IO CREST 5.0GB PCIe Network Card – PCIe to 5.0 Gigabit Ethernet Network Card, Supports Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7, Win Server 2022/2019/2016, Linux

The card wasn't natively supported in Unraid. But after installing the RTL8126 Drivers via Apps it was detected and is working as expected.

I installed this on a repurposed HP willow 2 motherboard with an AMD A10 chip running ZimaOS and it was recognized as 5G Ethernet device immediately. I needed at least a 2.5G solution, since my pcie was populated with a 10G SFP as I plan to use this machine as an OPNsense router on my 2G fiber network. I am very happy with this device since I now have room to upgrade my network in the future without the need to upgrade my hardware

It’s nice to see 5 gigabit ethernet cards becoming affordable, when they are below a 20 dollar price point anway. The cost to move to 10gbe today, still is a bit high for those on a budget. The good: *5gbe will be plenty fast for you to transfer files between your home. This card has plenty of bandwidth for local transfers at optimal speeds using SATA HDD/SSD. *iperf3 speed test results were around 4.5 to 4.7Gb/sec, using a crossover cable. Seems to be in range with 10%+- for overhead. *The card is a PCIe 3.0 x1 card. You'll easily get the 5gbe speeds in a PCIe 3.0 system, which is pretty much anything made since 2015 for PCs. The bad: *1 star off for no heatsink, and just quirky results depending on the machine you use it with. *1 star off for four things: 1. the price games being played with for this card. The card has no heatsink, the price increases are not justified. Buy it on the low end, it's worth that much. 2. *The Realtek windows default drivers do NOT work very well, if at all. (This is the fault of Microsoft moreso than realtek) I have seen some people complain that this card does not work at all. And that's because they either didn't download the driver for this card, or there's some other hardware issue with either the switch or driver not supporting auto negotiation, among other possibilities. 3. *Two different machines I have tried give two different results, both have PCIe 3.0 bus support at that too. I only have 2.5gbe equipment currently, but even at that, something seems off with these cards. One machine does 2300Mb/sec steady and consistent to my 2.5gbe ISP router - seems accurate for 2.5gbe Another machine does 1300-1800Mb/sec varying speeds to my 2.5gbe ISP router - 50-75% of the 2.5gbe speed 4. *My file transfers topped out at abourt 467MB/sec max. My tests did not show 5x the speed copying from NVMe SSD to NVMe SSD, I had hoped they'd be closer to 550MB/sec, as 112MB/sec is near the max for 1gbe. Not enough to deduct a star, but still, a bit disappointing. Other Thoughts: *For ALL Realtek Network adapters, 1gbe, 2.5gbe, 5gbe, 10gbe, and so on: *use the actual Realtek drivers* from the realtek site. Go to Dowloads > Network Interface Controllers > 5G Gigabit Ethernet > PCI Express > RTL8126 This is the latest Realtek drivers for Windows, Linux, etc This works with this IOCrest 5gbe adapter, and others that have the same RTL8126 chipset. *Be sure to download the drivers before installing the card, or leave your current network adapter installed so you can go get the proper drivers first before using the 5gbe card. *Disable power management for the card, so that you do not have speed or connectivity problems. *Remember: Just because windows detects a device with their own MS driver, doesn't mean the MS driver for the device works optimally, or at all. ALWAYS use the MFR driver, especially for products that MFRs are making current drivers for, such as this card. Recommendations: It's a reasonable value, I can recommend this card for normal consumer use. Though my advice is to get a different card that has a heatsink. For server use and high transfer usage, I would be worried about longevity as others have said the card runs hot and that it died within weeks, months, or under 1 year. I’ll attribute that to the lack of heatsink. I wouldn't spend more than 15 dollars for a 5gbe card, period. Why? 5gbe switches are nearly non existent. And if you find them, 10gbe switches are not much more. 5gbe is kind of a go between to move off of 1gbe to something faster, depending on what you go with in a faster switch. Even paired with a 2.5gbe switch, I have seen at least double the speed compared to 1gbe. Anything that keeps up with your 2.5gbe switch or internet connection, is an improvement for sure. Lastly: the price on these cards seems to fluctuate a lot, even Amazon keeps fluttering the price on their own sold/shipped by Amazon stock of this card. I'd wait for the low end price, given the product has no heatsink and my very well may die within a year. Unreal this is 21 dollars right now via Amazon. I'm about to return mine, I just don't see the point of 5gbe when you can't find reasonably priced switches for them.

Used my 2nd PCIe 4.0 m.2 slot to install the IO CREST M.2 M-Key PCI-e 3.0 Interface Single Port 5.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter. Connected it up to an 8 port NicGiga 10GBe switch and it initially connected at 100mbit. Downloaded the Realtek RTL8126 drivers and installed the Windows 11 .exe and rebooted. Was able to connect at 5gbps automatically. Need to order my 2nd 10GBe switch and then a 10GBe router and a Wifi 7 access point to complete the upgrade, but this will do for now. Recommended if you have a mini motherboard with no spare PCIe slots.

Works well. I got the driver directly from the Realtek site.