H!Fiber Gigabit 4 Port NIC with Intel I350 Chip, 1Gb Network Card Compare to Intel I350-T4 NIC, Quad RJ45 Ports, PCI Express 2.1 X4, Ethernet Card with Low Profile for Windows/Windows Server/Linux

This is a review of four related products purchased here on Amazon. 1. Klein Tools VDV826-703 Pass-Thru™ Modular Data Plug, CAT6, 50-Pack (ASIN B076PRM7W8) 2. Klein Tools VDV226-005 Compact Pass-Thru™ Modular Crimper (ASIN B07R3GK9FQ) 3. Soft Plastic Ethernet RJ45 Cable Connector Boots by Copapa (ASIN B07219KGC4) 4. H!Fiber 1Gbe Ethernet Network Adapter (ASIN B074PPRQQK) I’m using CAT 6 UTP (23 AWG) that I bought from a local home center. 1. I found the Klein Tools VDV826-703 Pass-Thru™ Modular Data Plug, (CAT6, 50-Pack) to be easy to use. This is my first-time using pass-thru connectors, and I have mixed feelings, but that’s not what this is about. The 23 AWG wires fit in snuggly but did require a bit of convincing to pass thru. They are more expensive than some others that are available, but I know these will work perfectly, especially with a same brand crimper. 2. The Klein Tools VDV226-005 Compact Pass-Thru™ Modular Crimper did its job flawlessly. The insulation is held tightly in place, the crimp felt secure, and the pass-thru wires were cut perfectly flush. I still need to try this with cheap plugs, to see if they are cut just as flush, but these work great with their own. 3. While I don’t usually use boots, I decided to give them a shot as they make the wires look more “finished”. I purchased the blue Soft Plastic Ethernet RJ45 Cable Connector Boots by Copapa. While they didn’t cost much, they were very soft and fit okay. I wish they were a little tighter around the wire, but that can vary from brand to brand. Overall, I’m happy with them. 4. Once the cables were completed, I plugged them into a H!Fiber NIC (Intel I350-T4 chipset). They all fit nicely together, even with the boots. That network card is not the V2, and that was expected. The V2s are harder to find and there are no performance differences. The revision was made to fix a slight power surge during power-on. The network card performed flawlessly with pfSense and I was able to configure two LAGGs with LACP support. One to a Cisco managed switch, and the other to my cable modem (SB8200) but I’ll save those for a different review. This card is working perfectly.

This NIC has been running rock solid 24/7 in our pfSense CE router for over a month now.

great nic, exactly what i needed for my opnsense server.

This review is for the Intel I350-AM4 version: - Temperature readings don’t seem too terribly high for this card when it’s being cooled passively (e.g. how it comes out of the box). - I did notice that the heatsink in the center of the NIC is has a long rectangular tunnel cut through its metal - this design enables you to zip tie a fan onto the NIC with relative ease; If you have enough room in your case around this NIC, I’d recommend using zip ties to mount a 40mm fan to the NIC’s heatsink to add some extra cooling for it

bought one when in a bind, worked for around 6 months then started port flapping... new on lasted a few hours and now is port flapping. do not recommend. I could be pushing it to hard too though... it is for my opnsense router that i do a bunch of custom dev work.

1 Gbe is pretty slow these days but being an intel NIC it has wide compatibility so you don't run into some of the issues you can run into with other brands like realtek on FreeBSD. Great replacement for a SuperMicro server whose NIC died on me recently.

I ordered this card and received a damaged product. Metal bracket to fix the card to the PC case was bent. Additionally it was not attached correctly and the card look damaged. I contacted Amazon for a replacement and they immediately sent one next day. Unfortunately the replacement had its own issues. The box had been previously opened and it was missing parts. Additionally the screw hole on the metal bracket for this replacement card did not line up with the screw hole on the card and so I could not attach the metal bracket. The quality control from this card is obviously not great. I would not recommend getting this.

I've had no issues; works great. The low-profile bracket attaches easily, and fits low-profile cases, and i do get close to the full 1 Gbps speed during a large file copy. Not bad for $60. The last one got fried in a lightning strike that happened nearby; even behind a UPS. I guess the EMP on the network cables was too much for it.

Works great in my ESX 8.0.3 server