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Comment by sliken | Hacker News Reader

Seems kinda weird, why one GigE and one 2.5GbE? Maybe they will make a one plus with double the ram and 2x2.5Gbe?

Most likely an IO limitation of the MediaTek MT7981B SoC used—it looks like it only has one lane of PCIe Gen 2, a USB 3.0 port, and one built-in 1 Gbps Ethernet controller (among a few other common low-speed interfaces)[1]. Typically these chips have bandwidth constraints, and it seems this one is meant for small routers, not the typical multi-2.5G or 10G setups some homelabbers would prefer.

[1] https://mirror2.openwrt.org/docs/MT7981B_Wi-Fi6_Platform_Dat...

If the USB3 was exposed, it'd be possible to use e.g. Realtek rtl8125 for another 2.5g.

Alas, it is not.

Total deal breaker for me. I don't understand this design decision, this router is clearly targeted to advanced users so I would expect most of those would have multiple devices they'd want wired?

Yeah plugged into my switch. The back bone of my home network is 10G and will be unaffected by the router's limitations even when I get a 100G switch.

It's disappointing the 1G link will only limit the potential downloads of my internet activity if it ever jumps from 110Mbps to over 1Gbps.

I'd appreciate the downvoters' reasoning.

Not a downvoter, but it’s probably because it doesn’t really matter. If you want high speed connections for multiple devices, use a separate switch. Devices that are purely routers often have only a few ports, and you can use VLANs to multiplex subnets.

External ISP connections rarely exceed 1Gb in many parts of the world (for home connections especially), so there’s not much point in a faster link speed.

And the chip itself only supports 1x 2.5Gb and 1x 1Gb, so the choice was made for them. Maybe they could have limited both ports to 1Gb to avoid a perception that one port is hobbled.

I have a gigabit connection from my ISP but I run a 2.5Gbe home network. Works perfectly for me.

The difference isn't that much (around 10% IIRC), but gigabit internet service needs a 2.5 GbE connection to your router if you want the full speed that it's capable of.

I just don't agree period. Not even for a ten year old unmanaged DLink

For my gigabit fiber, it's actually 1.3 Gbps (they overprovision a bit), so having 2.5G to my network is nice, in that I don't miss out on the extra 400 Mbps of bandwidth :)

For 99% of the time, though, it makes no difference. Anything over about 100 Mbps is adequate for a lot of what I do.

That's just how it works — Gigabit Ethernet doesn't mean gigabit data transfer rates. This is why all fiber providers I'm aware of provide ONTs with 2.5 GbE for their gigabit internet service.

If you're paying for gigabit internet and getting 925 Mb/sec through a gigabit Ethernet router, you're doing great. But you need to use a 2.5 GbE-capable router/switch to get advertised speeds.

> Maybe they will make a one plus with double the ram and 2x2.5Gbe?

I parse this as "Maybe they will make one that costs more than $89?"

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