Kinda upset at the lack of response to GBe issues

[pfeerick]

Possibly some food for thought... and certainly something worth testing if you are having issues, and can try this. When reading on the Armbian forums about support being officially acknowledged for the Pine64... (I say official as they actually support back in May), rather than just generic support for A64 processors, there was an interesting mention of the ethernet GbE issue by tkaiser. Specifically that during the auto-negotiation process, the RTL8211E PHY needs an additional ~350 mW, so whilst this isn't much of a power increase in the grand scheme of things, since the MicroUSB port isn't the best method of providing a clean 5v supply to do connector resistance, and voltage sag over the USB lead, it might be worth trying to power the pine64 via the euler connector (i.e. pins 4 & 6).

There is also a good critical analysis by tkaiser of exactly what to expect from the pine64 generally - both in setting realistic expectations of performance, and how to get the best out of it. There is also mention of how incorrect cpufreq governor settings will result in lower ethernet speeds when running iperf as ethernet throughput scales with CPU frequency.

Edit: lol... and whilst I was writing this, tkaiser posted some details again showing that iperf is not the best tool for testing speeds, and also specifically recommended trying the Euler power connector