Most people building a PC 5–7 years ago wouldn’t have worried too much about their motherboard’s Ethernet port. It was nothing more than a way to get a stable wired connection on your PC. Whether it was a Gigabit port or something faster didn’t matter to the average buyer, and frankly, it didn’t matter at all, even if you were a power user. The internet speeds weren’t what they are now, same as the popularity of NAS and home labs. With the proliferation of these high-bandwidth devices and faster internet plans, it pays to look deeper into the networking capabilities of your motherboard before you spend your money. Even if your home internet is still Gigabit or lower, you can’t be sure that you won’t want to set up a NAS or home lab in the future. The bandwidth of your Ethernet port might just prove to be the biggest bottleneck in your system.