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Mellanox CX556A ConnectX-5 VPI 2P QSFP28 Ethernet/InfiniBand NIC MCX556A-ECAT (Low Profile Bracket)

Mellanox CX556A ConnectX-5 VPI 2P QSFP28 Ethernet/InfiniBand NIC MCX556A-ECAT (Low Profile Bracket)

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$498.75
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$498.75
$474.99
$474.99 - $474.99
$474.99
SKU MCX556A-ECAT
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  • Specifications
  • Description
Manufacturer Part Number MCX556A-ECAT
Manufacturer Mellanox
Condition Refurbished
Standard Warranty 90 Day Replacement Warranty
Item Category Network Interface Cards (NICs)
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Mellanox NVIDIA CX556A ConnectX-5 VPI Dual Port QSFP28

Ethernet / InfiniBand PCIe 3.0 x16 Network Adapter Card – MCX556A-ECAT

The NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-5 VPI Adapter Card (MCX556A-ECAT) is a high-performance dual-port network interface card designed for 100GbE Ethernet and EDR InfiniBand connectivity. Built for modern data centers, cloud infrastructure, and high-performance computing (HPC) environments, it delivers ultra-low latency, advanced hardware offloads, and protocol flexibility via Mellanox’s Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) technology.

Part Number Identification

  • MCX556A-ECAT – Manufacturer part number

  • CX556A – ConnectX-5 adapter family designation

General Specifications

  • Device Type: Network Adapter (VPI – Virtual Protocol Interconnect)

  • Ports: 2 × QSFP28

  • Maximum Data Rate:

    • Up to 100 Gb/s per port

    • Supports Ethernet and InfiniBand modes

  • Host Interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16

    • Backward compatible with earlier PCIe generations

    • Operates in PCIe Gen 4.0 systems (slot dependent)

  • Form Factor: Plug-in card

    • Available with full-height (standard) and low-profile brackets

  • Typical Power Consumption: ~23W

Supported Protocols

InfiniBand

  • SDR, DDR, QDR, FDR, EDR (up to 100 Gb/s)

Ethernet

  • 1GbE, 10GbE, 25GbE, 40GbE, 50GbE, 100GbE

Standards Compliance

  • IEEE 802.x

  • InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) standards

Key Features & Accelerations

  • VPI (Virtual Protocol Interconnect):
    Automatically detects and operates over Ethernet or InfiniBand

  • Ultra-Low Latency:
    Sub-600 nanosecond latency for latency-sensitive workloads

  • RDMA Support:

    • RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet)

    • Native InfiniBand RDMA

  • NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF):
    Enables high-throughput, low-latency storage access

  • GPUDirect:
    Direct data movement between NIC and GPU memory

  • Virtualization:

    • SR-IOV support

    • Hardware-accelerated switching and offloads

  • CPU Offload Engine:
    Reduces host CPU utilization for networking and storage workloads

Operating System Compatibility

  • Microsoft Windows Server

  • Linux distributions (RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, FreeBSD)

  • VMware ESXi

(OS support depends on driver and firmware versions)

Ideal Use Cases

  • High-Performance Computing (HPC)

  • Cloud and hyperscale data centers

  • Big data analytics

  • Machine learning and AI workloads

  • High-speed storage and NVMe-oF deployments