MCX516A-CCAT Mellanox 100G QSFP28 PCIe 3.0 x16 Ethernet Network Card

High-Performance 100GbE Dual-Port PCIe Network Adapter delivering low-latency RDMA fabrics with the MCX516A-CCAT

The MCX516A-CCAT is a Mellanox ConnectX-5 EN dual-port 100GbE QSFP28 PCIe 3.0 x16 add-in card designed to remove network bottlenecks in modern x86 and accelerated compute servers. By combining line-rate Ethernet throughput with RoCE RDMA capabilities, MCX516A-CCAT enables predictable east-west latency for clustered applications where CPU cycles and GPU feed rates depend on deterministic transport behavior.

Architecturally, MCX516A-CCAT integrates hardware offloads that reduce host CPU overhead under virtualization and overlay networking. SR-IOV accelerates multi-tenant I/O by presenting scalable virtual functions, while VXLAN, NVGRE, and Geneve offloads keep encapsulation processing in the NIC. RSS and LRO support efficient packet steering and aggregation, and IEEE 1588 PTP timing assists environments that require precise time synchronization across nodes. With PXE boot support, MCX516A-CCAT also fits automated provisioning workflows for bare-metal and stateless infrastructure.

Why Choose the MCX516A-CCAT?

MCX516A-CCAT delivers a strong density-to-performance profile by providing 2 high-speed QSFP28 ports on a single PCIe Gen3 x16 slot, enabling resilient uplinks, storage traffic separation, or fabric redundancy without additional adapters. In RoCE-enabled designs, MCX516A-CCAT supports scalable low-latency fabrics that align with leaf/spine topologies and clustered compute expansion while maintaining enterprise reliability for continuous operation.

Mellanox engineering focuses on deterministic networking under load, emphasizing robust driver maturity, hardware-based acceleration, and compatibility with data center operational standards. This approach makes MCX516A-CCAT a practical building block for consistent performance across heterogeneous server fleets and long lifecycle deployments.

Key Applications:

• Leaf/spine data center uplinks
• HPC and AI RoCE fabrics
• NFV/SDN virtualized networking
• High-throughput storage networking
• Low-latency east-west traffic

At Happyware - Server Hardware you benefit from non-binding offers tailored precisely to your needs for MCX516A-CCAT rollout planning, and you can secure an extended warranty up to 6 years to align the adapter lifecycle with enterprise maintenance windows.