RC5TP Dell Intel Quickassist Adapter 8970 PCIe 3.0 X16 100GB Accelerator Card.

Enhancing Server Acceleration with Dell Intel RC5TP Quickassist Adapter

The Dell Intel RC5TP Quickassist Adapter 8970 is a high-performance PCIe 3.0 x16 100GB accelerator card designed to offload and accelerate cryptographic and compression workloads. As enterprise data volumes surge and security demands intensify, this adapter plays a vital role in modern data centers by enhancing performance while lowering CPU utilization. This adapter falls under the broader category of hardware acceleration cards, which includes network interface cards (NICs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) engineered for high-throughput, low-latency computing.

Key Features of Dell Intel RC5TP Quickassist Technology (QAT) Adapter

• Interface: PCI Express Gen 3.0 x16 (high bandwidth, low latency)
• Model: RC5TP 
• Bandwidth: Up to 100Gbps hardware acceleration
• Encryption Standards: AES, RSA, SHA, IPsec, TLS, and more
• Thermal Profile: Passive cooling optimized for enterprise server environments
• Security: Hardware-based cryptographic isolation and self-integrity checks

Enterprise Use Cases Benefiting from QAT

• Secure Web Applications with SSL/TLS Termination
• Data Center Encryption and Decryption
• Compressed Data Storage Optimization
• Secure Multi-Tenant Cloud Hosting
• Virtual Private Network (VPN) and IPsec Tunneling

Performance Benefits in Mission-Critical Workloads

By leveraging the Dell Intel RC5TP QAT adapter, data centers can significantly reduce server CPU workloads. This results in:

• Improved server efficiency and scalability
• Enhanced application performance for security-sensitive tasks
• Reduced thermal output and lower energy consumption
• Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) by extending hardware lifespan

Compression/Decompression Acceleration

In storage-intensive environments, compression acceleration is critical. The RC5TP adapter allows enterprises to manage massive datasets efficiently by providing high-speed compression/decompression using algorithms such as DEFLATE and LZS. This reduces disk usage and I/O latency in storage servers and backup systems.

Cryptographic Acceleration

Supporting industry-standard protocols and cryptographic algorithms (including AES, RSA, SHA, and ECC), this card offloads complex security processes from the CPU, making it ideal for applications such as secure boot, encrypted data storage, and SSL handshake acceleration.

PCIe 3.0 x16: Interface for Next-Level Bandwidth

The adapter is based on PCI Express Gen 3.0 x16 interface, delivering up to 16GB/s of bi-directional bandwidth. This ensures a fast data path between the accelerator and the system, preventing performance bottlenecks in data-intensive enterprise tasks.

Server Integration and Compatibility

The Dell RC5TP QAT adapter is compatible with most Dell PowerEdge servers and other enterprise-grade rackmount systems supporting PCIe Gen 3.0. It is engineered to meet strict thermal and power delivery specifications, ensuring reliability in demanding workloads.

Supported Dell Server Platforms

• Dell PowerEdge R640, R740, R750
• Dell PowerEdge T640, MX740C, MX840C
• Rack, tower, and blade infrastructure with PCIe 3.0 slots

Operating System Support

The adapter supports a wide range of operating systems and virtualization platforms:

• Windows Server 2016, 2019, and 2022
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
• Ubuntu Server
• VMware ESXi
• Citrix XenServer

Security Functions Powered by QAT

Dell Intel RC5TP accelerates many modern security functions crucial for compliance and data protection:

SSL and TLS Acceleration

Offloading SSL/TLS handshakes and cryptographic operations dramatically improves performance for secure web services, load balancers, and proxies. The adapter supports SSL forward proxy, TLS 1.3 offload, and hardware-backed key protection.

IPsec and VPN Performance

For organizations deploying secure tunnels using IPsec or VPNs, the QAT engine offers line-rate encryption/decryption, ensuring seamless, secure communication with minimal performance impact.

Data-at-Rest and In-Transit Encryption

This accelerator supports hardware-accelerated encryption for protecting both data at rest (e.g., on SSDs and HDDs) and data in motion (e.g., over networks), meeting standards such as FIPS 140-2 and GDPR requirements.

Compression-Driven Storage Optimization

With growing emphasis on space efficiency, especially in big data, AI/ML, and backup environments, the RC5TP’s data compression engine reduces storage footprints. This also minimizes IOPS load, enabling smoother performance for databases, object storage, and virtualized environments.

Compatible Compression Algorithms

• LZS (Lempel–Ziv–Stac)
• DEFLATE
• zlib & gzip compatible output

Advanced Power and Thermal Management

Designed for 24/7 data center operation, the Dell Intel RC5TP QAT adapter features passive thermal cooling and an optimized power draw that aligns with server PSU limitations. It operates efficiently under high loads without requiring additional cooling hardware.

Thermal Design Power (TDP) Efficiency

The passive heat sink design supports high-density deployments in blade and rackmount servers. The card’s power envelope is tuned to fit within strict data center design limitations, maintaining performance without thermal throttling.