CF3F4 Dell ConnectX-5 25GBE Dual-port SFP28 Network Card

Dell 25GBE 2-port SFP28 Card

The Dell CF3F4 ConnectX-5 EN 25GBE Dual-port SFP28 PCIe 3.0 X16 Network Adapter is engineered for high-speed connectivity and optimized data transfer. This advanced card ensures reliable performance for enterprise-grade networking solutions.

General Information

• Brand: Dell
• Model Number: CF3F4
• Category: Network Interface Card

Technical Specifications

Design & Form Factor

• Compact plug-in card
• Low-profile structure for space efficiency

Interface & Compatibility

• Bus Type: PCI Express 3.0 X16
• Revision: PCIe 3.0 standard

Port Configuration

• Dual 25 Gigabit SFP28 connectors
• Supports multiple high-speed connections

Physical Dimensions

• Width: 5.6 inches
• Depth: 2.7 inches

Data Protocols

• Gigabit Ethernet
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet
• 25 Gigabit LAN

Performance Metrics

• Data Transfer Speed: 25 Gbps
• Optimized for heavy workloads

Supported Network Protocols

• TCP/IP
• UDP/IP
• iSCSI

Compliance & Standards

IEEE Standards

• IEEE 802.1q (VLAN tagging)
• IEEE 802.1p (Traffic prioritization)
• IEEE 802.3ad (Link Aggregation Control Protocol)
• IEEE 802.3ae (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
• IEEE 802.3ap (Backplane Ethernet)
• IEEE 802.3az (Energy Efficient Ethernet)

Advanced Standards

• IEEE 802.1ax
• IEEE 802.1qbb (Priority Flow Control)
• IEEE 802.1qaz (Enhanced Transmission Selection)
• IEEE 802.1qau (Congestion Notification)
• IEEE 802.1qbg (Edge Virtual Bridging)

Additional Protocols

• IEEE 1588v2 (Precision Time Protocol)
• IEEE 802.3by (25 Gigabit Ethernet)

CF3F4 ConnectX-5 EN 25GbE SFP28 Network Overview

The Dell CF3F4 ConnectX-5 EN 25GbE Dual-Port SFP28 PCIe 3.0 x16 Network Card category represents a high-performance networking solution designed for modern data centers, virtualization platforms, cloud infrastructures, and enterprise environments that demand ultra-fast, low-latency connectivity. This class of network interface cards delivers exceptional throughput, advanced offloading capabilities, and enterprise-grade reliability. Built on Mellanox ConnectX-5 EN architecture and optimized for Dell PowerEdge servers and compatible systems, this category of 25 Gigabit Ethernet adapters is engineered to support bandwidth-intensive workloads such as big data analytics, software-defined storage, virtualization, AI/ML processing, and high-frequency trading platforms.

Architecture and Core Technology

The Dell CF3F4 ConnectX-5 EN network card category is built upon a highly efficient hardware architecture that integrates advanced packet processing, intelligent acceleration engines, and PCIe 3.0 x16 interface bandwidth. This architecture ensures that the network card can fully utilize dual 25GbE ports simultaneously without bottlenecks. The hardware is engineered with cutting-edge silicon optimized for high packet per second rates, enabling superior performance in both small packet and large frame environments. Intelligent pipeline processing reduces latency, enhances throughput, and ensures consistent data delivery under heavy workloads.

Advanced Packet Acceleration Engine

The advanced packet acceleration engine integrated into this category of network cards enables hardware-based processing of networking tasks that would otherwise consume CPU cycles. By offloading checksum calculations, segmentation, and packet filtering to the NIC hardware, server CPU resources remain available for application processing. This technology improves server efficiency, reduces system overhead, and significantly increases data processing speeds.

Dual-Port 25GbE Connectivity Advantages

The dual-port SFP28 configuration in this category offers increased network redundancy, failover protection, and enhanced bandwidth aggregation. With two independent 25 Gigabit Ethernet ports, servers can achieve up to 50Gbps aggregate throughput when link aggregation is configured. This improves network performance for storage replication, virtual machine migration, high-speed data transfer, and clustered computing environments.

High-Speed Data Transfer Efficiency

High-speed data transfer efficiency ensures seamless handling of large datasets, rapid file transfers, and accelerated application performance. Enterprises leveraging big data platforms, database clusters, and distributed storage systems benefit from improved throughput and minimized network congestion.

Link Aggregation and Redundancy

Link aggregation enables combining both ports into a single logical connection to increase bandwidth and ensure fault tolerance. If one port fails, traffic automatically reroutes to the remaining link, maintaining uninterrupted network communication and enhancing system reliability.

PCIe 3.0 x16 Interface Performance

The PCIe 3.0 x16 interface delivers sufficient bandwidth to support dual 25GbE traffic without creating bottlenecks. This high-speed interface ensures seamless data exchange between the network adapter and server memory, reducing latency and increasing throughput. The x16 lane architecture allows full utilization of hardware acceleration features and ensures consistent performance under heavy workloads.

Low-Latency Data Communication

Low-latency communication is essential for modern applications such as cloud computing, real-time analytics, and virtualized infrastructures. The optimized PCIe interface combined with hardware offloading ensures fast packet processing and reduced transmission delay, enabling responsive and high-performance networking environments.

Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructure Acceleration

The Dell CF3F4 ConnectX-5 EN 25GbE network card category is specifically engineered to accelerate virtualized and cloud-native workloads. It supports advanced virtualization technologies such as SR-IOV, NVGRE, and VXLAN offloading, enabling efficient traffic isolation and enhanced network performance for virtual machines and containers. This hardware-assisted virtualization improves network scalability and ensures consistent performance across multiple virtualized environments.

SR-IOV and Virtual Machine Acceleration

Single Root I/O Virtualization enables direct assignment of virtual functions to virtual machines, reducing latency and improving network performance. By bypassing the hypervisor for data transfer, this technology minimizes CPU overhead and enhances application responsiveness.

Network Overlay Offloading

Hardware offloading for network overlay protocols such as VXLAN and NVGRE ensures efficient encapsulation and decapsulation of network traffic. This allows large-scale cloud deployments to operate efficiently without increasing CPU usage or reducing network throughput.

Container Networking Optimization

Container-based environments benefit from optimized networking that ensures fast communication between microservices. The hardware acceleration features enable high packet processing rates, ensuring smooth and efficient container orchestration in Kubernetes and other container platforms.

Storage and High-Performance Computing Integration

This category of network cards is widely used in storage networking and high-performance computing clusters. It supports advanced storage protocols and provides the bandwidth required for distributed storage systems, NVMe over Fabric deployments, and software-defined storage platforms. High-speed connectivity ensures faster data replication, improved backup performance, and reduced recovery times.