At the risk of oversimplifying things, latency refers to the delay in transmission time that occurs while data remains in a device's buffered memory (e.g. bridge, router, etc) before it can be sent along its path. While it seems to only be hardware related, latency is in fact affected by both hardware and software factors. Some are listed below:

Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - Apple (TH) Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - Apple (TH)

For starters, ethernet can actually support up to 10Gbps. However, in 99.9% of cases (okay, I can't cite a source for that figure - I'm just making a point) this will not be a practical consideration for users unless they intend to connect to an existing 10Gbps ethernet network. While 10Gbps ethernet is starting to gain some traction in terms of network infrastructure, this is only happening in some of the largest organisations or those that have a particular need for this type of setup (such as ISPs, Cloud providers, data centres, etc). It is also worth noting that Apple has never launched a computer (not even Mac Pros or Servers) that natively support 10Gbps ethernet.

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I say this because both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt are faster than ethernet, so it doesn't matter which way you go from a speed point of view. Any article you read about a USB ethernet adapter only being able to reach 100Mbps is likely false unless a particular adapter is a total dud. What is true is that a USB 2.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter, or a USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter connected to a USB 2.0 port can only handle around 400Mbps - the link speed of USB 2.0 caps out at 480Mbps. In addition to regular USB 3.0 to one gigabit ethernet port adapter you can also get a USB 3.0 to two gigabit ethernet ports adapter, such as StarTech USB32000SPT.

thunderbolt ethernet - Apple Community thunderbolt ethernet - Apple Community

For example, in the music production industry users have found that with audio devices capable of being connected either through Thunderbolt or USB3, that the overall audio latency of the connection is about 1ms for Thunderbolt and 4.5ms for USB 3. Now, these speeds can be impacted by other factors, but since these setups involve the exact same equipment, it appears that for whatever reason the Thunderbolt connection is faster (probably because Thunderbolt is allowed almost straight access to the CPU).So, why would I prefer a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter? To be honest, in a small/home network I probably wouldn't as I think the difference would be negligible and unnoticeable to the naked eye (so to speak). For me, the choice would come down to what ports I have available (or am willing to sacrifice) and the cost. But if it was a large network my preference for Thunderbolt is based on the real world experiences of users in particular fields. The answer to your question as asked in the title is it really depends on what ports you have available, personal preference, cost, etc. But in terms of typical consumers, this is not something worth considering when wanting to add an ethernet port to a computer and making a decision on the type of adapter they need. Regardless of the factor involved, the impact of latency on network bandwidth can be temporary or persistent. A lot has been made about latency in the comments. While latency is a factor - especially when large networks with many network devices are involved - it's less of an issue for typical consumers.

The Belkin USB-C to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - Apple (UK)

Unzip the drivers to a temporary folder on your hard drive (preferably your Desktop so it's easy to find) So, as you can see, it doesn't matter because they're all faster than the ethernet you're converting to.As an alternative, there are "host to host" USB cables in a version with USB 2.0 (not recommended) and USB 3.0 (this is in the spec, section 5.5.2 mentions other "host-to-host applications") speeds. This is also called ethernet over usb and I heard people tell it works well enough and is also supported in Linux. Prolific has some offerings, that should be solid. So, which type of adapter is better in terms of latency? Generally, a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter is likely to have a lower latency then a USB 3 to Ethernet adapter. But, as manufacturers focus on bandwidth or throughput when they publish specs, you're not going to find it easy to try and quantify this or compare adapters.

Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3 - Apple Support Adapters for the Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3 - Apple Support

Thunderbolt 3 is a beast of a protocol and hardware solution capable of speeds of 20 Gbps over copper, passive cables or 40 Gbps over active (copper or optical) cables. As a matter of fact Thunderbolt also allows for networking, which should be present in all major operating systems including Linux kernel 4.15+ shortly. So you can connect two computers over Thunderbolt and implement a ~ 10 Gbps network connection with that.

One of the reasons for a slow take up rate of 10Gbps ethernet is that it requires full duplex point-to-point links (typically via network switches) and as a result half duplex operation and repeater hubs do not work in 10Gbps ethernet networks. So converting existing ethernet networks to a 10Gbps ethernet network is no trivial matter and is quite expensive. All that said, I expect the deployment of 10Gbps ethernet networks to really start taking off more broadly due to the demands of HD video editing and the requirement of more organisations to have high-performance shared storage systems. Windows should automatically detect the adaptor now and install it. You may need to point the installer at the location where you unzipped the drivers.