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Intel

Intel E810-XXVDA2 Ethernet Network Adapter 25GbE SFP28

Dual 25GbE SFP28 ports with ADQ and RoCEv2 support eliminate network bottlenecks in cloud-scale and enterprise storage workloads.

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Overview

The Intel E810-XXVDA2 is a dual-port 25GbE adapter built on Intel's E810 silicon, designed to serve as the network foundation for cloud, enterprise, and communications workloads where bandwidth and deterministic latency matter in equal measure. Two SFP28 ports deliver a combined 50Gbps of throughput from a single PCIe slot — but raw bandwidth is only part of the story. The card's Application Device Queues technology partitions the hardware queue system so individual applications get dedicated, isolated data paths, eliminating the head-of-line blocking that causes latency spikes in multi-workload environments. Layered on top, iWARP and RoCEv2 RDMA support offload memory-to-memory transfers from the host CPU entirely, which directly translates to lower CPU utilization and higher storage throughput in NVMe-oF and distributed storage configurations.

This adapter is built for data center and server workloads — specifically NVMe over Fabrics storage networking, high-frequency financial applications requiring PTP v2 hardware timestamping, and virtualized environments running mixed workload profiles that benefit from Dynamic Device Personalization. It is not a card for workstations or prosumer networking; it belongs in rack servers where a network engineer will configure RDMA, tune DDP profiles, and manage firmware. For those deployments, the E810-XXVDA2 represents Intel's current best answer to the 25GbE tier — a card that solves real bottlenecks in modern distributed infrastructure rather than simply increasing raw link speed.

Key Features

This 25Gigabit Ethernet card will surely cater to the bandwidth requirements of the next-gen cloud and Web-scale environments

This dual port 25gigabit ethernet card lets you add two network ports using a single expansion slot to a client, server or workstation

Supports optical fiber cable to span longer distances and provides data transmission rates par excellence between servers and network components

Specifications

Type
Ethernet Network Adapter
Data Transfer Rate
25GbE
Port Type
SFP28
Port Count
Dual Port
Cable Type Supported
Optical Fiber
Brand
Intel

Pros & Cons

👍 Pros

  • Dual 25GbE SFP28 ports deliver 50Gbps aggregate throughput from a single PCIe expansion slot, maximizing I/O density in server builds.
  • ADQ support isolates application queues at the hardware level, measurably reducing tail latency for NVMe-oF and latency-sensitive microservices.
  • RoCEv2 and iWARP RDMA support offloads memory transfer operations from the CPU, directly improving throughput in storage and HPC workloads.
  • Dynamic Device Personalization allows in-field reprogramming of the packet processing pipeline without hardware swaps, extending useful deployment life.
  • Hardware-level IEEE 1588 PTP v2 timestamping delivers sub-microsecond synchronization accuracy for financial and telecom infrastructure requirements.

👎 Cons

  • SFP28 optics and DAC cables are a separate purchase and add meaningful cost compared to RJ45-based 10GbE alternatives at lower speeds.
  • Full ADQ and RDMA capability requires careful kernel version and driver alignment — older Linux distributions may need manual driver compilation.
  • Dynamic Device Personalization profiles must be downloaded and applied separately; the out-of-box DDP profile may not cover all specialized protocol use cases.
  • The card runs warm under sustained 25G line-rate traffic on both ports — chassis airflow planning is required in dense 1U deployments.
  • No built-in hardware encryption acceleration, which matters in NVMe-oF over RoCEv2 deployments where in-flight data protection is required.

Frequently Asked Questions

The E810-XXVDA2 uses a PCIe x8 slot. It physically occupies a single expansion slot while delivering two 25GbE ports — meaning you're getting 50Gbps of aggregate throughput from one slot, which is the core efficiency argument for this card in dense server builds.
ADQ isolates application traffic into dedicated hardware queues, preventing high-priority workloads like NVMe-oF or latency-sensitive microservices from being queued behind bulk data transfers. In practice, this reduces tail latency — the worst-case response times that kill consistent application performance under load.
Yes — both iWARP and RoCEv2 are supported. iWARP routes RDMA over standard TCP, making it more firewall-friendly across routed networks. RoCEv2 operates over UDP and delivers lower CPU overhead in lossless Ethernet fabrics. Which you choose depends on your network topology and switch infrastructure.
Intel provides inbox drivers for Linux kernels 4.4 and later, and VMware ESXi is supported via Intel's native driver package. Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP) profiles also allow the card's packet processing pipeline to be reconfigured without hardware changes, which is particularly useful in virtualized and containerized environments.
PTP v2 (Precision Time Protocol) enables hardware-timestamped synchronization to sub-microsecond accuracy. This is essential in financial trading infrastructure, telecom timing chains, and any distributed application where coordinated timing across nodes matters. The E810 handles PTP in hardware rather than software, eliminating OS jitter from the timing path.

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