Gigabit

• BCM5719 (quad-port Broadcom PCIe 2.0x4, ~$15, SR-IOV, VMq)
• BCM5720 (dual-port Broadcom PCIe 2.0x1, ~$10, SR-IOV, VMq)

Cheap OEM models of Broadcom NICs:

• HP 331T (~$10 - 12)
  • HP 332T - BCM5720 (<$10, some for ~$5)
• Dell 0YGCV4 (not cheap, but included for completeness, ~$15)

Note that the HPE or Dell OEM NICs (especially HPE) you may have to tape off the SMBus pins (B5 and B6, lay the card flat with the rear/ports pointed to your left and go right four, don’t tape the back pins off, label tape, kapton tape, electrical tape will work fine) on the PCI-E finger of the card to get it to boot in things that are not a server. If you do not do this, you may encounter memory errors including failure to POST or missing memory channels.

• Intel i350-T4 (~5w, PCIe 2.0x4, supports SR-IOV and VMq, ~$30)
• i340-T4 (~5w, PCIe 2.0x4, lacks SR-IOV, supports VMq, ~$20)
• PRO/1000 ET(2) (12-15w, quad-port, 8-queue per-port VMq, SR-IOV, ~$15) if you MUST have Intel for cheap

10 Gigabit

X540-AT2 for Base-T. Get a later X550 if you need multigig. X520-DA2s are solid SFP+ cards but I prefer Mellanox (a ConnectX-4 LX).

HP 546SFP+ are ConnectX-3 Pros for cheap.

562SFP+ are X710-DA2 for cheap.

25 Gigabit

640SFP28 - HPE part number for the dual SFP28 CX4 LX. Normal SFP28 CX4 LX listings are a little pricey.

FDR Infiniband and 40 Gigabit Ethernet (VPI)

ConnectX-3 Pros are the only cards cheap enough to be worth consideration. ~$15 for dual port 56g Infiniband/Ethernet. Utilities no longer support them, so you’ll have to source older versions. Don’t expect working ASPM.

HP calls them the “HP InfiniBand 544+” (544+FLR-QSFP)

40 Gigabit Ethernet

Single-port QSFP ConnectX-4 LX cards are cheap (~$20) and very good. Supposedly support ASPM with newer firmware.