VK88G Dell E810 Quad Port 10/25GBE SFP28 PCIE Adapter

Dell VK88G E810 Intel 4-Port 10/25GbE SFP28 Network Adapter 

The Dell VK88G E810 Intel Quad-Port Network Adapter is a high-performance connectivity solution designed for modern enterprise servers and data centers. Built to deliver ultra-fast networking speeds, this adapter supports multi-speed Ethernet standards and advanced virtualization technologies for optimized workload efficiency.

Key Product Information

Manufacturer & Identification

• Brand: Dell
• Part Number / SKU: VK88G
• Device Category: Network Interface Card (NIC)
• Port Configuration: 4-Port architecture

Hardware and Physical Specifications

Form Factor & Build

• Plug-in expansion card design
• Full-height bracket support for enterprise servers

Bus Interface Details

• PCI Express 4.0 x16 interface
• Backward compatibility with PCIe 3.0 standards

Network Connectivity Features

Supported Ethernet Speeds

• 1 Gigabit Ethernet
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet
• 25 Gigabit Ethernet

Ports and Interface Type

• 2 × SFP28 ports supporting 1G/10G/25G connectivity
• High-speed fiber-based wired network support

Supported Protocols and Data Handling

Networking Protocol Compatibility

• Gigabit Ethernet standards
• 10GbE and 25GbE high-speed transmission
• iSCSI storage networking protocol
• iWARP and NFS support for distributed storage

Advanced Features and Performance Enhancements

Virtualization & Offload Technologies

• SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization)
• VMDq (Virtual Machine Device Queues)
• Data Direct I/O (DDIO)

High-Performance Networking Features

• RDMA and RoCE v2 (RDMA over Converged Ethernet)
• Intelligent hardware offloading for CPU efficiency
• Flexible Port Partitioning (FPP) for traffic segmentation
• On-chip Quality of Service (QoS) management

Use Cases and Deployment Scenarios

Ideal Applications

• Enterprise data centers requiring high-speed networking
• Virtualized server environments and cloud infrastructure
• High-performance computing (HPC) clusters
• Storage area networks (SAN) and NVMe over Fabrics setups

Operational Advantages

• Reduced latency for critical workloads
• Improved bandwidth utilization
• Enhanced virtualization efficiency
• Scalable multi-speed network support

Dell VK88G Quad Port 10/25GbE SFP28 Adapter Overview

The Dell VK88G E810 Intel Quad Port 10/25GbE SFP28 PCIe Full Height Adapter is a high-performance enterprise network interface card designed to meet the increasing bandwidth demands of modern data centers, virtualization environments, cloud infrastructures, and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Built on advanced Ethernet controller technology from Intel and integrated within Dell’s enterprise networking ecosystem, this adapter delivers scalable, flexible, and highly efficient connectivity for mission-critical workloads requiring ultra-low latency and high throughput.

Engineered for next-generation networking, this quad-port SFP28 adapter supports both 10GbE and 25GbE speeds per port, enabling organizations to optimize their network infrastructure based on workload requirements. It is particularly suitable for environments where network congestion, data bottlenecks, and latency-sensitive applications demand consistent and predictable performance.

Advanced Intel Ethernet E810 Controller Architecture

Next-Generation Ethernet Processing

At the core of the Dell VK88G adapter lies the Intel Ethernet Controller E810, a highly advanced networking chipset designed to handle demanding workloads in modern enterprise and cloud environments. The controller is optimized for multi-speed networking, supporting flexible port configurations and enhanced packet processing capabilities.

The Intel E810 architecture introduces significant improvements in packet classification, load balancing, and hardware offloading, allowing CPUs to focus on application workloads instead of network overhead. This results in improved overall system efficiency and reduced latency for critical applications.

Hardware Acceleration Capabilities

The adapter integrates multiple hardware acceleration engines that support virtualization, tunneling, and storage offloads. These capabilities are essential for cloud-native applications, software-defined networking (SDN), and network function virtualization (NFV) deployments.

Key Acceleration Features

The hardware acceleration includes support for VXLAN, NVGRE, and Geneve tunneling, as well as TCP/IP stateless offloads, ensuring optimized network traffic processing and reduced CPU utilization in high-density server environments.

Quad Port SFP28 Connectivity for Scalable Networking

Flexible 10GbE and 25GbE Support

The Dell VK88G adapter features four SFP28 ports, each capable of operating at either 10GbE or 25GbE speeds depending on transceiver and infrastructure configuration. This flexibility allows organizations to deploy mixed-speed environments while maintaining upgrade readiness for future network expansion.

