NICGIGA 2.5G PCIe Network Card, RTL8125B 2.5Gbps PCIe Ethernet Adapter

⭐️ Solid Budget 10GbE NIC (AQC113) – Works Great with Full Line-Speed I picked up this NICGIGA 10G Base-T PCIe card (Marvell AQC113 controller) for a 10Gb direct link setup, and overall it’s been a great value. ## 👍 What works well * **Full 10Gb performance** I’m consistently hitting ~9.8–9.9 Gbps with `iperf3`, which is basically line rate for 10Gb. * **Stable connection** Once configured, it’s rock solid. No drops, no renegotiation issues. * **Multi-gig support** Handles 2.5 / 5 / 10 Gb speeds properly with auto-negotiation. * **Standard drivers (Windows/Linux)** Works out of the box on Windows 10/11 and modern Linux kernels (AQC113 support is built in). * **Great for direct attach** I’m using it NIC-to-NIC (no switch), and latency is extremely low (~0.2 ms). --- ## ⚠️ Things to know * **Runs warm** Like most 10Gb cards, it gets hot. Make sure you have airflow. * **Driver quirks on niche systems** Works great on standard PCs, but on locked-down systems (like Synology DSM) you may need manual driver binding. * **Cable quality matters** For 10Gb, use good Cat6a or better. Lower-quality cables can limit speed. --- ## 💡 My setup * Direct 10Gb link between PC and NAS * MTU 9000 (jumbo frames enabled) * Dedicated subnet (no gateway) Result: * ~9.9 Gbps throughput * ~0.2 ms latency --- ## 🚀 Performance note If you’re not seeing full speed, it’s usually not the NIC—it’s: * disk speed (HDD RAID will bottleneck) * SMB/file copy limitations * CPU or driver settings The NIC itself is capable of full throughput. --- ## 👍 Final verdict **Pros** * Excellent performance for the price * Reliable once set up * Works well on modern systems **Cons** * Needs decent cooling * Not truly plug-and-play on every platform --- ## 🧾 Bottom line If you want an affordable 10GbE upgrade and are comfortable with basic setup/tuning, this card delivers full performance and is a great buy. For plug-and-play enterprise environments, you might look at Intel/Mellanox—but for most setups, this does the job perfectly.

Works great in Unraid on a PCIe x1 riser. Installed this NICGIGA (yes, the name is… something) AQC113 10G card in my Unraid box using a short PCIe 1x riser cable. Detected immediately, atlantic driver loaded with zero extra packages or fiddling. Had to reconfigure networking since it came up as eth1 and mess with the onboard 2.5G, but once set up it’s been solid. Getting consistent 5–6.4 Gbps over the x1 riser (exactly what you’d expect from PCIe 3.0 x1 bandwidth). No heat issues, easy install, good driver compatibility, and feels decently built. Funny name aside, it does the job well for a multi-gig upgrade when you’re stuck with an x1 slot.

I installed this into my AMD motherboard on Windows 11. It was immediately recognized on my machine -- with no drivers needing to be installed -- and easily achieved over 2 Gbps. It has a very small footprint with no heat issues.

I bought this as a replacement after the built-in 10GbE card on my Asus ProArt motherboard failed (a frustrating, known issue). While it wasn't strictly plug-and-play, grabbing the driver from Intel's website was simple enough and hardly a dealbreaker. I did have to install it manually via Device Manager because the Intel setup wizard failed for some reason, but it wasn't too difficult. My only real complaint is that it doesn't seem quite as fast as my motherboard's original 10GbE port. I'm averaging about 600 up and down, whereas I was getting closer to 900 with the built-in card. That said, for the price, it's a great fix. It runs cool, feels rock-solid, and has been completely reliable. It got my workstation back up and running without breaking the bank.

I needed a second network card for my pc and this does the job. It’s pretty fast, didn’t need any extra drivers (I run windows 11) and works well. I use it to directly connect my NAS. No issues at all.

No native driver support OR device not recognized. neither Intel nor Microsoft driver's function. QR code links to E-mail address grab without linking to data about the specific device or troubleshooting info.

Signed up fiber optic 5GB internet but my old PC motherboard was cap at 1GB. I installed this network card and the internet download speed was increased to 2GB plus, went to Realtek official website and updated the drivers. Restarted the PC and modem. Then the speed increased to download/upload nearly 5GB. Thumbs up !!

Worked out of the box, plug and play with Windows 11. Will reevaluate it if it fails on Linux.

Por ahora va muy bien. Tengo conexión de 1Gb y en los speedtest me da entre 800 y 900 Mb

Au top, installation simple et rapide. J'ai bien tout le débit annoncé, pas de bridage de ça part

Works excellent on the Truenas Core v13 and HP microserver gen8 hardware. You just need to tweak tunables to enable the driver until the issue is resolved by Realtek.

In case you don't want to read the full review the short version is: Good card, worth the money, fully recommended. The problem: The first picture shows the problem: a 1Gbps connection that only reaches just over 300Mbps, with a wired connection. Having checked every piece of equipment between modem and motherboard, including running a CAT 7 cable directly between the two the problem was finally identified as a dodgy Intel chipset on the ASUS B550-F motherboard. In other words the onboard LAN was just unable to deliver the full broadband speed - and had been delivering substandard speeds for some time. The solution: pictures 2-4: a NICGIGA 2.5Gbps PCI-E card with a Realtek chipset. Why this card? Well, simply put, it has a black backplate that fits in with the motherboard's black backplates. I know, not the best reason but it also has a known chipset, a decent heatsink on the main chip, an handle over the 1Gbps bandwidth, future-proofs to a certain extent and is at good price point. (A quick note about the future-proofing: a 1 Gigabit connection can potentially deliver over 1Gbps - up to 1.3Gbps - whereas a 1Gbps card stops at 1Gbps. This card is 2.5Gbps and so will handle over 1Gbps and provides some future-proofing for when the next major speed increase comes in.) Install: was really simple: unscrew a backplate, install the card, screw in the card, close the case and plug in a CAT 7 cable bought at the same time - KINBETA high speed 10Gbps 2 metre CAT 7 flat braided cable - and switch on PC. See pictures 6-8. The result: picture 9 shows the result. As soon as the PC started the card was recognised, no driver download was needed. The download speed jumped from 321.5Mbps to 925Mbps (picture 9) solving the problem in a most elegant way. It is interesting to note that the ping was 9ms both before and after upgrading the NIC and upload also remained the same - the 52Mbps which was the expected speed and initially highlighted the problem. For those with a small form factor PC it is worth noting that a smaller backplate is provided (see picture 5) as well as a screwdriver and two screws. Overall very happy with this purchase it solved the problem at a reasonable cost and I can feel the difference the higher speed connection makes. Definitely recommend this card.

Bunged this card into my pfsense firewall for when my ISP started offering 1Gbps connections. The ISP at the time was virginmedia and users of that ISP will know they always give you 'a bit more' to ensure you're hitting the amount you have paid for. Managed to get 1.4Gbps through this a couple of times. Worked great, still works.