10Gtek 10Gb Dual RJ45 Port Network Card with X540 Controller, PCIe Ethernet LAN Adapter for Windows/Linux/ESX Servers, Compare to Intel X540-T2

As a solutions architect who has recently started working from home, I needed a reliable and high-speed network card to handle my upgraded home internet connection, which is now a fiber connection at 5Gbps+. I also required higher throughput to my work's datacenter. The 10Gtek 10Gb Dual RJ45 Port Network Card with X540 Controller has proven to be an excellent choice. First and foremost, this network card delivers outstanding performance. With dual RJ45 ports and the X540 controller, it supports 10Gbps speeds, ensuring that my connection remains fast and stable. This has been crucial for my workflow, as I often need to transfer large files and access remote servers without any lag. Upgrading my home internet to a fiber connection at 5Gbps+ meant I needed a network card that could handle such speeds efficiently. The 10Gtek network card has met these demands perfectly, providing the necessary throughput to my work's datacenter. This has significantly improved my productivity, allowing me to access and manage data quickly and efficiently. The installation process was straightforward, and the card works seamlessly with my Windows systems and Hyper-V servers. The packaging was fantastic, and the install was as simple as expected. However, the only negative experience I had was finding compatible drivers. Windows Update didn’t recognize the hardware, and the manufacturer’s website didn’t have any readily available drivers. I ended up going to the chip manufacturer’s website and found the appropriate driver, which I successfully installed. No driver disks or instructions were provided. The build quality of this network card is on par with what I expected, providing a solid and functional product. It feels robust enough for long-term use without being overly impressive. Additionally, the card's design ensures efficient heat dissipation, preventing overheating even during prolonged use. One feature I particularly appreciate is the network activity lights, which, while almost standard, provide clear indicators of network status and activity. The device is also void of any additional noise, making it ideal for a quiet home office environment. Additionally, the value for the money is exceptional. This network card offers high-end performance and features at a reasonable price point, making it a great investment for anyone needing reliable network connectivity. In summary, the 10Gtek 10Gb Dual RJ45 Port Network Card with X540 Controller is an excellent investment for anyone needing high-speed and reliable network connectivity. It has significantly enhanced my home office setup, providing seamless and efficient access to my work's datacenter. If you're looking for a network card that offers great value for the money, exceptional performance, and broad compatibility, I highly recommend this product. Despite the minor inconvenience with the drivers, it has been a game-changer for my workflow and connectivity needs.

Context: I'm on a daily-driven Fedora (v44 on KDE) desktop. My current MB's NIC is a "Marvell AQtion AQC113C". My ISP speed at the wall is 2Gbps up/down. While the AQC113C worked, there appeared to be a known-bug specifically with Aquatic (Marvell branded) NICs when your speed is set to 2.5GbE on Linux systems. After a few days, the controller essentially gets corrupted and i have to reboot the system. That's frustrating as the system is used for local network AI inferencing, transcoding videos as a Tdarr node, and I often SSH/remote into it when I'm away. I need the machine on and available. I read this Intel controller has a good history of reliability on linux systems so that's why I picked it The review: Speaking for the X550-10G-1T model - Installed on a PCIe 4x slot. The notes from the seller are correct 2500/5000 speeds will need manual adjustment first but will work. Screenshot 1 is the "ethtool enp6s0" output. Note the red square those options didn't show until I ran a "nmcli connection modify" change and rebooted. Blue square shows speed I set. 2nd screenshot is the X550 controller. ISP speed test returned favorable at expected speeds 2234mbps down / 2091mbps up. So far the built-in driver is working well. Besides the manual 2500 adjustment, it was technically a plug-in-play experience. The small card fits as expected. 10gig is overkill for my intended use but I wanted "future proofing" and reliability

So far so good. Works fine in a windows PC connected to a 10gtek SFP module in a trendnet managed switch (and full speed when talking via that switch to a TrueNAS server with an intel X540 nic and twinax sfp pair)

I have been using this card for about a month in a Ubuntu 24.0.4.4 LTS desktop that performs some light duty server functions. The card is good when it works. Lately I have had a lot of issues with unstable firmware from this card while using it for server workloads through a VPN. I'm not sure if the VPN is relative however it is how I know. The VPN software will clamp off all communication saying the network connection is not available. The kernel displays errors about firmware error detected FWSM: 0xFFFFFFFF. The only way to recover from this so far is a full power off, pause, and power on. Not a reboot. For it being marketed as a server card, I wish it did not have this issue. I has happened at least 3 times in the last 4 days. I will say, it normally happens under load. So light duty use may not cause this issue. EDIT: I did update the card to use thermal paste and a noctua cooling fan and I have not seen much difference.

Fantastic speeds at a fraction of the cost of the intel card. This card with the 550 chipset matched byte for byte with the intel 550 card that shipped with a dell server. its drivers are preinstalled in windows and most of most *.inux, including synology. the 550 uses far less power than the 540 meaning fans do not need to be screaming.

This adapter is not automatically recognized by Windows 11. However, you can get the adapter to work perfectly by manually installing Intel's Windows 10 drivers for the chipset (Search for: x540 Intel Drivers Windows 10). You will need to install 7-Zip or WinZip so that you can unzip Intel's X540 driver installer executable. You can contact 10Gtek Customer Support (Amazon's Contact Manufacturer link) for the detailed procedure to install the Windows 10 drivers. 10Gtek customer support has been great, and very informative. Note that you might see a Unknown Manufacturer warning during the manual installation, but it is fine since you downloaded the driver from Intel. After manually installing the X540 Windows 10 drivers, the 10Gtek network card has worked perfectly. I was able to verify with iperf3 that I am seeing 10 Gbps transfer rates between my PC and the connected devices.

It is expensive. However: Seems to work perfectly on Kubuntu using Linux kernel 6.17 (and now 7.x). I haven't tested it at the full 10Gbps speed, but I have reached 1.5Gbps in Internet speed tests.

Ive used this card in two machines, two separate cards. It works great with newer spec'd PCI-e slots. The product description states its PCI-e 2.1 compatible. It is not! It plays well with AMD AM4 boards even allowing virtual pass through. I placed the card in an older machine, AMD dual core 8gb intended to be a bare metal pfsense router. The PCI-e 2.1 slot gives beep codes on start and refuses to post with the card inserted. Board boots fine without this card. It is not PCI-e 2.1 compatible as stated in the description.

quite happy my tp-link tx401, kept crashing during heavy usage 10gb nas/torrent, etc.... and replace it with this, stable but a bit slower. did not crash. good stuff.

Works perfectly on Linux. Been using it with my 10g netgear switch to share the network connections with multiple VM's on KVM/libvirt. Expensive, but worth it if you need to keep at the bleeding edge of technology, otherwise an overkill. Great to play with sriov, vm's, vf's.

Só conseguir fazer funcionar no 10G na 5ª formatação com windows 10 no 11 esquece. Recomendo 21H1 e anteriores para ficar estável apesar de funcionar na 22H2 com oscilações 1000/10g. obs. coloquem ventoinha! A X550 funciona bem no 11 23H2 e anteriores e é a próxima que vou adquirir.

after a decent wait finally gotten this 10gbe nic card. however I purchased this because there's a fan but the product sent was w/o a fan and purely heatsink. felt cheated or rather disappointed because we all know the heatsink w/o the fan, may not be as efficient.

Funciona en w11 sin instalar nada más. Funciona a 1gbps o 10gbps, no funciona a 2.5gbps. Recomiendo ponerle ventilación para evitar sobrecalentamiento.