For years, the best way to get 10 gigabit networking on laptops was to buy an expensive, large, and hot 10 GbE Thunderbolt adapter. With new RTL8159-based 10G USB 3.2 adapters coming onto the market, the bulky adapters might be a thing of the past. Just look at the size of the thing in comparison to my Thunderbolt adapters:

2.5G and even 5G USB adapters have been out for a while, but sometimes you need more bandwidth.

The 10G adapter I'm testing is this $80 model from WisdPi . That's double the price of most 5G/2.5G adapters, but less than half what I paid for my Thunderbolt 10G adapters.

If you need 10 gigs, this might be the best option, if you use RJ45 and not SFP+. If you don't need 10 gigs, a 2.5 or 5 Gbps adapter is still the best value.

Also, you might not even get 10 Gbps with these new adapters, depending on your computer.…