Scalability Advantages

With quad-port design, enterprises can consolidate multiple network interfaces into a single adapter, reducing PCIe slot consumption while increasing aggregate bandwidth. This is especially beneficial in dense server configurations where expansion slots are limited.

Bandwidth Aggregation

The ability to aggregate multiple high-speed ports enables enhanced load balancing across virtual machines, containers, and storage systems, ensuring efficient distribution of network traffic across available resources.

PCIe Full Height Form Factor Design

Enterprise Server Compatibility

The full-height PCI Express form factor ensures compatibility with a wide range of Dell PowerEdge servers and enterprise-grade rack-mounted systems. The adapter is designed for stable physical integration, ensuring optimal airflow and thermal performance within server chassis environments.

PCIe Lane Optimization

Leveraging PCIe high-bandwidth lanes, the adapter ensures minimal bottlenecks between the network interface and system memory. This is critical for workloads requiring real-time data processing and high-speed packet transfers.

Enterprise Use Cases and Deployment Scenarios

Cloud Data Centers

In cloud computing environments, the Dell VK88G E810 adapter provides scalable and reliable connectivity for multi-tenant architectures. Its support for virtualization and overlay networks makes it ideal for cloud service providers managing dynamic workloads and distributed systems.

Virtualization Infrastructure

The adapter is optimized for hypervisor platforms such as VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM. It supports SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization), allowing multiple virtual machines to share a single physical network interface with near-native performance.

SR-IOV Benefits

SR-IOV reduces hypervisor overhead by enabling direct hardware access for virtual machines, significantly improving network throughput and reducing latency in virtualized environments.

High-Performance Computing (HPC)

For HPC clusters, the adapter ensures ultra-low latency communication between compute nodes. This is critical for scientific simulations, AI training workloads, and large-scale data analytics applications.

Advanced Networking Features and Offloads

TCP/IP Stateless Offloads

The adapter supports advanced TCP segmentation offload (TSO), large receive offload (LRO), and checksum offloading. These features reduce CPU load by handling repetitive network processing tasks directly at the hardware level.

Overlay Network Support

Modern data centers often rely on overlay networking technologies. The Dell VK88G adapter supports VXLAN, Geneve, and NVGRE encapsulation, enabling seamless integration into software-defined networking environments.

QoS and Traffic Prioritization

Quality of Service (QoS) features allow administrators to prioritize mission-critical traffic over less sensitive data streams, ensuring consistent performance for latency-sensitive applications such as VoIP, financial trading systems, and real-time analytics.

Security Enhancements in Network Processing

Hardware-Based Security Acceleration

Security is a key focus of the Intel E810 architecture. The adapter includes support for hardware-assisted encryption and secure packet processing, reducing vulnerabilities associated with software-based networking stacks.

Secure Boot and Firmware Integrity

Firmware validation mechanisms ensure that only trusted firmware is executed on the adapter, reducing the risk of malicious code injection or unauthorized modifications.

Virtualization Security Isolation

Through SR-IOV and hardware partitioning, the adapter isolates network traffic between virtual machines, preventing cross-VM data leakage and improving multi-tenant security in cloud environments.

Compatibility with Dell Server Ecosystem

Optimized for Dell PowerEdge Platforms

The Dell VK88G E810 adapter is specifically validated for use with Dell PowerEdge servers, ensuring seamless integration, firmware compatibility, and optimized driver support. This tight integration simplifies deployment and reduces configuration complexity.

Operating System Support

The adapter supports a wide range of enterprise operating systems, including Linux distributions (Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, SUSE), Windows Server editions, and virtualization hypervisors, ensuring broad deployment flexibility across IT infrastructures.

Network Performance Optimization Features

Low Latency Packet Processing

The adapter is designed to minimize packet processing delays through optimized hardware pipelines and reduced interrupt handling overhead. This is essential for latency-sensitive applications such as trading platforms and real-time analytics systems.

Receive Side Scaling (RSS)

RSS enables the distribution of network processing across multiple CPU cores, improving parallel processing efficiency and reducing bottlenecks in multi-threaded environments.

Adaptive Load Balancing

Dynamic load balancing capabilities ensure optimal utilization of available network bandwidth, preventing congestion and improving overall system responsiveness.