IOCrest Quad 2.5 Gigabit PCI-e x4 Ethernet Network Card

Four 2.5 GbE ports on a PCIe x4 card

This IOCrest adapter adds four 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports to any desktop, workstation or server that has a free PCI Express x4, x8 or x16 slot. It targets users who need more wired bandwidth than a single 1 GbE port provides but do not require 10 GbE infrastructure. The card suits file-server duties, multi-camera editing rigs and virtualised hosts that benefit from several independent 2.5 GbE links.

Installation uses standard PCIe brackets

The board ships with a 12 cm full-height bracket and an 8 cm low-profile bracket so it fits both tower chassis and compact HTPC cases. Driver support covers Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Vista, XP, 2000, 98 SE, ME and macOS 10.7 plus Linux kernels, so most legacy and current operating systems recognise the card without extra downloads. A common issue is forgetting to enable the PCIe slot in BIOS on older motherboards, which leaves the ports inactive.

Four lanes deliver 2.5 Gbps per port

Each port negotiates at 10, 100, 1000 or 25000 Mbps and the x4 electrical interface provides enough throughput for all four ports to run at 2.5 Gbps simultaneously. The adapter complies with IEEE 802.3, 802.3u and 802.3ab and supports 802.1Q VLAN tagging for network segmentation. It will not satisfy builds that need 10 GbE or higher per port, nor systems limited to PCIe x1 slots where the four lanes cannot be accommodated.