Prime Big Deal Days Networking Deals: 10GbE to 100GbE
Live prices updated · 136 in-stock products · tracked since August 12, 2026
12 days away - October 6 through October 8. New deals drop three times a day once it starts: 12:01 a.m. PT, 8 a.m. PT, 1 p.m. PT.
The cheapest fast-network cards are often cheap because their maker has ended support. 17 of the in-stock listings carry a vendor end-of-life or end-of-sale notice, labelled on the row. A 10GbE point-to-point link costs from $64.70 today. Today 12 of 136 in-stock items sit at or near their own recorded low.
We measure every price against that item's OWN recorded history, not against a list price - list prices get raised before a sale, which is documented and cited on this site's event pages. A verdict badge means: AT/NEAR LOW is close to the lowest we have tracked for that item in a record where its price has actually moved (a price that has not moved is not a low, and reads TYPICAL); TYPICAL is ordinary for it; ELEVATED is above where it usually sits; NEW means we have not tracked it long enough to say. No percentage-off-list figure appears anywhere on this site as a measure of whether a price is actually good.
The evidence for why we do it this way is our own: the June 2026 Prime Day retrospective measured whether the last comparable event moved prices, category by category, before any of these pages were written.
Live 10/25/40/100gbe networking picks, verdict-badged
Today's verdict distribution: 12 of 136 in-stock items are at or near their own recorded low today; 119 are typical for themselves; 4 are elevated above their own usual price, and 1 has too short a record to judge yet. Each count compares an item with its own recorded price; no past price is printed for any listing.
Entry figures per speed (computed live)
| Speed | Connector | Point-to-point: 2 cards + 1 DAC | Cheapest switch alone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10GbE | SFP+ | $64.70 ($27.99 x2 + $8.72) | None in stock |
| 25GbE | SFP28 | $279.97 ($135.09 x2 + $9.79) | $1299.00 |
| 40GbE | QSFP+ | $322.09 ($152.25 x2 + $17.59) | $132.91 |
| 100GbE | QSFP28 | $837.97 ($405.99 x2 + $25.99) | $1299.00 |
Cheapest in-stock parts today; condition and any end-of-life notice are on each row in the table above. RJ45 10GbE cards pair with copper cabling we do not track, so the 10GbE figure uses SFP+ parts.
Vendor end-of-life and end-of-sale notices
- ConnectX-3: End-of-life at NVIDIA - NVIDIA lifecycle page
- ConnectX-5: End-of-life at NVIDIA ("The ConnectX-5 product line has moved to end-of-life") - NVIDIA ConnectX-5 manual
- ConnectX-4 Lx: End-of-life at NVIDIA ("The ConnectX-4 Lx product line has moved to end-of-life") - NVIDIA ConnectX-4 Lx manual
- ConnectX-4: NVIDIA lists its MCX413A-416A ordering part numbers as EOL'd - NVIDIA ConnectX-4 EN manual
- Arista 7050 Series: Arista has end-of-sale notices for select 7050SX/TX/QX models (2016) - check the exact model - Arista end-of-sale advisories
- Intel X520, X540, X550, X710: no claim either way - Intel's product database did not render the status field to a page reader on 25 September 2026.
What to watch in 10-100GbE this event
Used datacentre network cards are some of the best-value hardware a homelab can buy, and the reason is also the thing to check: many of them are cheap because their maker has moved them to end-of-life. End-of-life means no new firmware or driver work from the maker; it does not mean the card stops working. Where a vendor has published an end-of-life or end-of-sale notice, the row says so in the vendor's own words, and the source is linked below.
Where the card's driver lives in the mainline Linux kernel, an end-of-life card keeps working for as long as that driver stays there, which is a different risk from a card that depends on an out-of-tree driver. Driver facts on our networking pages are sourced to the kernel documentation and the maker's own release notes.
The entry figures below are computed from today's cheapest in-stock parts. A point-to-point link is two network cards and one direct-attach cable - two machines, no switch. A switched setup starts with a switch at that speed; its figure here is the cheapest switch alone, because cards and cables multiply with the number of machines.
