E830XXVDA2M Intel PCI-E 4.0 SFP28 2 Ports Ethernet Network Adapter

Product Overview of Intel 2 Ports Ethernet Network Adapter

The Intel E830XXVDA2M is a high‑performance dual‑port network adapter engineered for demanding data center, enterprise, and cloud‑scale environments. As part of Intel’s advanced Ethernet 800 Series, this adapter leverages the latest PCI Express (PCIe) 4.0 interface and SFP28 connectivity to deliver flexible 10/25 Gigabit Ethernet speeds.

Main Specifications

• Brand: Intel
• Part Number: E830XXVDA2M
• Product Type: Dual-Port SFP28 Network Adapter

Technical Information

• Form Factor: SFP28
• Interface: PCIe 4.0 (16 GT/s)
• Lane Width: x8
• Controller: Intel Ethernet Controller E830
• Port Setup: Two SFP28 slots
• Transfer Speeds: 25GbE / 10GbE / 1GbE
• Mediums: Copper, Fiber
• Cabling Options: DAC, Optical Modules, AOCs

Performance Features

• Intel Virtualization Technology for Connectivity (VT-c)
• High throughput with 16 GT/s bandwidth
• Reliable signal integrity for demanding workloads

Environmental Conditions

• Operating Temperature: -5 °C to 65 °C (23 °F to 149 °F)
• Storage Temperature: -40 °C to 70 °C (-40 °F to 158 °F)
• Humidity Tolerance: Up to 90% non-condensing at 35 °C

Indicators

• LED Status Lights: Activity (blinking), No Activity (off)
• Link Speed: Green = 25GbE, Amber = below 25GbE, Off = no link

Target Segment

• Optimized for server environments
• Ideal for enterprise networking, virtualization, and cloud infrastructure

Understanding of E830XXVDA2M 2 Ports Network Adapter

The Intel E830XXVDA2M 2 Ports PCI-E 4.0 10/25 Gigabit Ethernet SFP28 Network Adapter is engineered as a high-performance data networking interface card built on advanced controller architecture optimized for enterprise servers, hyperscale infrastructure, storage fabrics, and virtualized compute environments. This adapter integrates a sophisticated Ethernet controller chipset designed for ultra-low latency packet handling, high throughput bandwidth consistency, and deterministic performance delivery across demanding workloads. The architecture leverages a PCI Express 4.0 x8 host interface, enabling extremely high bidirectional bandwidth between the adapter and system motherboard, ensuring that network traffic is processed without internal bus bottlenecks. By using a modern controller pipeline with hardware acceleration engines, the adapter minimizes CPU utilization while maintaining high packet per second throughput, making it suitable for network-intensive applications such as distributed databases, software-defined storage, AI clusters, and real-time analytics.

PCI Express Gen4 Interface Implementation

The PCI-E 4.0 interface provides doubled throughput compared to PCI-E 3.0, allowing the adapter to sustain line-rate data transfer across both ports simultaneously without saturating the system bus. This high-bandwidth interface is critical for dual-port 25GbE operation where aggregate throughput can reach up to 50Gbps. The adapter’s electrical and signaling design supports stable operation in modern server platforms that implement high-speed trace routing, advanced power delivery regulation, and signal integrity optimization. With PCIe Gen4 compatibility, the adapter is capable of operating in backward compatible PCIe slots while automatically negotiating link speed and width based on motherboard capabilities, ensuring seamless deployment flexibility across multiple generations of server hardware.

Dual SFP28 Port Architecture

The dual-port SFP28 interface configuration enables independent or aggregated networking channels, allowing administrators to configure link redundancy, failover, load balancing, or multi-network segmentation. Each port supports 10GbE and 25GbE signaling modes, enabling compatibility with existing network infrastructure while providing an upgrade path for higher speed connectivity. The SFP28 design supports a wide range of transceivers including fiber modules, direct attach copper cables, and active optical cables, ensuring deployment versatility in rack-scale, top-of-rack, or inter-rack networking scenarios. Hardware-level port isolation ensures that traffic on one interface does not affect the performance or stability of the other, making it ideal for virtualization environments where separate virtual networks must operate concurrently.

