NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-5 MCX556A-ECUT
ConnectX-5 VPI adapter, dual-port EDR IB (100Gb/s) / 100GbE, PCIe 3.0 x16, UEFI-enabled
Host Interface
PCIe 3.0 x16
Port Count
2-port
Port Speed & Connector Type
100Gb/s QSFP28 — EDR InfiniBand (100Gb/s) or 100GbE, per port
Network Protocol
VPI — InfiniBand and Ethernet (selectable)
RDMA
Native InfiniBand transport; RoCE v2 (Ethernet mode)
Product Description
The NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-5 MCX556A-ECUT is a dual-port Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) adapter that runs either 100Gb/s EDR InfiniBand or 100GbE independently on each of its two QSFP28 ports, over a shared PCIe 3.0 x16 host interface. Built on the MT27808A0-FCCF-EV controller, it adds UEFI-enabled boot support to the standard ConnectX-5 VPI feature set, allowing the adapter to be used for network/PXE boot in UEFI-based server environments — a common requirement for diskless compute nodes and provisioning workflows. With native InfiniBand transport offload alongside RoCE v2 support in Ethernet mode, the MCX556A-ECUT is well suited for HPC clusters, storage fabrics, and dual-port redundant or bandwidth-aggregated Ethernet deployments. It ships in a tall-bracket, full-height form factor for standard server chassis and carries the same hardware offload capabilities — RDMA, NVMe-oF acceleration and low CPU overhead — that define the ConnectX-5 generation.