Hidden Gems of CES ASUS 10Gb networking

Hidden Gems of CES ASUS 10Gb networking

At CES 2015 there were so many products that covering everything instantly is more or less impossible, so some things inevitably get missed and do not get the spotlight that it deserves. 10Gb networking solutions are not something that is new, but it is something that has never hit the consumer market in a bug way, being limited to business class and enterprise grade gear primarily. 

Over the next while ASUS is looking to change that, with a whole range of new 10Gb products from PCIe expansion cards to managed and unmanaged network switches. 

Alongside ASUS' new motherboards there was a new 10Gb networking card, a card which will be available with ASUS' Z170 Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly motherboard and as a standalone unit, though right now pricing is yet to be confirmed for the card. The card itself is based on an existing design from Tehuti Networks, but it is made with a black PCB and is covered by the ROG themed heatsink that you see below. 

10Gb networking on your PC is pretty much useless if you don't have anything to connect it to, especially since no consumer router has 10Gb ports at present. ASUS is solving this problem by providing their new XG-D2008 and XG-S4016 network switches, which both can be easily be connected to 10 devices or more.

The silver coloured XG-D2008 is an unmanaged home networking solution that has two 10Gb connections and 8 traditional 1Gb connections, offering a great deal of connectivity.  This model is currently set to have a MSRP of $300, which is fairly cheap given the cost of most 10Gb networking equipment today. 

The second solution is the XG-S4016, which is designed more for office environments and has dual 10Gb ports with SFP+ and 16 standard 1Gb ethernet ports. Right now this unit does not have a quotable MSRP. 

Moving into the future consumers need faster internal networks, whether it be for internal streaming of video, games or simply accessing your home server or NAS device. With the bandwidth limit of ordinary Gb ethernet connections being easily saturated by modern storage mediums and home networks becoming increasingly crowded, improvements are necessary moving forward.