The WisdPi WP-UT5 is the latest USB to 5GbE adapter that we are reviewing. A few weeks ago, we looked at the WAVLINK 5Gbps USB-C to 5GbE adapter, which was a huge step up from the older USB 3.1 Gen1 to 5GbE adapters since it is a Gen2 adapter. We purchased ours for around $40. That is slightly more than 2.5GbE adapters and the WAVLINK, but perhaps for a good and simple reason. It is also less costly than 10GbE Thunderbolt 3 adapters. Let us get into it.
If you just want to check prices, we purchased ours on Amazon (Affiliate link.)
WisdPi WP-UT5 5Gbps USB-C to 5GbE Adapter Overview
The unit itself is neat because it is relatively compact. If you are throwing this into a travel bag, it is often nice to not have a cable hanging off of one end.
Here ithe bottom label. We are going to let folks just read the markings here.
The unit itself has a single 5GbE port. We also tried it at 2.5GbE and 1GbE speeds.
On the host connection side, there is a USB Type-C port with a catch. There is no attached cable.
Instead, the unit comes with two short cables one USB Type-C to Type-A and another one that is Type-C on both sides.
There are a few schools of thought here. First, if you have a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port and not a Type-C port, then this is better than the WAVLINK. If you might want to use it for both types of connections, perhaps as a mobile troubleshooting NIC, then both is better. If you have Type-C on the host system, many will prefer having having a fixed cable since that is one fewer point that can get disconnected.
Next, let us get to the drivers.
Good to see it similarly shares the throughput of the Wavlink model. I think it’d be beneficial also seeing Linux tested in such a review. The review makes passing mention at limited multi-OS driver compatibility but I expect the market for these 5Gbps models is largely for local home networking (NAS and such), which is very often Linux-based.
I saw a user on Linux v6.11 kernel and official drivers able to run this for example but the experience varies depending how up-to-date a user’s system/drivers are.
Those using full size systems and/or second-hand enterprise gear often have already made the leap to 10GbE. While the attractiveness of such 5GbE USB NICs are they’re low power and offer supplementary connection for systems which lack extra PCIe slots/room (eg: pre-built NAS, SFF). Perfect for TinyMiniMicro based servers and those with restrictive ITX cases.
At this point how many silicon vendors are even doing USB NICs north of 1GbE?
Aquantia was doing some work in the area(with maximum performance somewhat hobbled by those being 5Gb USB 3 parts) years ago at this point(STH did a 3 adapter roundup on Jan 1 of 2021); but that product line doesn’t seem to have been what Marvell was especially interested in when they bought them out; and that line is somewhere between cancelled and on life support.
Is it basically a Realtek show now? Just not enough money in it when TB always gives you the ability to throw any PCIe chipset at a problem if the customer isn’t desperately cost sensitive and the desperately cost sensitive are likely OK with the nearly-free-after-packaging 1GbE stuff?
fuzzyfuzzyfungus, I’m not sure that there’s a huge difference between 1GbE and 2.5GbE+ in terms of vendors. Aren’t most 1GbE USB3 adapters Realtek or ASIX? I think there are a couple others (Microchip?) but I don’t think there’s a ton of competition there regardless. To that end ASIX did release a 2.5GbE chip (AX88279) last year. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they add 5GbE should adoption increase.
Honestly PCie doesn’t fare much better. Isn’t it Realtek, Marvell, and Intel?
Thanks for your reviews of this and other 5GbE network adapters. I think it might be interesting if you could also do some latency testing of the USB adapters in particular. A while back I compared a few Realtek 2.5GbE USB adapters to PCIe adapters and found that while their throughput was mostly as advertised, their latency or round trip time was significantly higher (~5x) compared to their PCIe counterparts. It seemed to me that this was driver specific (I was using the mainline driver in the Linux kernel, not an out-of-tree module) and not just USB overhead because the latency increase was not nearly as high on other 1GbE USB adapters. So, I’d be interested to see how the new 5GbE adapters perform in this regard.
This is quite nice for a portable device, or even for a desktop, to be honest. Much better than a Thunderbolt-based 10G NIC, which is great for a fixed installation, but way too bulky and power hungry to be carried around in a bag.