NVIDIA Mellanox MCX342A-XCQN ConnectX-3 Pro EN 10GbE Dual-Port SFP+ OCP Mezzanine NIC — Lot of 2: This listing is for two (2) units of the MCX342A-XCQN, an OCP 2.0 mezzanine network interface card based on the ConnectX-3 Pro EN ASIC. It provides two SFP+ ports for 10GbE Ethernet connectivity over a PCIe 3.0 x8 host interface. This is an OCP mezzanine form-factor card, not a standard half/full-height PCIe slot card. Both units are refurbished.
Engineering Context
The ConnectX-3 Pro EN silicon adds hardware overlay-network offloads (VXLAN, NVGRE, GENEVE) over the original ConnectX-3, reducing CPU load in virtualized data centers. The OCP mezzanine form factor saves a standard PCIe slot and is used in Open Compute Project chassis, hyperscale white-box servers, and select Tier-1 OEM platforms. PCIe 3.0 x8 at 8GT/s provides 64 Gb/s of host bandwidth, sufficient to drive 2x10GbE wire-rate traffic. The card supports SR-IOV with up to 127 virtual functions for multi-tenant workloads.
Deployment & Use Cases
10GbE uplinks for OCP-compliant compute sleds. Hypervisor hosts running VMware ESXi, KVM, or Hyper-V where VXLAN offload reduces vSwitch CPU overhead. Dual-port LACP bonding for high-availability ToR connections. RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE v1/v2) for storage acceleration in iSCSI/NFS clusters. Edge nodes in OpenStack Neutron deployments using overlay networking.
Technical Specifications
OEM: NVIDIA Mellanox
Part Number: MCX342A-XCQN
Controller: ConnectX-3 Pro EN
Form Factor: OCP 2.0 Mezzanine Card
Ports: 2x SFP+
Data Rate: 10GbE per port
Host Interface: PCIe 3.0 x8 (8GT/s)
Protocol: Ethernet (EN-only, not VPI)
Offloads: VXLAN, NVGRE, GENEVE, RoCE v1/v2, SR-IOV
Quantity: Lot of 2 units
Condition: Refurbished — Tested by T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
Compatibility & Constraints
Requires an OCP 2.0 Mezzanine slot — not compatible with standard PCIe expansion slots. Common OCP-compatible platforms include Open Compute servers and certain Quanta, Wiwynn, and Hyve chassis. This is an Ethernet-only (EN) card; it does not support InfiniBand and is not VPI-capable. Cannot be installed in standard rack servers without an OCP carrier. Driver support: Mellanox OFED (Linux), WinOF (Windows Server), and inbox VMware ESXi drivers. Both units in this lot are tested independently before shipment.
Why Choose T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS performs full diagnostic testing on every ConnectX-3 Pro card — link training on both ports, PCIe enumeration, and firmware verification. T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS ships globally with 1–3 business day handling and provides expert consultation on OCP mezzanine integration.