Some listings are third-party boards that claim a particular chipset rather than the named maker's own card. Those rows are labelled as claims, per the provenance rule our networking pages use; the claim is the seller's, not ours.
End-of-life notices we could and could not confirm
Confirmed from the vendor's own documents: NVIDIA lists ConnectX-3 as end-of-life; NVIDIA's manuals state that the ConnectX-5 and ConnectX-4 Lx product lines have moved to end-of-life; NVIDIA's ConnectX-4 EN manual lists its ordering part numbers as EOL'd without the same banner sentence, and our label keeps that narrower wording. Arista has end-of-sale notices for select 7050SX, 7050TX and 7050QX models (2016), and 2026 notices for newer 7050SX3 models - check the exact model against the notice.
Not confirmed: Intel's product database did not render the status field for its X520, X540, X550 and X710 cards to a page reader on 25 September 2026, so this page makes no end-of-life claim for them either way. An absence of a label on an Intel row means we could not confirm a notice, not that there is none.
What June's Prime Day measured for this category
Not measurable: our tracking for this category began August 12, 2026, after June's Prime Day ran 2026-06-23 to 2026-06-26. We do not borrow another category's result to fill the gap. The coverage table in the June retrospective lists what could be measured and why the rest could not.
The trap: the cheapest card, for the reason it is cheap
The event trap here is buying the cheapest 10GbE card without knowing its support status, then finding the operating system you run next year does not carry its driver. The price is honest; the missing information is the risk.
Read the end-of-life label, check the driver for your operating system, and pair the card with a cable of the right connector type - SFP+ at 10GbE, SFP28 at 25GbE, QSFP+ at 40GbE, QSFP28 at 100GbE.
An event is not a reason to rebuild a network that works. If your current network is not the bottleneck for something you actually do, the right purchase this week is none. Buy a faster link when you can name the transfer it speeds up, and check the card's support status first.
The standing 10/25/40/100gbe networking pages
- Networking hub - Cards, cables, transceivers, switches.
- Point-to-point 10GbE - Two machines, no switch.
- 25GbE - SFP28 cards and cables.
- 100GbE - QSFP28, live.
- ConnectX-3 - End-of-life, still in-tree.
- Intel E810 - Current Intel 25/100GbE.
- DAC cables - By connector type.
- Networking deals - Verdict-badged.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest way to get 10GbE between two machines?
Two SFP+ network cards and one direct-attach cable - from $64.70 today, computed from in-stock parts. No switch needed.
Is an end-of-life network card safe to buy?
It keeps working; what ends is the maker's firmware and driver work. If its driver is in the mainline Linux kernel, it keeps working for as long as that driver stays there. Check the driver for your operating system.
Which cards are end-of-life?
Per the vendors' own documents: NVIDIA ConnectX-3, ConnectX-4 Lx and ConnectX-5, and ConnectX-4 EN ordering part numbers; Arista end-of-sale notices cover select 7050-family models. We could not confirm Intel's status for X520/X540/X550/X710 and make no claim.
10GbE or 25GbE?
Price both links at once: the entry table computes the cheapest point-to-point link at each speed from today's parts. Our 10GbE vs 25GbE page compares them in full.
What does 'claims chipset' mean on a row?
The listing is a third-party board that says it uses a named maker's silicon. That is the seller's claim; the named maker's own card is labelled separately.
What does TRACKING mean on a part?
Under seven days of that listing's own history. 1 of 136 rows read that way today.
Other Prime Big Deal Days categories
Consumer SSD · External hard drives · Portable SSD · microSD · PS5 SSD · NAS devices · Consumer RAM · Enterprise & refurbished · High-capacity HDD (20TB+) · Gaming SSD (Gen4 & Gen5) · UPS & PDU · Enterprise flash, tape & JBOD · the event hub
A category page exists only while it lists at least 4 in-stock products. Prices and badges are live; this page shows no historical price for any listing.