Network Interface Card (NIC) Ethernet Adapter MCX516A-CDAT Dell PN A9818045)

NVIDIA Mellanox MCX516A-CDAT (ConnectX-5 Ex) – Full Technical Specifications

Product Type: Network Interface Card (NIC) / Ethernet Adapter
Product Line: NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-5 Ex
Model / Part Number: MCX516A-CDAT (Dell OEM variants exist, e.g., Dell P/N: A9818045)

Network & Connectivity

• Ports: Dual-port

• Connector Type: QSFP28 (supports copper and optical cables)

• Ethernet Data Rate: 1/10/25/40/50/100 Gb/s

• Supported Protocols: 100GbE, 50GbE, 40GbE, 25GbE, 10GbE, 1GbE; IEEE 802.3bj, 802.3bm, 802.3by, 802.3ba, 802.3ae, 802.3ap, 802.3ad, 802.1AX, 802.1Q, 802.1P, 802.1Qau (QCN), 802.1Qaz (ETS), 802.1Qbb (PFC), 802.1Qbg, IEEE 1588v2

• Network / Transport Protocols: TCP/IP, UDP/IP, iSCSI, SMB, NFS

• Jumbo Frames: Supported up to 9.6KB

Host Interface (Bus)

• Interface Type: PCI Express (PCIe)

• PCIe Generation: Gen 4.0 x16 (backward compatible with PCIe 3.0, 2.0, 1.1)

• PCIe SERDES: 16.0 GT/s (Gen4) / 8.0 GT/s (Gen3)

• PCIe Maximum Bandwidth: 256 Gb/s (Gen4 x16 theoretical), capable of supporting 200 Gb/s network traffic when both ports run at 100 Gb/s

Key Features & Offloads

• RDMA: RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), IBTA RDMA

• SR-IOV: Supported (Hardware-based I/O Virtualization)

• CPU Offload: Open vSwitch (OVS) offload, ASAP2, Tunneling encapsulation/decapsulation (VXLAN, NVGRE)

• Storage Acceleration: NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF) offloads, Erasure Coding, T10-DIF Signature Handover

• Other Features: NVIDIA PeerDirect, Adaptive Routing, Dynamic Connected Transport (DCT), Burst Buffer Offload, UEFI enabled, NC-SI

• Supported Overlay Networks: NVGRE, VXLAN (hardware offload)

Physical & Environmental Specifications

• Form Factor: Plug-in card (Low Profile, includes tall bracket)

• Dimensions: 2.71 in. x 5.6 in. (68.90 mm x 142.24 mm)

• Voltage: 12V

• Power Consumption: Typical: ~19.3W; Maximum: ~29.0W (Active Cables)

• Operating Temperature: 0°C to 55°C

• Non-operational Temperature: -40°C to 70°C

• Operating Humidity: 10% to 85% relative humidity

• RoHS: Compliant

Operating Systems & Compliance

• OS Support: RHEL/CentOS, Windows, FreeBSD, VMware, OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED), OpenFabrics Windows Distribution (WinOF-2)

• Regulatory: Safety (CB, cTUVus, CE), EMC (CE, FCC, VCCI, ICES, RCM)

Dell Compatibility (Common for OEM Models)

• Dell Part Numbers (Examples): A9818045, 540-BCIW, etc.

• Designed For (PowerEdge Series): R440, R540, R640, R6415, R740, R740xd, R740xd2, R7415, R840, R940xa, C4140, C6420, etc.