ISP upping me to 1200Mbps, need solutions...

[Izlude]

Hi all. ISP pushing me from 800Mbps to  1200Mbps, however, I want to buy my own modem. Theirs have been a bit wonky, would rather just handle it myself. Data capped at 1.2TB, haven't gone over yet (although pretty close at times), paying $15 rental, some have suggested a DIY solution.

Anyway, I'm in need of a few upgrades and need some suggestions. My onboard LAN is capped at 1Gbit (I219-v and a Killer E2500), choose your poison? Anyway, an add-on NIC might be in order, not sure what to go with. Then there's the modem and router. A lot of these modems are very close in price, some supporting 2.3 - 2.5Gbit, others a flat 1Gbit that wouldn't let me touch my 1200Mbit that I'm paying. Boils down to a Netgear CM3000 (for below cost due to built up rewards) or Motorola B12. Then of course, there's my router. I bought a Nighthawk X10 a while ago for $10 at thrift, before this whole upgrade thing came up. Its ports are capped at 1Gbit, but it DOES have a 10Gbit SFP+ port. I could possibly get a NIC that has sfp+ port, or a switch that has 2.5Gbit ports. I'm the only wired PC in the house, everything else is wifi, no foreseeable new wired connections in the far off future. Or, I could get an RS100 router that would let me use my 1200Mbit connection. I've been subscribed for about 6 years, so have paid about $1080 in rental since then. It's too bad I didn't DIY since the beginning, it would have been paid of long ago -_- better late than never I guess. What's your thought on this?

[Xenon]

On 26/06/2025 at 14:39, Izlude said:

Hi all. ISP pushing me from 800Mbps to  1200Mbps, however, I want to buy my own modem. Theirs have been a bit wonky, would rather just handle it myself. Data capped at 1.2TB, haven't gone over yet (although pretty close at times), paying $15 rental, some have suggested a DIY solution.

Anyway, I'm in need of a few upgrades and need some suggestions. My onboard LAN is capped at 1Gbit (I219-v and a Killer E2500), choose your poison? Anyway, an add-on NIC might be in order, not sure what to go with. Then there's the modem and router. A lot of these modems are very close in price, some supporting 2.3 - 2.5Gbit, others a flat 1Gbit that wouldn't let me touch my 1200Mbit that I'm paying. Boils down to a Netgear CM3000 (for below cost due to built up rewards) or Motorola B12. Then of course, there's my router. I bought a Nighthawk X10 a while ago for $10 at thrift, before this whole upgrade thing came up. Its ports are capped at 1Gbit, but it DOES have a 10Gbit SFP+ port. I could possibly get a NIC that has sfp+ port, or a switch that has 2.5Gbit ports. I'm the only wired PC in the house, everything else is wifi, no foreseeable new wired connections in the far off future. Or, I could get an RS100 router that would let me use my 1200Mbit connection. I've been subscribed for about 6 years, so have paid about $1080 in rental since then. It's too bad I didn't DIY since the beginning, it would have been paid of long ago -_- better late than never I guess. What's your thought on this?

I know with my isp they will only support certain models. You might want to check with them,

[Izlude]

hi thanks for input. those two modems are supported  thankfully. i really am leaning towards the b12 though since there's a few complaints of the cm3000 and its chipset (drops and whatnot), although those might just be vocal minority complaints.

[Som]

On 26/06/2025 at 19:39, Izlude said:

Hi all. ISP pushing me from 800Mbps to  1200Mbps, however, I want to buy my own modem. Theirs have been a bit wonky, would rather just handle it myself. Data capped at 1.2TB, haven't gone over yet (although pretty close at times), paying $15 rental, some have suggested a DIY solution.

Anyway, I'm in need of a few upgrades and need some suggestions. My onboard LAN is capped at 1Gbit (I219-v and a Killer E2500), choose your poison? Anyway, an add-on NIC might be in order, not sure what to go with. Then there's the modem and router. A lot of these modems are very close in price, some supporting 2.3 - 2.5Gbit, others a flat 1Gbit that wouldn't let me touch my 1200Mbit that I'm paying. Boils down to a Netgear CM3000 (for below cost due to built up rewards) or Motorola B12. Then of course, there's my router. I bought a Nighthawk X10 a while ago for $10 at thrift, before this whole upgrade thing came up. Its ports are capped at 1Gbit, but it DOES have a 10Gbit SFP+ port. I could possibly get a NIC that has sfp+ port, or a switch that has 2.5Gbit ports. I'm the only wired PC in the house, everything else is wifi, no foreseeable new wired connections in the far off future. Or, I could get an RS100 router that would let me use my 1200Mbit connection. I've been subscribed for about 6 years, so have paid about $1080 in rental since then. It's too bad I didn't DIY since the beginning, it would have been paid of long ago -_- better late than never I guess. What's your thought on this?

i built my own, all ya need is a pc with two network cards and i used operwrt as the os

[Izlude]

Oof my bad.. I just realized the WAN port on the X10 only allows 1Gbit input from the modem >.<  arghh that derails everything lol. OK I'll need a new router then.
Since I'm the only wired user in the household (everything else is wireless), would you say the RS100 is a good solution?  apparently not.. accepts 2.5Gbit, but outputs 1Gbit.. Still need a better solution.

