Can newer > 1GbE network hardware result in lower ping for gaming across the same ISP connection? Or does this kind of upgrade not affect ping, and only benefits continuous download speeds?
In the context of gaming like you mentioned, depends on your ISP and the medium you are going over (Copper, fiber, wireless, Satellite IE Starlink, etc) rather than the bandwidth. In general most terrestrial stuff should be good to go with small differences at best.
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It won’t help much if at all. Even continuous download speeds should be unaffected unless your paying your ISP for more bandwidth than your NIC can handle…
Look for network latency tuning guides for both your OS and the particular game you’re trying to optimize.
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Sometimes it is not that simple. Consider the case of Eve Online with its singular Tranquility server (Two if you consider the China-only Serenity server).
You can have the best ISP connection with gigabit++ internel speeds and the best networking equiptment and best fiber modem. But when the server starts it’s Time Dilatation feature because of an ongoing 1000+ vs 1000+ player battles in your system, no amount of tech will overcome the ping of players in Iceland/UK (where the server physically is) vs the perceived latency of the server’s point of view from gamers at the opposite end of the globe.
low end network gear and switches have low microsecond level latency, expensive network gear has latency in the half microsecond range. It is an order of magnitude faster. The only problem for gaming is that the latency of your network is absolutely nothing compared to the internet itself, so even if you improved your latency from 1 microseconds to 0.05 microseconds you are still in territory that isnt measurable as far as gaming ping is concerned, as that is measured in milliseconds (1ms = 1000us)
Just also be aware that 10 gigabit networking has latency of 2-4 microseconds and 1gb networking is 1 microsecond. And since 2.5gb and 5gb ethernet uses the exact same encoding tech as 10gb, it too has the additional latency. Not that that little bit matters in gaming.
The best way to improve your ping would be to have a fiber ISP, as often cable has higher ping, and upgrade to the highest speed plan they have (5gb or more). This will ensure all the equipment getting to your house is the newest and best. You can downgrade your plan later but start off with the highest so you know the equipment is newer.
Your local ping too router is a fart in the wind when lag is considered to travel time to a server across the internet. Local lan games yes can be sub 1ms but your ISP and every link in the chain to the server are ping times online.
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I think all the previous responses assume cabled in-house network hardware.
In case the current in-house network is wireless, then any upgrade to a better wireless network will pale in comparison to migrating from a wireless (10s of ms latency) to wired network (~1 ms latency).
Just want to point this out because this was not mentioned otherwise.
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This info was really helpful. Thank you!