this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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I was looking for a new USB-c hub and came across this article. It's an interesting write-up of what is on the inside of some popular options

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

is using a USB ethernet adapter preferable to a wireless access point that is close to my machine?

Almost certainly. Always go wired when possible. Not only will the wired device be faster, there will be more bandwidth available for other devices still using wireless. Wireless is a shared transmission medium you want as few devices using it as possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks, some folks on reddit were saying the ethernet to USB degrades the speed of a native ethernet port or PCI (unfortunately my ITX build has no extra PCI slots). But even if I took a minor hit in speed, I prefer the consistency of having no packet loss. I live in a high density area with a lot of wifi networks nearby.

Ideally should I try to find a Intel Ethernet device?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

If you have a native Ethernet port, use that. If you don't, ethernet over USB-C or on a PCI card is approximately as good. A USB 3.0 adapter + port is technically slower, but if your network isn't capable of speeds faster than a gigabit, the adapter won't be the limiting factor. For most people, these are all good solutions. Faster networking equipment is still somewhat specialty/niche.

USB 2.0 adapters/ports can cause problems though, as it's capped around half a gigabit. While this likely won't affect your access speeds to the public internet, it will likely slow file transfers to other devices on your home network.

The chipset maker isn't a perfect heuristic, as shown in the article, but I've had pretty good luck with Intel and Marvell.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

USB degrades the speed of a native ethernet port or PCI

It'll be limited by the USB controller really. USB ports on one controller share bandwidth so if you're using most of the available bandwidth (such as on the old 3 gigabit/s USB3 ports) you might notice some lost speed but otherwise you should have plenty of bandwidth for a gigabit connection

Ideally should I try to find a Intel Ethernet device?

Honestly if you've already got something that works I wouldn't bother buying something else because it might theoretically be better

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So my fried Ethernet port is stacked on top of 2 specialty USB 3.2 Gen2 ports separate from the regular 3.2 Gen 1 ports. Any advantages using those 3.2 Gen 2 ports with a USB ethernet? Do I need to make sure the USB adapter is rated for that. Asrock B550 ITX Phantom Gaming specs for reference: https://pg.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B550%20Phantom%20Gaming-ITXax/index.asp

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

So USB 3 has a super confusing naming convention nowadays. In short, "USB 3.0" has been renamed at least twice since it was first introduced and the naming conventions have simply gotten more confusing as time goes on. The one good thing I can give USB-SIG at this point is that bigger number does in fact equal more better

In your specific case, it really shouldn't make any difference what port you plug into because we're talking USB speeds of between 5Gbit/s and 20Gbit/s which of course is far more than the 1Gbit/s (plus some for protocol overhead) you need for a gigabit Ethernet connection