NVIDIA Mellanox MCX353A-FCBT ConnectX-3 VPI Adapter Card, Single-Port QSFP, FDR IB 56Gb/s and 40/56GbE: This is a single-port PCIe Host Channel Adapter (HCA) implementing NVIDIA Mellanox VPI (Virtual Protocol Interconnect) on the standard ConnectX-3 ASIC. The same QSFP port can be configured as either InfiniBand FDR (56Gb/s) or Ethernet (40/56GbE). NVIDIA P/N 900-9X399-0014-0T0. The MCX353A-FCBT is the non-Pro ConnectX-3 variant. This is NOT the MCX353A-FCCT (Pro); the Pro silicon adds RoCE v2 and VXLAN/NVGRE overlay offloads which this card does not have. This is a refurbished unit tested by T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS.
Engineering Context
The card uses a single ConnectX-3 ASIC and exposes one QSFP cage. Bandwidth is bounded by the PCIe 3.0 x8 host interface at 8GT/s per lane (effective ~63Gb/s aggregate), sufficient to saturate one FDR 56Gb/s port. Core HPC features include MPI tag matching, hardware atomic operations, and end-to-end congestion control for InfiniBand. RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE v1) is supported in Ethernet mode. SR-IOV with up to 127 virtual functions is supported. The card uses a tall (full-height) PCIe bracket.
Deployment & Use Cases
Cost-conscious HPC compute clusters running MPI workloads over InfiniBand FDR. Storage fabrics with iSER, NFS-RDMA, or SRP. Lab and bench InfiniBand environments. Migration paths from legacy 10/40GbE to 56GbE Ethernet on the same port. Virtualized servers using SR-IOV passthrough. Backup and seeding workloads where the FCCT Pro overlay offloads are not required.
Technical Specifications
OEM: NVIDIA Mellanox
Part Number (MPN): MCX353A-FCBT
NVIDIA P/N: 900-9X399-0014-0T0
Product Line: ConnectX-3 VPI (non-Pro)
Ports: Single-Port QSFP
InfiniBand Speed: FDR 56Gb/s (also FDR10, QDR, DDR, SDR)
Ethernet Speed: 40/56GbE (also 10GbE)
Host Interface: PCIe 3.0 x8 (8GT/s)
Protocol Mode: VPI — port selectable as IB or Ethernet
Form Factor: Tall (full-height) bracket
Virtualization: SR-IOV (up to 127 VFs)
Condition: Refurbished — Tested by T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
Compatibility & Hard Constraints
Requires a PCIe 3.0 x8 (or wider) slot. PCIe 2.0 slots will work but bandwidth is halved. Compatible with NVIDIA Mellanox SwitchX-2 and Switch-IB family switches in IB mode, and SX1000 series switches in Ethernet mode. Driver support requires MLNX_OFED or upstream Linux mlx4 drivers; the ConnectX-3 generation is NOT supported by the newer mlx5 driver. Does NOT support RoCE v2 or VXLAN/NVGRE overlay offloads — use the MCX353A-FCCT (Pro) variant for those features. Not compatible with EDR (100Gb/s) InfiniBand fabrics at full link speed. The QSFP port accepts only QSFP/QSFP+ media; no native QSFP28 support.
Why Choose T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS bench-tests every ConnectX-3 VPI card for link training, RDMA loopback, and PCIe link width before shipment. Visit T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS for warranty terms and global shipping. Standard handling time 1–3 business days.