NVIDIA MCX623436AN-CDAB ConnectX-6 Dx 100GbE SmartNIC, Dual QSFP56, PCIe Gen4 x16

The NVIDIA MCX623436AN-CDAB is a ConnectX-6 Dx SmartNIC featuring dual QSFP56 ports for 100GbE connectivity and a PCIe Gen4 x16 host interface. The ConnectX-6 Dx family extends the ConnectX-6 Lx feature set with higher bandwidth, advanced security acceleration, and cloud-scale offloads for enterprise, cloud, and security-sensitive data center deployments.

The NVIDIA ConnectX-6 Dx SmartNIC family is positioned for modern enterprise and cloud data centers that require high-bandwidth networking, advanced security acceleration, and cloud-scale offloads. The MCX623436AN-CDAB is a dual-port QSFP56 adapter targeting 100GbE connectivity, with a PCIe Gen4 x16 host interface for high-throughput server platforms.

The ConnectX-6 Dx family shares core networking technologies with the ConnectX-6 Lx line, including ASAP² SDN acceleration, Zero-Touch RoCE, and inline IPsec crypto acceleration. It extends these capabilities to higher port speeds, making it suitable for security-sensitive workloads, multi-tenant cloud environments, and NFV/cloud-native infrastructure where both bandwidth and endpoint security are critical.

• Dual QSFP56 ports targeting 100GbE connectivity
• PCIe Gen4 x16 host interface for high-throughput servers
• Advanced RoCE with Zero-Touch RoCE (ZTR)
• ASAP² Accelerated Switch and Packet Processing for SDN and VNF acceleration
• Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) and VirtIO acceleration
• Overlay network acceleration: VXLAN, GENEVE, NVGRE
• Programmable flexible parser
• Connection tracking for L4 firewall offload
• Flow mirroring, sampling, and statistics
• Header rewrite and hierarchical QoS
• Stateless TCP offloads
• Inline hardware IPsec encryption and decryption with AES-XTS 256/512-bit keys
• IPsec over RoCE
• Hardware root-of-trust and secure firmware update
• Remote boot over Ethernet, iSCSI, and PXE with UEFI support for x86 and Arm servers

Feature availability can vary by part number and firmware version. Confirm the exact feature set for MCX623436AN-CDAB against the ConnectX-6 Dx datasheet before ordering.

NVIDIA ASAP² technology offloads the software-defined networking data plane to the SmartNIC. This accelerates performance and frees up CPU resources in virtualized or containerized cloud data centers. Customers can accelerate their data centers with an SR-IOV or VirtIO interface while continuing to use their preferred SDN solution. ASAP² supports both cloud encapsulations such as VXLAN, GENEVE, and NVGRE, and communication service provider encapsulations such as MPLS and GTP, helping CSPs transition to network function virtualization (NFV).

ConnectX-6 Dx continues the ConnectX tradition of industry-leading RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE). With Zero-Touch RoCE (ZTR), RoCE payloads can run seamlessly on existing networks without special configuration for priority flow control (PFC) or explicit congestion notification (ECN), simplifying RoCE deployment. This makes the adapter suitable for scalable, resilient, and easy-to-deploy RoCE solutions.

The MCX623436AN-CDAB brings security down to the endpoints with inline hardware IPsec encryption and decryption acceleration. It uses AES-XTS 256/512-bit keys and supports IPsec over RoCE. ASAP² connection-tracking hardware offload accelerates Layer 4 firewall performance. The adapter also provides supply chain protection with a hardware root-of-trust for secure boot and firmware updates using RSA cryptography, plus cloning protection via a device-unique key to guarantee firmware authenticity.

Management features for the ConnectX-6 family include NC-SI, MCTP over SMBus and MCTP over PCIe, Baseboard Management Controller interface, and NCSI over RBT on OCP cards. PLDM for Monitor and Control (DSP0248) and PLDM for Firmware Update (DSP0267) are also supported. Confirm the management interface set for this part number against the ConnectX-6 Dx datasheet.

Remote boot options include remote boot over Ethernet and remote boot over iSCSI, with Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) support for x86 and Arm servers, as well as Pre-execution Environment (PXE) boot.

• Cloud and enterprise data centers deploying 100GbE server connectivity
• Virtualized and containerized environments using SR-IOV or VirtIO
• Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV)
• Security-sensitive workloads requiring inline IPsec and L4 firewall offload
• Multi-tenant cloud environments requiring endpoint security and isolation
• Storage and compute fabrics relying on RoCE and Zero-Touch RoCE
• Servers requiring remote boot over Ethernet or iSCSI with UEFI/PXE support

The MCX623436AN-CDAB is expected to use standard QSFP56 connectivity for 100GbE links and to be compatible with PCIe Gen4 x16 host interfaces. It is positioned for servers and platforms that support 100GbE QSFP56 connectivity and PCIe Gen4 x16 slots.

Because system-level compatibility can depend on server platform, firmware, and OS/driver versions, and because the supplied datasheet does not cover this model, please confirm the exact host configuration and compatibility list against the official ConnectX-6 Dx datasheet before ordering.

The ConnectX-6 family spans multiple speed grades, form factors, and port configurations. The table below summarizes the general positioning of the ConnectX-6 Lx and ConnectX-6 Dx lines. For a complete list of orderable part numbers, please contact your NVIDIA sales representative.