Topic: Networking technology
In reference to the title of this post NIC, better known as network interface controllers do still exist. Before we talk about the hardware of topic, the Asus XG-C1000 Gigabit Ethernet, here's a brief history of NIC. Back in the early days of desktop computers, circa early 2000's, you included NIC cards as part of your PC build mainly because networking interface controllers or Ethernet ports weren't included on the motherboard at that time. So in order gain access to the broadband Internet via Ethernet, you had purchase and install a NIC card and hope the drivers you installed actually work because they were sort of a bitch trying to connect the NIC to the Internet.
To speed things up and bring it all into present day 2017, installing a NIC card is not a necessary option anymore as motherboards today come outfitted with a Ethernet ports or NIC controller that's embedded onto the motherboard in a form of a chip. Today, one would feel the need use a NIC card for two reasons, add more Ethernet ports or add a high end NIC so you can increase bandwidth speed, this brings us to the Asus XG-1000 Gigabit, if you want to add bandwidth power then you should certainly purchase this piece of hardware.
Speed is definitely the name of game with the Asus XG-1000 Gigabit Nic as its part of the 10GbE ecosystem capable of delivering over 1,000MBps. The main priority with this particular NICis queuing enhancing gaming support.
Though the XG-1000 does support 10GbE and the latest 2.5 and 5GbE standard, and a much lower bandwidth standard, there seems to be no presence of a consumer branded switch that's used basically in homes and small businesses. When they are readily available, it will allow consumers to use the legacy CAT5e cabling which will avoid any expense of running any type of new wiring in the home. A battery of test performed by various published websites have discovered 10GbE speeds can be achieved in shorter distances when using CAT5e cable.
For me the standout feature on the Asus XG-C100C network card is its support of Priority Queing. This feature will give users full access of QoS, better known as Quality-of Service technology. This technology allows any user to prioritize gaming packets. This is will enable a much smoother gaming experience during heavy networking traffic.
For the casual PC user Asus XG-1000C is definitely not it, with it outputting 1,000MBps is a bit overkill for even the most experienced hardware enthusiast, but there are certainly advantages of having the extra bandwidth power, one of them we already mentioned, a smoother gaming experience. The other advantage is streaming media content such as movies will be made easy without any type of throttled bottle necking.
Networking hardware such as the Asus XG-1000C usually don't come cheap, price is usually range between $200- $400. Good news, Asus won't have consumers dive deep into the pocket for cash as the network interface card retails for just $100.
Vendors such as New Egg and Amazon currently have the Asus XG 1000C 10 Gigabit NIC up for sell if you are interested in purchasing such hardware.