Signal Integrity and Physical Layer Engineering

The physical layer circuitry of the adapter incorporates precision clocking components, advanced equalization algorithms, and noise-reduction circuitry to maintain signal integrity across high-speed links. These design features ensure stable transmission even when using long cable runs or operating in electrically noisy data center environments. Adaptive link training enables the controller to dynamically adjust signal parameters based on cable characteristics and environmental conditions, reducing bit error rates and improving reliability.

Performance Optimization Technologies

To sustain enterprise-class throughput and packet processing efficiency, the adapter integrates multiple hardware offload engines and performance optimization technologies. These include checksum offloading, TCP segmentation offload, large receive offload, and receive side scaling. By offloading these computationally intensive networking tasks to dedicated silicon, the adapter significantly reduces CPU overhead and frees system resources for application workloads. Hardware queue management enables simultaneous handling of multiple traffic streams with minimal latency, which is essential for high-density virtual machine hosting or containerized infrastructure.

Low Latency

The packet processing pipeline inside the controller is optimized for deterministic latency and consistent throughput. Instead of relying solely on software drivers, the hardware implements priority queues, packet classification logic, and direct memory access engines that transfer data directly between system memory and the network interface. This architecture minimizes interrupt overhead and context switching, enabling predictable response times for latency-sensitive applications such as financial transaction systems, distributed computing clusters, and real-time streaming platforms.

Scalable Multi-Queue Architecture

The adapter supports multiple transmit and receive queues that can be mapped to CPU cores, enabling efficient parallel packet processing. This multi-queue design ensures that network workloads scale proportionally with the number of processor cores available in the host system. It prevents network congestion caused by single-queue bottlenecks and ensures optimal performance in multi-threaded environments. Advanced queue steering algorithms distribute traffic intelligently, maintaining balanced utilization across processing units.

Direct Memory Access Efficiency

DMA engines built into the adapter provide high-speed memory transfers without requiring CPU intervention. These engines support large buffer sizes and intelligent caching strategies that reduce memory access latency. By optimizing memory transaction efficiency, the adapter maintains consistent throughput even during peak traffic bursts. This capability is essential for environments handling large data sets or high transaction volumes.

Network Virtualization

The adapter is designed to operate efficiently in virtualized data centers and cloud platforms where network abstraction and isolation are essential. Hardware-assisted virtualization features allow the adapter to present multiple virtual network interfaces to the operating system, enabling each virtual machine or container to have dedicated network bandwidth and resources. This hardware virtualization capability enhances performance while maintaining strong traffic isolation.

SR-IOV and Virtual Function Acceleration

Single Root I/O Virtualization support allows the adapter to expose multiple virtual functions directly to virtual machines. Each virtual function operates as an independent logical network interface with direct access to hardware resources. This approach bypasses hypervisor software switching layers, reducing latency and improving throughput for virtualized workloads. Hardware-level virtualization ensures that traffic from one virtual machine cannot interfere with another, enhancing both performance and security.

Network Overlay Offload

Support for overlay networking protocols enables efficient operation in software-defined networking environments. The adapter can offload encapsulation and decapsulation tasks for overlay protocols, reducing CPU overhead associated with tunneling technologies used in cloud networking. By handling these operations in hardware, the adapter maintains high throughput even when multiple overlay networks are active simultaneously.

Compatibility and Deployment Flexibility

The Intel E830XXVDA2M adapter is designed for broad compatibility with modern server platforms, operating systems, and network infrastructures. Its firmware and driver architecture supports integration with enterprise operating systems commonly deployed in data centers. Automatic link negotiation allows seamless operation with existing 10GbE infrastructure while providing immediate access to 25GbE speeds when connected to compatible switches and transceivers.

Form Factor and Mechanical Design

The adapter utilizes a standardized PCI Express add-in card form factor suitable for rackmount servers, tower servers, and edge computing systems. Precision manufacturing ensures proper alignment of edge connectors, bracket mounts, and SFP28 cages for secure installation. The mechanical design incorporates reinforced PCB construction to maintain structural integrity during installation and transport.

Power Efficiency

Thermal performance is managed through a combination of optimized component placement, copper heat spreaders, and airflow-friendly heatsink geometry. These design elements allow the adapter to dissipate heat effectively without requiring active cooling components. Passive thermal management ensures reliability in high-density server environments where airflow is managed at the chassis level. Temperature sensors embedded within the controller continuously monitor operating conditions and can trigger protective measures if thermal thresholds are exceeded.

