MCX312B-XCCT Mellanox 10Gb 2 Ports Ethernet Card

Overview of Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT Network Adapter

The Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT ConnectX-3 Pro is a high-performance dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ network interface card designed for enterprise servers and data center environments. Built for reliability and speed, this PCIe adapter delivers advanced connectivity with low-profile bracket support for flexible system integration.

General Information

• Brand: Mellanox
• Part Number: MCX312B-XCCT
• Product Type: Network Adapter

Technical Specifications

• Form Factor: Plug-in card
• Host Interface: PCI Express x8
• Network Ports: Dual SFP+ (10GbE)
• Bracket Type: Low-profile included
• Dimensions: Height 5.6, Width 6.7
• Total Expansion Slots: 2

Connectivity Options

• No RJ-45 Ethernet port support
• No USB, serial, or AUI interfaces
• No PoE (Power over Ethernet) support
• Dedicated high-speed fiber connectivity via SFP+

Supported Network Technologies

• 10GBASE-X high-speed Ethernet standard
• Advanced networking for enterprise environments

Supported Protocols and Standards

• IEEE 802.3ae – 10 Gigabit Ethernet
• IEEE 802.3ba – 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet architecture support
• IEEE 802.3ad – Link aggregation control protocol
• IEEE 802.3az – Energy-efficient Ethernet
• IEEE 802.1q – VLAN tagging
• IEEE 802.1p – Traffic prioritization
• IEEE 802.1qau – Congestion notification
• IEEE 802.1qbg – Edge virtual bridging
• IEEE P802.1qaz – Enhanced transmission selection
• IEEE P802.1qbb – Priority-based flow control

The Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT ConnectX-3 Network Adapter 

The Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT ConnectX-3 Pro Dual Port 10 GbE SFP+ PCIe Adapter with Low-Profile Bracket represents a high-performance network interface solution designed for enterprise environments, cloud infrastructure, virtualization platforms, and high-throughput data centers. Built on the advanced ConnectX-3 Pro architecture, this adapter is engineered to deliver reliable, low-latency, and scalable 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity across demanding workloads where consistent bandwidth and deterministic performance are essential. As organizations continue to scale their data-intensive applications, this network adapter provides a stable foundation for handling distributed computing, storage acceleration, and high-speed interconnectivity between servers.

In modern IT infrastructure, network adapters are not just hardware components but critical enablers of system performance. The Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT fits into this ecosystem by offering dual-port SFP+ interfaces that support flexible fiber optic or direct-attach copper connections, ensuring adaptability across varied deployment environments. Whether used in virtualization clusters, high-frequency trading systems, or enterprise storage networks, this adapter ensures optimized packet processing and minimal CPU overhead.

Advanced Architecture of ConnectX-3 Pro Network Controller

The ConnectX-3 Pro architecture is designed to balance throughput efficiency and computational offloading. At its core, the Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT integrates a powerful network processing engine capable of handling complex packet operations directly on the NIC. This reduces dependency on host CPU resources, allowing systems to allocate processing power to application-level workloads rather than network management tasks.

By embedding intelligent offload engines, the adapter supports advanced operations such as checksum offloading, segmentation offload, and remote direct memory access (RDMA). These features are critical in environments where latency-sensitive applications require near-real-time data transfer between nodes.

PCI Express Interface Integration

The adapter connects through a PCIe interface, typically PCIe Gen3 x8, ensuring a high-bandwidth pathway between the network controller and the host system. This configuration allows the Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT to fully utilize 10 GbE throughput across both ports without bottlenecking at the system bus level.

The PCIe interface architecture also enhances scalability in multi-adapter configurations, making it suitable for clustered environments where multiple high-speed NICs are deployed within a single server chassis. This is particularly important in virtualization hosts and storage servers where east-west traffic dominates internal data movement.

10 Gigabit Ethernet Performance Optimization

Supporting 10 GbE speeds per port, this adapter ensures high-throughput communication suitable for bandwidth-intensive applications such as large-scale virtualization platforms, distributed databases, and storage area networks. The consistent throughput helps eliminate network bottlenecks, allowing servers to fully utilize their processing and storage capabilities without being constrained by network limitations.

High-Speed Packet Processing Capabilities

The adapter is engineered to handle high packet rates while maintaining low latency communication. This is particularly important in environments such as high-frequency trading systems, virtualization clusters, and cloud service infrastructures where microseconds can significantly impact performance. The hardware offload capabilities embedded in the ConnectX-3 Pro design allow tasks such as TCP/IP processing and data segmentation to be handled directly by the NIC, freeing system resources for application-level operations.

SFP+ Dual Port Configuration

One of the defining features of the Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT is its dual SFP+ port configuration. Each port supports 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, enabling either redundant networking paths or aggregated bandwidth setups through link aggregation control protocols (LACP). This dual-port design ensures both resilience and performance scaling in mission-critical environments.

The use of SFP+ cages also provides flexibility in choosing optical or copper transceivers depending on deployment requirements. Data centers can leverage short-range multimode fiber for rack-level connectivity or long-range single-mode fiber for inter-rack communication.

Low-Profile Bracket Design and Server Compatibility

The inclusion of a low-profile bracket enhances compatibility with a wide range of server chassis, particularly rack-mounted systems and compact enterprise servers. This design ensures that the Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT can be deployed in dense computing environments without requiring modifications to existing hardware configurations.

Low-profile adaptability is especially valuable in hyperscale data centers where space optimization is critical. By supporting both standard and low-profile mounting options, the adapter provides deployment flexibility across legacy and modern infrastructure systems.

High-Speed Data Transmission Capabilities

The Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT delivers consistent 10 GbE throughput per port, enabling a combined potential bandwidth of up to 20 Gbps in dual-port configurations. This performance level is essential for applications that rely on sustained data flow, such as database replication, distributed storage systems, and large-scale virtualization clusters.

Unlike traditional network adapters that rely heavily on CPU intervention, this device leverages hardware acceleration to process network packets efficiently. This results in improved throughput consistency even under heavy traffic loads.

Hardware Offloading and CPU Efficiency

A key advantage of this adapter lies in its extensive offload capabilities. Tasks such as TCP segmentation offload (TSO), large receive offload (LRO), and checksum calculations are handled directly by the NIC hardware. This significantly reduces CPU utilization, allowing host systems to dedicate more resources to application workloads rather than network processing.

In virtualized environments, this becomes even more critical, as multiple virtual machines share underlying hardware resources. Offloading network processing ensures consistent performance across virtual workloads without introducing bottlenecks at the hypervisor level.

Storage Networking and Data Transfer Acceleration

Storage area networks (SANs) and network-attached storage (NAS) systems benefit significantly from high-speed NICs like the MCX312B-XCCT. By enabling rapid data transfer between storage arrays and compute nodes, the adapter improves overall system responsiveness.

This is particularly important in environments that utilize distributed storage architectures, where data must be accessed across multiple physical nodes efficiently and reliably.

Multi-Platform Driver Support

The Mellanox MCX312B-XCCT is compatible with a wide range of operating systems, including Linux distributions, Windows Server editions, and virtualization hypervisors. This broad compatibility ensures seamless integration into diverse IT environments without requiring extensive configuration changes.