NVIDIA Network Adapters and DPUs

How a compute network adapter differs from an ordinary one

A regular Ethernet adapter hands every packet to the CPU. When traffic is measured in hundreds of gigabits, the CPU stops computing the job and starts parsing the network. ConnectX adapters work differently: RDMA writes data straight into another server's memory, bypassing the processor.

That is why in multi-node clusters the network adapter affects training time as much as the accelerators themselves.

ConnectX or BlueField

• ConnectX-7 and ConnectX-8. Fast adapters at 200, 400 and 800 Gb/s. They run in either InfiniBand or Ethernet mode, chosen by configuration.
• BlueField-3. Not a card any more but a computer in a slot: its own Arm cores, its own memory and operating system. It takes over encryption, storage and network policy, freeing the host CPU entirely.

What to check

Port speed has to match the switch and the cable: a 400 Gb/s adapter in a 200 Gb/s port runs at 200. Port count defines the redundancy scheme. The OSFP or QSFP112 connector defines which cables fit, and they are easy to mix up.

Check the server slot separately. A PCIe 5.0 x16 card in an x8 slot gives half the bandwidth, and the point of the purchase disappears.

Send us the server model and the speed you need, and we will match the adapter with cables and transceivers that fit it.