X5 will do Infiniband, NVMe-oF/PCIe, Ethernet, but for some reason there are no switches that support all three, even if the silicon on both sides is distinct multiples of the same base architecture... binary is binary and protocol translations are done at wire speeds these days...

Actually somewhere on this site I believe I have read that the Infinity Fabric supports Ethernet natively as a protocol, besides RAM and PCIe and that it's just a matter of adding PHYs to deliver as many ports as you don't care to use for USB 3.2 or PCIe x1 v4 slots: So why aren't we getting these options?

Am I really the only one asking for this?
 
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SamirD

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Jun 12, 2019
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The easy answer is also the simplest one--it's just not in demand.

I never understood why pci and even pcie had to exist when the connector could stay side-by-side with the isa and eisa standards. And pci looks almost identical in form and function as the Microchannel Architecture (mca) that IBM tried to get established before 32-bit was everywhere. But alas, things pan out the way they do. Beta was a better tape than VHS, and minidiscs and dat were great formats too. Arcnet is gone, v.34 modems are gone, and even frame relay is gone. Even ATM-622 is gone!

Anyways, this is just how it ends up, and the dizzying array of overlapping connectors definitely makes things a bit fuzzy. But then when you put only usb-c like Apple did, it's dongle city, so either way it's a losing battle.
 

abufrejoval

Member
Jun 24, 2017
39
5
41
The easy answer is also the simplest one--it's just not in demand.

I never understood why pci and even pcie had to exist when the connector could stay side-by-side with the isa and eisa standards. And pci looks almost identical in form and function as the Microchannel Architecture (mca) that IBM tried to get established before 32-bit was everywhere. But alas, things pan out the way they do. Beta was a better tape than VHS, and minidiscs and dat were great formats too. Arcnet is gone, v.34 modems are gone, and even frame relay is gone. Even ATM-622 is gone!

Anyways, this is just how it ends up, and the dizzying array of overlapping connectors definitely makes things a bit fuzzy. But then when you put only usb-c like Apple did, it's dongle city, so either way it's a losing battle.

While I managed to avoid MCA, I have been using a PS/2 keyboard ever since I had to retire my favorite AT-keyboards (huge improvement over PC/XT!) for lack of Alt-GR (still believe function keys should be on the left and ESC next to the cursor keys): I am typing this on one that was produced on March 28th, 1990. Got a spare and hope to die before both expire... it's simply the Steinway of computer keyboards!

ISA, ISA-AT, EISA, VESA local bus, AGP, PCI, PCIe, TB (Tubercolosis?) did them all, suffered through all transitions of sockets, RAM types, busses and connectors since the first Z80 Softcard on my Apple ][ clone, the last Apple I never purchased.

BTW started video on reel-to-reel and in black & white and S-VHS was better than both lesser video standards and more economical at audio than DAT and Mini-Disk on the very same machine (portability wasn't a thing for me: I am a classical music hobby musician and believe that 'listening' to music is a focus activity, not a road-side-show!)

I am pretty sure if 2.5/5/10 Gbit were $2.5/5/10 premiums or even 2x or 4x that amount, the demand would be there.

It's a chicken & egg issue and someone has been putting his fat big behind on beyond Gbit way too heavily and for far too long.

Sure doesn't mean you're wrong, just means somebody should put it right already!

5Gbit USB3 Ethernet adapters announced all over Amazons, but still not selling in .de, D'oh!
 

SamirD

Golden Member
Jun 12, 2019
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www.huntsvillecarscene.com
Lovely trip down memory road. :D I can't believe I forgot SVHS! We got 2 Sony SLV-R1000s back in the day along with a Panasonic AG series camera for some hobby film projects my brother and I used to do. SVHS was awesome for the quality between generations.

Yep, definitely a bit of a chicken and egg situation, as was Fast Ethernet when it first came out--and the challenge there was the wiring since it didn't run on cat3. And it beat out the anylan vg 100Mbit standard that imo was actually better.

We'll get there someday...and then have to upgrade again, hahaha!