As for a build your own, I'm afraid i'm limited in power here  PC, Games, TVs, Printer, Receiver/Amp+ secondary Amp.. heck even the Mini Split (don't ask how/why they did it this way). One more major device trips the breaker :P

Although I just noticed this tidbit on my router's config page. It almost looks as if the modem could somehow input "INTO" the 10Gbit port, rather than using the 10Gbit port as an output? https://imgur.com/a/uiObRNK

What would be the purpose of this?  Even if that were possible, I'm still limited to 1Gbit regular ports ToT  I was also looking at the link aggregation on the router, but apparently that doesn't really help with download from a single stream, just balances.. and Win10/11 seems to have broken this functionality due to it never being intended for consumer OSs. I had it running at one point using the Intel proset driver that came with the mobo (has two LANs, just because I could), but that one update killed it. Not sure if that would at least have contributed to something.

Edited June 26, 2025 by Izlude

[Som]

On 26/06/2025 at 22:12, Izlude said:

Oof my bad.. I just realized the WAN port on the X10 only allows 1Gbit input from the modem >.<  arghh that derails everything lol. OK I'll need a new router then.
Since I'm the only wired user in the household (everything else is wireless), would you say the RS100 is a good solution?  apparently not.. accepts 2.5Gbit, but outputs 1Gbit.. Still need a better solution.

As for a build your own, I'm afraid i'm limited in power here  PC, Games, TVs, Printer, Receiver/Amp+ secondary Amp.. heck even the Mini Split (don't ask how/why they did it this way). One more major device trips the breaker 😛

 

American? Yer whole 120v limitation is madness. 

You can still get low powered pcs , nice, that'll do the job 

[Som]

On 26/06/2025 at 22:43, Som said:

American? Yer whole 120v limitation is madness. 

You can still get low powered pcs , nice, that'll do the job 

Nuc I meant 

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

I am using a Hitron CODA56 cable modem with Comcast Xfinity's 1200 Mbps service.  No issues noted.  I had looked at the Motorola and Netgear options for a cable modem, but neither was available for purchase at the time I upgraded my cable connection.

There are multiple models in the Netgear Nighthawk X10 line-up.  I am guessing you have either the the Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7000 model (R8900) or the Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 model (R9000) model, is that correct?  Both of these only have one gigabit WAN (internet) ports for connection to the modem, all of the remaining ports for the LAN side of things are gigabit Ethernet ports.  The 10GbE port on the devices is meant for connection to local NAS storage.  I suppose you could connect the desktop computer directly to it, although it would still be limited by the gigabit connection between the cable modem and the Netgear residential gateway broadband router.

I would suggest looking for a residential gateway broadband router from a company like Asus, Netgear, TP-Link or maybe even Ubiquiti, depending upon budget, that has 2.5Gbps (or faster) WAN and LAN ports.  That would allow you to make full use of the 1.2Gbps connection from your ISP as well as have some room for future growth, speed-wise.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

 

 

[+Mud W1ggle Subscriber²]

A Unifi Dream Machine Pro SE an option?  or a little too complex?

[+thexfile Subscriber²]

On 26/06/2025 at 15:17, Izlude said:

i really am leaning towards the b12 

I have a Motorola B12, and it's been working pretty solidly for a year now. 

[Mockingbird]

Incredibly, you managed to create a two-paragraph post without providing any useful information.

Who is your ISP?

What service are you getting?

Do you want a modem and a router or a residential gateway?

[theefool]

On 26/06/2025 at 20:22, goretsky said:

Hello,

I am using a Hitron CODA56 cable modem with Comcast Xfinity's 1200 Mbps service.  No issues noted.  I had looked at the Motorola and Netgear options for a cable modem, but neither was available for purchase at the time I upgraded my cable connection.


Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

 

 

I ordered the Hitron CODA56 yesterday, and hope to see it today.  Thanks for this post!

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

For a new Ethernet adapter card for your PC, you can get a model that supports a maximum speed of 2.5Gbps, 5Gpbs, or 10Gbps.  Adapter cards at these speeds with RJ-45 connectors may also be referred to as NBASE-T. 

I would suggest avoiding the 5GbE cards, at least on the desktop, as the price difference between them and 10GBpE cards tends to be negligible, and most people either go with a 2. 5GbE or 10GbE card, depending upon their budget and needs.

On the 10 GbE front, some popular options for Ethernet adapters are:

• ASUS - EG-C100C 10GbE PCIe NIC
• Intel - X550-T1 10Gbe PCIe NIC
• TRENDnet - TEG=10-GECTX v4 10GbE PCIe NIC
• TP-Link - TX401 10GbE PCIe NIC

The ASUS, Trendnet and TP-Link adapters all use some version of the Marvell (formerly Aquantia) Ethernet PHY chip, while Intel uses their own X550 chip.  Note that there are many companies that make network adapters using these Ethernet ships, I just included some whose names might be more familiar.

Note that in the 10Gbps space. you will see cards offered with either RJ-45 connectors or SFP+ "cages."  The latter means that the card does not have an Ethernet connector, but requires a separate module to be slotted into to provide an Ethernet or fiber optic interface.  These types of cards cost less, but when combined with a module end up costing more.  Also, they are intended for use in servers that have more ventilation that typical PC cases, so will run hot in a typical desktop.

On the 2.5Gbps side, there are many companies offering these based on Realtek's RTL8125 Ethernet PHY chip, including the above companies.  Intel also offers its own 2.5Gbps chip, the I226-V. I would suggest avoiding anything based on the previous I-225 series, as early versions of those had issues maintaining 2.5Gbps connections.

If you need USB to Ethernet adapters, those are devices I am not as familiar with, but options there are going to be more in the 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps space, as 10Gbps options tend to be limited to Thunderbolt3/4 and USB4 interfaces, be very bulky, and run hot. 

Plugable, Sonnet, and Wavlink are well-known brands that offer USB to 5Gbe adapters; I suspect they have 2.5Gbps adapters as well.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky