NICGIGA S50-0800 Cheap 8-port 5GbE Switch Review

NICGIGA S50-0800-5G Management

This is an unmanaged switch, so there is no management interface to show. Some might feel better without a managed switch in this segment. Still, we have seen switches with this switch chip that are managed.

NICGIGA S50-0800-5G Performance

As an interesting aside. While we have transitioned most of our network testing to Keysight CyPerf and IxNetwork using two sets of dedicated hardware platforms, 5GbE is a bit hard for us to test. We have three NOVUS cards for our two XGS2 chassis, but we do not have a multi-gig capable card. On the CyPerf side, we now have more 400GbE ports than multi-gig capable ports, so an unmanaged switch is challenging to physically test. So, we are just using our old iperf3 setup.

The performance of this one is fine, and what we would expect out of our iperf3 setup.

NICGIGA S50-0800-5G Power Consumption and Noise

Perhaps the next question we wanted to answer is around the power consumption of the switch.

At idle, we got 6.6W, which is not bad.

When we connected one port, we added 1.4W for 8.0W. That is about what we would expect from connecting a 10Gbase-T port, not just a 5Gbps port.

Since this is a fanless switch, it is also silent.

Key Lessons Learned

Many people are passionate about having a 5GbE switch. One of the biggest challenges is that there are not as many switch chips that cater to this market. So it seems like Nicgiga (and others) are taking the Realtek RTL9303, and instead of providing 8x 10GbE ports, we get 8x 5GbE.

At this point, you are probably wondering what we were wondering. “Might this switch support 10Gbase-T as well, and is it just branded as a 5Gbase-T switch?” We brought out the Fluke LinkIQ-Duo (Amazon Affiliate) just to check. This switch appears to only support up to 5GbE speeds.

Perhaps my biggest challenge with this is whether 5GbE at the switch level is worth it. For the NIC level, one could argue that if you only have Cat5e cabling in walls, perhaps repurposing common telephone wiring, and maybe a certain set of clients, then 5GbE can make sense. At the switch level, it feels more like a stretch. Here is the challenge. If you want to connect a few devices on 10Gbase-T, then you need a different switch. Realtek RTL8127 10Gbase-T NICs are only about $12-16 more than the RTL8126 5GbE NICs.

Another thought we had was that if two of the 5GbE ports were SFP+ 10Gbps ports instead, it might be less expensive to build this switch. You wouldn’t need the 5GbE PHYs. You also would then have two higher-speed ports, and the switch chip supports it.

There are clearly going to be some of our readers who will look at this review and simply think “this is perfect” and others will think “why bother?” Both views are very fair. We probably would just buy a 10Gbase-T switch for our needs, but everyone is different. At the same time, we are trying to bring you as much as possible.

Final Words

For $169 or so, if you really just want 5GbE, then this is a decent option. It is good to know the switch chip being used is capable of more than what this switch is asking of it. Also, the switch worked, so that is always a good sign.

A cheap and fanless 5GbE switch is a neat idea. We have had folks ask about 5GbE switches, and it is great that we are finally seeing some switches available in the market like this one.

Where to Buy

Here is an Amazon Affiliate link to what we purchased.