LinksTek PCI Express X1 Interface to 2.5Gbps RJ45 Ports Network Adapter for Windows 11, 10 64bit and Windows Server 2019, 2022, Intel I225V Ethernet Controller, PCIE NIC Card (PCIE-I225)

My realtek based 1Gbps adapter keeled over in my home linux routing machine so I needed something pretty quick to get our network back up and running before my kiddos revolted and started plotting my demise.It had been a while since I'd had to buy a stand alone NIC so I went looking for what would probably work out of the box in linux. I read good things about this chipset and this was one of the more affordable NICs available featuring the chipset. It's been in service a little over 3 weeks now with some heavier than normal usage (I'm retrieving some collections from The Internet Archive) and it's working fantastically. No problem with bandying about 1Gbps across my home network.

Summary: It's a good card that overall works as expected. I've had some mixed experiences with the Intel I225-V chipset in the past, but the card I received isn't have issues (so far). This card could've used a heatsink, and I'm concerned the lack of one may create issues for some. The green PCB isn't too friendly for a gaming PC.The card was packaged well, about on par with other 2.5Gb NICs at this price point. The card itself was in an antistatic bag. Included in the box were instructions and a disc with the drivers. You can also download drivers from Intel's website (which is my preferred approach).This card looks to be the same as NETELY's offering, ASIN B0BNRJ1FTC. At the time of writing this review, that card was priced the same, but it's a green PCB.I like that a short bracket was included. I have other machines that use the short bracket type. The inclusion of the short bracket seems standard for NICs here on Amazon.The build quality is decent. All of the components look neatly soldered onto the PCB. Part of my initial impression when viewing the listing and receiving the item, I was concerned by the lack of a heatsink. Other 2.5Gb NICs that I've ordered here on Amazon used Realtek controllers and included a relatively large heatsink.This card has dedicated status LEDs for both the activity of the card and an established 2.5Gb link. The LEDs are part of the RJ-45 port itself, which is my preferred approach. Other cards use separate LEDs adjacent to the port, and some use surface-mounted LEDs that bleed light everywhere.I connected this card to a test bench machine, installed the appropriate drivers, and connected it to another 2.5Gb interface using a CAT6 cable. This was a machine-to-machine connection without an intermediate router or switch to skew results. The card performed fine, hitting an average of 2.32 Gbps. This speed is on par with other 2.5Gb cards I've used. I ran the tests over a period of five minutes and didn't see any link dropouts, though the chipset was definitely heating up. I may use an extra heatsink from a Raspberry Pi to mitigate some of the heat on the controller.At the time of writing this review, the price of this card was $25.99. This price is standard for these single port 2.5Gb NICs. The competing cards can offer a different controller. A Realtek controller may have better compatibility for your use case. Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend this card with the lack of a heatsink.As a side note, I have another Intel I225-V NIC in an Asus motherboard. That NIC was basically DOA, and I can only ever get about 1 Mbps through it regardless of cable, OS, configuration, etc. It's a REV3 just like this card. I'm not sure if Intel has worked out these issues; if they haven't I don't know what the probability of getting a dead card would be, but based on the research I did when debugging the motherboard's NIC these I225-V NICs have been problematic for many.

I just turned off my pc, put it in an open slot, turned it back on and it worked! No drivers to install on windows 11. Let’s see how long it lasts ….

I have done quite a bit of testing of boards based on the Intel 2.5GbE chipset over the last few months and I am using several of them in an OpnSense based router/firewall. Generally speaking, I have had very good luck with them and no issues.Based on a quick examination of this specific board, I verified that it is the SLMNG 3rd revision of the Intel 225V chipset, which is the one that actually works (Rev 1 and Rev 2 had a lot of problems). Doing a bit of testing, I put this board into my bench PC running Windows 11 and it was immediately recognized and configured. Once connected to my Netgear switch (GS110MX), it immediately detected it, and synced up at 2.5Gb with no problems. Running a quick LAN speedtest to back my main PC, I was able to get sustained throughputs of around 2300Mb/s, which is about what I would expect with typical overhead. Another good thing about the Intel chipset, which was obvious during my testing, especially as compared to a Realtek 8125B based board, is that it uses about half as much CPU overhead as the Realtek chips do. Essentially, this card worked well and performed pretty much identically to every other Intel 225V R3 based board I have tested.That was the good news, now for the bad. While I did not have any problems during my testing, this board runs way hotter than I like, which has been a common theme among all the 225V boards I have seen that don't include a heatsink. After about 30 minutes of sustained transfers, the chip itself was hitting surface temps of around 89C, which is HOT. This is actually hotter than the max temperature I have gotten on most other I225V boards I have tested, which is likely due to this board appearing to have less of a ground plane exposed on the rear of the board to serve with heat dissipation. Basically, any I225V board really needs a heatsink, especially if it is going to be under heavy usage or in a constrained case without much airflow. And, if you look at the board, it even includes the mounting holes that typically would be used for one. So, it was a conscious decision on the board manufacturers part to not include one.Overall though, while it does run hot, it seems to work well and I had no problems due to the heat, but it still gives me pause with regards to long term reliability. Unless I am able to locate some push pin mount heatsinks that are designed to fit this specific board layout, I likely will do what I have done on a couple of my other boards and just mount a Raspberry Pi 4 heatsink on it using thermal epoxy.In any case, this board performs well and the price is quite reasonable, just be aware it runs hot and I would be a lot happier if it came with a heatsink on it.

Originally I was going to put this in a different system, but the Intel chipset has limited compatibility so I had to swap it with another similar card that has a Realtek chipset. (Although I should have checked this ahead of time - the product description does list the compatibility, I just assumed without checking that the Intel driver site would have more drivers, I was wrong.)It also seems to run hot enough that I would expect a heatsink to pull the heat away from the chip much faster - I did end up putting one on that fit well from a variety pack of heatsinks I already had, but I am not sure why one was not included to begin with.But once in a compatible system, it is pretty easy to get working, and I haven't run into any issues and it has performed well. And it's possible the added heatsink is not necessary for everyday use, but for long term durability for a card that I expect to have a lot of high bandwidth use, I am definitely more comfortable with the heatsink I added.