X710T2LOCPV3G1P Intel 2 Ports PCIe 10-GbE Ethernet Network Adapter

Product Overview of X710T2LOCPV3G1P Intel 2 Ports Adapter

The Intel X710T2LOCPV3G1P is a high-performance dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet network adapter designed for modern data centers and enterprise servers. Built on PCI Express 3.0 architecture and compliant with the OCP 3.0 form factor, this adapter delivers reliable connectivity, low latency, and efficient throughput for demanding networking workloads.

General Specifications

• Manufacturer: Intel 
• Manufacturer Part Number: X710T2LOCPV3G1P
• Device Category: Network Adapter
• Product Type: Ethernet Network Interface Card

Network Performance Highlights

• Interface Type: PCIe v3.0
• Data Transfer Rate: 8.0 GT/s
• Ports: 2 × 10GbE Ethernet

Connectivity & Cabling Support

• RJ-45 Category 6
• RJ-45 Category 6a
• RJ-45 Category 5e
• Maximum Cable Distance: Up to 100 meters

Storage Over Ethernet Compatibility

• iSCSI
• NFS

Form Factor

OCP 3.0 Design

• Bracket Height: OCP 3.0f
• Optimized For: Hyperscale and cloud-ready servers
• Deployment: Data centers, virtualization platforms, enterprise networks

Advantages of This Network Adapter

• Dual-port 10GbE performance for bandwidth-intensive applications
• Optimized PCIe 3.0 interface for faster data throughput
• Reliable Intel Ethernet controller for enterprise-grade stability
• Flexible copper cabling support for easy integration
• Ideal for storage, virtualization, and cloud environments

Core Specifications & Form Factor

The Intel X710T2LOCPV3G1P is defined by a precise set of technical specifications that dictate its performance envelope and compatibility. Understanding these is crucial for proper integration and deployment.

Interface & Data Rate Breakdown

This adapter provides two independent network ports, each capable of operating at speeds of 1, 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps). The use of SFP+ cages offers flexibility in physical media selection, allowing data center managers to choose between direct-attach copper cables (DAC) for short runs or optical SFP+ modules for multimode or single-mode fiber connections over longer distances.

PCI Express Host Interface

Leveraging a PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 x8 lane interface, the card ensures ample bandwidth is available to the host system. A PCIe 3.0 x8 slot provides a theoretical bidirectional bandwidth of approximately 7.88 GB/s, which comfortably sustains the full duplex traffic of both 10-GbE ports simultaneously without becoming a bottleneck.

OCP 3.0 Form Factor Advantages

The OCP 3.0 (Open Compute Project) form factor is a standardized design for network adapters, primarily found in modern rackmount servers from leading OEMs and ODMs. Unlike traditional PCIe add-in cards, OCP NICs are oriented horizontally and connect directly to a dedicated socket on the server motherboard.

Key Benefits of OCP 3.0 Adoption

Improved Airflow & Thermal Design: The low-profile, horizontal mounting minimizes obstruction in the server chassis, promoting better airflow for cooling CPUs and memory.
Simplified Maintenance & Hot-Swappability: Many OCP 3.0 implementations support tool-less removal and insertion, enabling faster replacement or upgrade without full server power-down in compatible systems.
Standardized Footprint: Ensures interoperability across a wide range of server platforms that adhere to the OCP specification, offering flexibility in procurement and deployment.

Controller Architecture: Intel Ethernet Controller X710

At the heart of the adapter lies the Intel Ethernet Controller X710, a highly integrated ASIC designed for performance and efficiency. This controller natively supports the critical features that define modern datacenter networking.

Advanced Feature Set for Modern Infrastructure

Beyond raw throughput, the value of a high-end network adapter like the X710T2LOCPV3G1P is realized through its sophisticated feature set, which offloads processing from the host CPU and enables advanced network architectures.

Virtualization Acceleration with SR-IOV & VMDq

In virtualized server environments, network I/O can quickly become a performance constraint. This adapter addresses this through hardware-level virtualization assist technologies.

Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)

SR-IOV allows a single physical port to be presented as multiple virtual functions (VFs) that can be assigned directly to virtual machines (VMs). This bypasses the software-based virtual switch in the hypervisor, granting the VM near-native network performance with dramatically lower latency and CPU overhead.

Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq)

VMDq works in tandem with SR-IOV or independently. It offloads the sorting and steering of network packets to the dedicated hardware on the NIC. The hypervisor's virtual switch delivers packets directly to the correct VM queue, significantly reducing I/O processing cycles on the host CPU.

Storage & RDMA Protocols: iSCSI, FCoE, and iWARP

Convergence of network and storage traffic is a key trend, and the X710T2LOCPV3G1P is equipped to handle storage protocols efficiently.

iSCSI & FCoE Offload

The adapter provides full hardware offload for iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface) and FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet). This means the TCP/IP processing and data movement for iSCSI, or the FCoE frame processing, is handled by the NIC's controller, freeing server CPU resources for application workloads.

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) via iWARP

A standout feature is its support for RDMA over TCP/IP (iWARP). RDMA enables data to be transferred directly from the memory of one computer to another without involving the operating system or CPU of either machine. This yields ultra-low latency and high throughput, which is indispensable for latency-sensitive applications like high-performance computing (HPC), financial trading, and clustered storage (e.g., Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct).

Advanced Packet Processing & Quality of Service (QoS)

The controller supports sophisticated packet filtering, prioritization, and steering mechanisms essential for maintaining service-level agreements (SLAs) in multi-tenant or business-critical environments.

Data Center Bridging (DCB) & Priority Flow Control (PFC)

DCB is a suite of IEEE standards (including PFC) that enables a lossless Ethernet fabric. PFC allows the pausing of specific traffic classes (e.g., storage traffic like FCoE) without affecting other data flows. This is critical for converged networks where storage and data traffic share the same physical link.

Receive-Side Scaling (RSS) & Flow Director

RSS efficiently distributes network receive processing across multiple CPU cores, preventing a single core from becoming a bottleneck. Intel's Flow Director technology uses advanced filters to direct specific traffic flows to designated CPU cores or virtual machine queues, optimizing application performance and predictability.

Primary Deployment Scenarios & Use Cases

The combination of high bandwidth, low latency, and advanced features makes the Intel X710T2LOCPV3G1P suitable for several demanding IT infrastructure roles.

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) & Software-Defined Storage

HCI platforms combine compute, storage, and networking on standard x86 servers. The intense east-west traffic between nodes for storage replication and VM migration demands high-bandwidth, low-latency networking. The X710T2LOCPV3G1P's iWARP RDMA capability is often a key requirement for achieving the necessary performance in solutions like VMware vSAN, Microsoft S2D, or Nutanix.

High-Density Virtualization & Private Cloud

In servers hosting dozens or hundreds of VMs, network I/O virtualization overhead can cripple performance. By leveraging SR-IOV and VMDq, this adapter dramatically reduces CPU utilization associated with networking, allowing more CPU cycles to be allocated to revenue-generating virtualized applications and supporting higher VM density.

High-Performance Computing & Financial Front-End

Applications where microseconds matter, such as quantitative analysis, real-time risk modeling, or high-frequency trading platforms, benefit from the deterministic low latency provided by the adapter's kernel bypass capabilities (via RDMA) and efficient driver stack. The reliable, high-throughput connections ensure rapid data exchange between compute and data feed nodes.

Media & Entertainment Workflows

For video editing, rendering farms, and broadcast environments that work with massive 4K/8K media files, fast network storage access is non-negotiable. The 10-GbE bandwidth and iSCSI offload capabilities facilitate smooth, real-time collaboration from shared storage systems.

Compatibility and Management

Successful deployment requires attention to driver support, management tools, and physical infrastructure.

Operating System & Hypervisor

Intel provides reliable, feature-complete drivers for a wide range of operating systems, including:

Microsoft Windows Server and Windows 11/10Linux distributions (Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Canonical Ubuntu, etc.)
VMware ESXi
Citrix Hypervisor
FreeBSD and others

It is critical to use the latest driver versions from Intel to ensure stability, performance, and access to all advertised features.

Management with Intel Ethernet Suite & DCM

The adapter can be configured and monitored using industry-standard tools like SNMP, as well as Intel's own utilities. The Intel Ethernet Network Adapter User Interface for Windows provides local configuration. For datacenter-scale management, Intel Device Configuration Manager (DCM) offers centralized discovery, firmware updates, and configuration profiling for fleets of Intel NICs.