Biggest install cost is labour. The cable and optics are cheap now, and with the future (200Gbps+) being multiple wavelengths in parallel[1], we’ve pretty much hit the end of the road for MMF.
[1] https://www.tiafotc.org/ieee-802-3-ethernet-standards-update...
Okay? If I had to run cabling through a wall, I'd make sure the guy sets it up so that I can use the cable he installs to pull new later. My time's free when I'm doing something that I don't mind doing, and I don't mind easy cable pulls.
> ...(200Gbps+)...
Don't you need 16x PCIe 4.0 for those guys? With everything other than workstation and server boards having exactly one 16x slot, you're "never" hooking that up to a gaming PC.
Everyone needs a hobby, so if you want to replace the cable later on nobody’s going to stop you.
There was a time when we couldn’t buy a PC that could saturate 1Gbps ethernet, and that time wasn’t that long ago. Your cabling plant will outlive any hardware you buy today.
So, it has... and fairly recently, too. If only I'd decided to do my home buildout six years later than I did!
It makes me wonder if transceiver longevity or reliability have been compromised, but I suppose that's only a thing you find out after a decade or so.
Anyway, priorities. Nic in the cpu slot, gpu in the chipset slot :p