Mellanox NVIDIA CX4431A ConnectX-4 Lx EN Single Port QSFP28 50GbE OCP 2.0 Mezzanine Network Interface Card (NIC) MCX4431A-GCAN

Power your OCP-based data center infrastructure with the Mellanox NVIDIA ConnectX-4 Lx EN MCX4431A-GCAN, a high-performance 50GbE Ethernet Network Interface Card built specifically for OCP 2.0 Type 1 mezzanine environments. Designed for hyperscale, cloud, and enterprise deployments, this single-port QSFP28 adapter delivers low-latency networking, advanced virtualization capabilities, and intelligent hardware acceleration to maximize application performance and network efficiency.

Featuring the proven ConnectX-4 Lx Ethernet controller, the MCX4431A-GCAN supports 50GbE connectivity while remaining compatible with 40GbE, 25GbE, 10GbE, and 1GbE Ethernet environments through supported transceivers and breakout configurations. Advanced offload technologies including RoCE v1/v2, SR-IOV, VXLAN, NVGRE, GENEVE, and Erasure Coding acceleration help reduce CPU overhead and improve performance for virtualization, storage, and cloud workloads.

Unlike standard PCIe expansion cards, this adapter utilizes an OCP 2.0 Type 1 mezzanine form factor, making it ideal for compatible hyperscale servers, Open Compute Project platforms, and custom cloud infrastructure deployments.

Key Features

• Mellanox NVIDIA ConnectX-4 Lx EN Controller
• Model: MCX4431A-GCAN
• Single-Port QSFP28 50GbE Ethernet
• OCP 2.0 Type 1 Mezzanine Form Factor
• PCIe 3.0 x8 Interface
• Supports 50GbE, 40GbE, 25GbE, 10GbE, and 1GbE Ethernet
• RoCE v1 & RoCE v2 RDMA Acceleration
• SR-IOV Virtualization Support
• VXLAN, NVGRE & GENEVE Offload Engines
• Multi-Host Technology Support
• Hardware Erasure Coding Acceleration
• Host Management Capability Enabled
• Optimized for NVMe-oF, iSCSI, and iSER Environments

Technical Specifications

• Manufacturer: NVIDIA Mellanox
• Part Number: MCX4431A-GCAN
• Controller: ConnectX-4 Lx EN
• Form Factor: OCP 2.0 Type 1 Mezzanine
• Interface: PCIe 3.0 x8
• Network Port: 1 x QSFP28
• Maximum Throughput: 50GbE
• Network Type: Ethernet Only
• Host Management: Supported
• Maximum QSFP28 Port Power: 3.5W

Compatible Platforms

The MCX4431A-GCAN is designed specifically for servers featuring an OCP 2.0 Type 1 mezzanine slot, including:

• OCP-Compliant Cloud Servers
• Quanta QCT Systems
• Wiwynn Server Platforms
• ZT Systems Infrastructure
• Inspur OCP Nodes
• Select Dell PowerEdge Cloud and C-Series Deployments
• Open Rack and Hyperscale Data Center Platforms

Not Compatible With

• Standard PCIe x8 or x16 Slots
• Dell rNDC Network Daughter Card Slots
• HPE FlexibleLOM Interfaces
• OCP 3.0 SFF/TSFF Slots
• Standard Tower and Workstation PCs

Supported Cables & Transceivers

• QSFP28 DAC Cables
• QSFP28 Active Optical Cables (AOC)
• 50GbE QSFP28 Optical Modules
• 40GbE QSFP+ Transceivers
• 100G-to-2x50G Breakout Cables
• 40G-to-4x10G Breakout Solutions

Operating System Compatibility

Supported across major enterprise and cloud operating systems:

• VMware ESXi 7.x and 8.x
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 / 2019 / 2022
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
• Rocky Linux
• CentOS
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
• Ubuntu Server LTS
• Debian Linux

Ideal Applications

• Hyperscale Data Centers
• Open Compute Project (OCP) Deployments
• Cloud Computing Platforms
• Virtualized Infrastructure
• High-Performance Storage Networks
• NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)
• Software-Defined Networking
• Enterprise Ethernet Fabrics
• AI and High-Density Compute Clusters