Power Consumption Optimization

The adapter is engineered with power efficiency in mind, using advanced semiconductor fabrication processes and dynamic power scaling. It adjusts power consumption based on link speed, traffic load, and operational state. This adaptive power management reduces energy usage during idle or low-traffic conditions while maintaining full performance when required. Such efficiency contributes to lower operational costs in large-scale deployments.

Security and Data Integrity Capabilities

Security features integrated into the adapter ensure safe and reliable data transmission across enterprise networks. Hardware-level packet filtering and address verification prevent unauthorized traffic from reaching system memory. Secure boot firmware mechanisms verify authenticity before initialization, protecting against malicious firmware tampering. These protections are essential in environments where network interfaces must maintain strict trust boundaries.

Error Detection and Correction Mechanisms

The adapter incorporates advanced error detection algorithms that monitor packet integrity and link stability. Cyclic redundancy checks, frame validation logic, and link health diagnostics ensure that corrupted data is identified and handled appropriately. Automatic retransmission capabilities maintain reliable communication even in conditions where transient errors occur.

High-Speed Data Center Networking Use Cases

The adapter is optimized for high-bandwidth data center environments where throughput, latency, and reliability are mission-critical. It supports storage traffic, virtualization backplanes, cluster interconnects, and high-performance computing communications. With its dual-port configuration and PCIe Gen4 interface, it can sustain simultaneous high-speed connections without performance degradation.

Storage Networking Acceleration

In storage infrastructures, the adapter enables rapid transfer of large data volumes between servers and storage arrays. Hardware offloads reduce CPU load during intensive storage operations, ensuring that application performance remains unaffected by network activity. Consistent throughput is maintained even when multiple storage streams are active.

High-Performance Computing Clusters

For compute clusters running parallel workloads, the adapter’s low latency and high bandwidth characteristics allow efficient node-to-node communication. The deterministic packet processing pipeline ensures predictable transmission times, which is critical for synchronized distributed computations.

Real-Time Data Processing

Applications requiring real-time data ingestion and analysis benefit from the adapter’s ability to deliver packets quickly and consistently. The hardware’s ability to process traffic with minimal delay enables systems to react instantly to incoming data streams.

Advanced Feature

The Intel E830XXVDA2M adapter integrates a wide range of advanced networking features designed to enhance performance, reliability, and manageability. These features are implemented directly in hardware to ensure consistent operation regardless of operating system or driver load. By combining these capabilities within a single controller, the adapter reduces the need for external acceleration hardware.

Precision Time Synchronization

The adapter includes hardware timestamping capabilities that enable precise synchronization across networked systems. Accurate timing is essential for applications such as financial trading platforms, distributed databases, and scientific measurement systems. Hardware timestamping ensures that timing data is captured at the exact moment packets enter or leave the interface, eliminating inaccuracies caused by software delays.

Advanced Filtering

Programmable filtering logic allows the adapter to analyze packet headers and selectively process or discard traffic based on predefined criteria. This capability reduces unnecessary processing of irrelevant packets and improves overall system efficiency. Filters can be configured to match specific protocols, addresses, or port ranges.

Flow Control and Congestion Management

Integrated flow control mechanisms regulate traffic to prevent congestion and packet loss. The adapter can signal upstream devices to temporarily pause transmission when buffers approach capacity. This ensures smooth data flow and prevents performance degradation during traffic spikes.

Operational Efficiency In Enterprise Environments

Enterprise networks demand equipment that can operate continuously under heavy load without performance degradation. The adapter’s architecture is optimized for sustained throughput and minimal downtime. Redundant internal pathways and robust firmware management ensure reliable operation even during intensive traffic conditions.

Scalable Deployment Capability

The adapter can be deployed individually or in large numbers across server fleets. Its consistent performance characteristics make it suitable for standardized infrastructure designs where uniform network behavior is required. Administrators can replicate configurations across systems to maintain predictable network performance.

Integration With Network Management Frameworks

Management interfaces built into the adapter allow it to communicate status information to system monitoring software. This integration simplifies administration and allows centralized oversight of network hardware health and performance metrics.