Mellanox ConnectX-5 MCX516A-CCAT 100GbE Dual-Port QSFP28 Adapter Card

The Mellanox ConnectX-5 EN MCX516A-CCAT is a high-performance dual-port 100GbE Ethernet adapter card designed for bandwidth-intensive data center workloads including HPC clusters, AI training fabrics, cloud data centers, and software-defined storage. Built on the intelligent ConnectX-5 architecture, this PCIe 3.0 x16 low-profile card delivers ultra-low latency (750ns), high message rate (200 Mpps), and comprehensive hardware offloads that reduce CPU overhead while accelerating virtual switching, NVMe over Fabric, and overlay network processing.

As part of the ConnectX-5 EN series, the MCX516A-CCAT features QSFP28 connectors, supports multiple speeds (100GbE, 50GbE, 40GbE, 25GbE, 10GbE, 1GbE), and enables RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) for efficient remote direct memory access. With ASAP² (Accelerated Switching and Packet Processing) technology, it offloads Open vSwitch (OvS) data-plane tasks, freeing server resources for application workloads.

Mellanox ASAP² (Accelerated Switching & Packet Processing) -- the MCX516A-CCAT offloads the entire vSwitch/vRouter data path to hardware without modifying the control plane. Flexible match-action tables and a programmable parser enable hardware offloads for current and future protocols, delivering wire-speed packet processing with near-zero CPU load.

RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) provides low-latency, CPU-bypass data transfers essential for distributed storage, HPC, and AI training. ConnectX-5 adds adaptive routing on reliable transport, out-of-order RDMA support, and burst buffer offloads for background checkpointing.

Embedded PCIe Switch -- the internal switch allows host chaining, elimination of backend ToR switches for storage appliances, and bifurcation capabilities, significantly reducing TCO for rack-scale designs.

NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF) Target Offloads minimize CPU intervention for remote NVMe access, delivering high-performance block storage with reduced latency and increased IOPS.

Operating Systems & Stacks: RHEL/CentOS, Windows Server, FreeBSD, VMware ESXi, OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED), WinOF-2, DPDK

Server Interfaces: PCIe 3.0 x16 (auto-negotiates to x8, x4, x2, x1), supports MSI/MSI-X, AER, ACS, ATS, PASID, IBM CAPI v2

Connectors & Cables: Dual QSFP28 cages, passive copper DACs, active optical cables, and transceivers (100GBASE-SR4, LR4, etc.). Backward compatible with 50/40/25/10/1GbE speeds

Ethernet Standards: IEEE 802.3cd (50/100/200GbE), 802.3bj/802.3bm (100GbE), 802.3by (25/50GbE), PFC, ETS, DCBX, IEEE 1588v2

Founded in 2008, Hong Kong Starsurge Group Co., Limited is a technology-driven provider of network hardware, IT services, and system integration solutions. Serving global clients in government, healthcare, manufacturing, education, finance, and enterprise, Starsurge supplies network switches, NICs, wireless access points, controllers, cables, and IoT solutions.

As a trusted partner for NVIDIA Networking / Mellanox products, Starsurge ensures genuine hardware, competitive pricing, and responsive technical support for data center upgrades, HPC cluster deployments, and storage modernization.