Your motherboard has a 1GbE port, and adding a $15 2.5GbE PCIe card changes everything about your network
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A 1GbE motherboard port caps real-world transfer speeds at ~115 MB/s regardless of your internet plan. A $15 2.5GbE PCIe card — such as the TP-Link TX201 — slots into an unused PCIe slot and more than doubles bandwidth using existing Cat5e/Cat6 cables. Beyond raw speed, the upgrade reduces latency spikes under heavy load, improves NAS file transfers significantly (e.g., a 100GB file drops from ~13 minutes to under 5), and future-proofs against Wi-Fi 6E/7 devices that will otherwise outpace a wired connection.
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One of the easiest and cheapest upgradesThere are other perks, tooIf you're yet to swap, now is the timeSort: