I did not have much experience with high speed networks beyond 10Gbps Ethernet and I was under the impression that any ConnectX-3 with QSFP ports was at least 40GbE capable. But after I finally got myself a 40/56GbE switch (Mellanox SX6012) I quickly found that it was not the case. A few of my systems that I deemed to be 40GbE ready (by mere fact of having QSFP ports) in fact were 10GbE only.
In this particular system the ConnectX-3 adapter is on-board and the only PCIe slot is taken by an HBA - so the NIC can't be easily upgraded by replacing the card. So before I replace the whole system (which I would have preferred to keep otherwise) I would like to confirm that there is no way that card can be upgraded to 40GbE.
The exact chip part number is MT27518A1-FCCR-XE. Mellanox used this chip revision in their 10GbE CX3 cards with SFP+ ports and then they switched to MT27518A1-FCCR-BE for their 40GbE adapters.
Anyone knows the difference between -BE and -XE parts? And is there any chance that -XE can be flashed to support 40GbE?
In this particular system the ConnectX-3 adapter is on-board and the only PCIe slot is taken by an HBA - so the NIC can't be easily upgraded by replacing the card. So before I replace the whole system (which I would have preferred to keep otherwise) I would like to confirm that there is no way that card can be upgraded to 40GbE.
The exact chip part number is MT27518A1-FCCR-XE. Mellanox used this chip revision in their 10GbE CX3 cards with SFP+ ports and then they switched to MT27518A1-FCCR-BE for their 40GbE adapters.
Anyone knows the difference between -BE and -XE parts? And is there any chance that -XE can be flashed to support 40GbE?