• Mellanox ConnectX-5 EX Controller: The CX556A is a PCIe Gen 4.0 x16 adapter with two 100Gb/s QSFP28 ports for InfiniBand and Ethernet connectivity. Powered by the Mellanox ConnectX-5 EX MT28808A0 controller, it supports two 100Gb/s connections simultaneously, with RDMA and advanced application offloading for HPC, web, cloud, and storage environments.
• Controller and Interface Specifications: Controller: Mellanox ConnectX-5 EX MT28808A0. Bus Interface: PCIe Gen 4.0 x16, with up to 256Gb/s bandwidth. Ports: 2 x QSFP28. Connection Speed: 2 x 100Gb/s InfiniBand or Ethernet. Supports RDMA over RoCE, I/O virtualization, and SR-IOV with up to 512 virtual functions and 8 physical functions. Remote boot support includes RoCE, PXE, UEFI, iSCSI, and remote boot over InfiniBand or Ethernet.
• InfiniBand Features: Compliant with IBTA Specification 1.3 and supports EDR 100Gb/s, FDR 56Gb/s, QDR 40Gb/s, DDR 20Gb/s, and SDR 10Gb/s. Storage offloads include NVMe over Fabrics. Supported storage protocols include SRP, iSER, NFS, RDMA, SMB Direct, and NVMe-oF. Hardware offloading supports VXLAN, NVGRE, and GENEVE encapsulation and decapsulation. QoS support is available for virtual machines.
• Ethernet Features: Supports IEEE 802.3cd (50Gb/s and 100Gb/s), 802.3bj and 802.3bm (100Gb/s), 802.3by (25Gb/s and 50Gb/s), 802.3ba (40Gb/s), 802.3ae (10Gb/s), 802.3az, 802.3ap, and 802.3ad. Additional features include 802.1AX link aggregation, 802.1Q VLAN tagging and 802.1p priority, 802.1Qau congestion notification, 802.1Qaz, 802.1Qbb, 802.1Qbg, IEEE 1588v2, and jumbo frames up to 9.6KB.
• PCIe Compatibility: Uses a PCIe Gen 4.0 x16 interface with up to 256Gb/s bandwidth and automatically negotiates x16, x8, or x4 lane configurations. Compatible with PCIe Gen 5.0, Gen 4.0, Gen 3.0, and Gen 2.0 slots.
• Operating System Compatibility: Supports plug-and-play operation with Windows 11 and Windows 10 64-bit, plus Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025 64-bit. Also compatible with RHEL, CentOS, FreeBSD, VMware, and most Linux kernel-based systems.
• Software and Cabling Compatibility: Supports OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) and OpenFabrics Windows Distribution (WinOF-2). Compatible with QSFP28 transceivers, direct-attach copper (DAC) cables, and active optical cables (AOC), including supported 50GbE, 100GbE, and 200GbE PAM4 Ethernet links.

CX556A is a PCIE GEN 4.0 X16 (256Gb/s bandwidth) interface to 2X 100Gb/s QSFP28 fiber ports intelligent RDMA enabled InfiniBand and Ethernet VPI Adapter for Servers, with advanced application offloading capabilities optimized for HPC, Web 2.0, Cloud, Telecomm and Storage environments.

Mellanox ConnectX-5 MT28808A0 100Gb/s Controller

Powered by the Mellanox ConnectX-5 EX InfiniBand and Ethernet controller, it delivers 2X 100Gb/s InfiniBand or Ethernet connections simultaneously on servers.

2X 100Gb/s InfiniBand and Ethernet

IBTA Specification 1.3. Support EDR 100Gb/s, FDR 56Gb/s, QDR 40Gb/s, DDR 20Gb/s, SDR 10Gb/s .

IEEE 802.3cd, 50Gb/s and 100Gb/s; IEEE 802.3bj,bm 100Gb/s; IEEE 802.3by 25Gb/s, 50Gb/s; IEEE 802.3ba 40Gb/s; IEEE 802.3ae 10Gb/s;Support Jumbo frame (9.6KB).

Windows Servser 2025, 2022 Windows 11, 10 64bit

Plug and play on Windows 11, 10 64bit and Windows Server 2012, 2012R2, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2025 64bit

Linux-Based Systems, RHEL, CentOS, FreeBSD, VMware

Compatible with RHEL, CentOS, FreeBSD, VMware and most of Linux kernel-based systems.

PCIE GEN 4.0 X16 Interface

PCIE GEN 4.0 X16 interface, 256Gb/s bandwidth. Auto negotiates to PCIE X16, X8, X4 lane. PCIE GEN 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0 slot.

Full Height PC and Slim PC

Works on Full Height PCs, Slim PCs. 4U, Tower, 5U Rack, 6U Rack 1U, 2U Rack, Blade, Mini NAS.

Dual Bracket

Full Height Bracket Pre installed on NIC adapter.

Low Profile Bracket in the package.

QSFP28 100Gb/s AOC Cable

Supports single mode 100Gb/s QSFP28 AOC Cables and multi-mode 100Gb/s, 50Gb/s, 40Gb/s, 25Gb/s mode AOC Cables.

QSFP28 100Gb/s Transcievers100Gb/s QSFP28 DAC CablesFor DATA CENTERFor DESKTOP PC