New Intel E610 NICs Shown for Low Power 10Gbase-T and 2.5GbE

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nasbdh9

Active Member
Aug 4, 2019
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5W to 8W power consumption is very high
Although these products are 2~4 ports, in comparison, rtl8127 is 1.95W (rj45) 1W (sfp)
 

Laugh|nGMan

Member
Nov 27, 2012
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From article on front page:
At HPE Discover 2025, I was walking through the Intel booth and stopped cold when I saw a few products. One series shown was its newest 10GbE and 2.5GbE NICs based on the latest Intel E610 chipset.
Can we double check few points, to me kind a outdated - 5-6 years old tweaked design.
"Dated from Elkhart Lake" means it originates from or is part of the Elkhart Lake generation of products."
"As part of the Atom (Elkhart Lake-I) platform, the E610's primary goal is low power consumption. The entire SoC is designed for fanless operation in rugged environments (e.g., inside a factory machine or a car)."
"Targeted Market: for x550 is Enterprise Servers, Data Centers, Workstations, for e610..... Industrial Automation, Robotics, Automotive, IoT Gateways "

Intel® Ethernet Controller E610 Datasheet

Code:
                      11.4.2 Typical Power

                  Table 11-9. Typical Active Power

+------------------------------------+---------+
|             Parameter              |  Value  |
+------------------------------------+---------+
| General Conditions:                |         |
|   Link Speed                       | 2x10G   |
|   PCIe                             | Gen4x4  |
+------------------------------------+---------+
| Current Draw by Rail:              |         |
|   VDD_3V3_IO (A)                   | 0.042   |
|   VDD_1V8_IO (A)                   | 0.366   |
|   VDD 0.75V (A)                    | 0.720   |
|   VDD_PLL, VDD_EPHY (0.9V) (A)     | 0.173   |
|   AVDDT 2V3 PHY (A)                | 0.340   |
|   AVDD 0V85 PHY (A)                | 0.820   |
|   DVDD 0V65 PHY (A)                | 1.240   |
+------------------------------------+---------+
| Total Power (W)                    |  3.78   |
+------------------------------------+---------+

Note: Typical conditions: typical material, TJ = 80 °C, nominal voltages,
      and continuous network traffic at link speed.


Here is power consumption for x550-at2 (source page 1119: https://cdrdv2-public.intel.com/333369/333369_X550_Datasheet_Rev2.7.pdf)

Code:
                      Table 12-3. X550-AT2 Power Consumption

+---------------------------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
|                                 |           3.3 V           |           2.1 V           |           1.2 V           |          0.83 V           |   Device    |
|         Operating Mode¹         +-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+    Total    |
|                                 | Current   |  Power      | Current   |  Power      | Current   |  Power      | Current   |  Power      +-------------+
|                                 |   (mA)    |    (mW)     |   (mA)    |    (mW)     |   (mA)    |    (mW)     |   (mA)    |    (mW)     |   Power(W)  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
| 10 GbE Max (dual)               |        41 |      135.30 |     849.2 |     1783.32 |      1102 |     1322.40 |      9849 |     8174.67 |        11.4 |
| 10 GbE Max (dual) 30 m Reach    |        40 |      132.00 |       785 |     1648.50 |      1107 |     1328.40 |      7322 |     6077.26 |         9.2 |
| 10 GbE (dual idle)              |        46 |      151.80 |       860 |     1806.00 |       946 |     1135.20 |      6474 |     5373.42 |         8.5 |
| 10 GbE (single)                 |        50 |      165.00 |       614 |     1289.40 |       793 |      951.60 |      4443 |     3687.69 |         6.1 |
| 10 GbE (dual) 30 m reach        |        45 |      148.50 |       809 |     1698.90 |       993 |     1191.60 |      5070 |     4208.10 |         7.2 |
| 10 GbE (dual) 3 m reach         |        41 |      135.30 |       786 |     1650.60 |       987 |     1184.40 |      4815 |     3996.45 |         7.0 |
| 5 GbE (dual)                    |        46 |      151.80 |       828 |     1738.80 |       856 |     1027.20 |      4530 |     3759.90 |         6.7 |
| 2.5 GbE (dual)                  |        46 |      151.80 |       816 |     1713.60 |       906 |     1087.20 |      2858 |     2372.14 |         5.3 |
| 1 GbE (dual)                    |        45 |      148.50 |       855 |     1795.50 |       908 |     1089.60 |      1677 |     1391.91 |         4.4 |
| 1 GbE (single)                  |        53 |      174.90 |       622 |     1306.20 |       802 |      962.40 |      1500 |     1245.00 |         3.7 |
| 100 Mb/s (dual)                 |        46 |      151.80 |       477 |     1001.70 |       681 |      817.20 |      1292 |     1072.36 |         3.0 |
| 100 Mb/s (single)               |        53 |      174.90 |       435 |      913.50 |       680 |      816.00 |      1294 |     1074.02 |         3.0 |
| 1 GbE WoL (dual)                |        65 |      214.50 |       844 |     1772.40 |       758 |      909.60 |      1181 |      980.23 |         3.9 |
| 1 GbE WoL (single)              |        71 |      234.30 |       616 |     1293.60 |       639 |      766.80 |       976 |      810.08 |         3.1 |
| 100 Mb/s WoL (dual)             |        66 |      217.80 |       475 |      997.50 |       526 |      631.20 |       799 |      663.17 |         2.5 |
| 100 Mb/s WoL (single)           |        71 |      234.30 |       436 |      915.60 |       531 |      637.20 |       767 |      636.61 |         2.4 |
+---------------------------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
¹ Note: Max defined as 105 C Tj and 3 sigma FAST silicon. All others measured at 80 C and typical silicon.
 
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WhiteNoise

Member
Jan 20, 2024
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I am not particularly impressed by this card. This seems a respin of the X550 (uses the same kernel driver) but manufactured with a newer node and hence the improved power consumption (which is great!).

However, feature-wise, this is behind the X710 (no Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP) filtering and no enhanced DPDK support, and behing e8xx (no ROCE).

I also find it disappointing that this card is not more compact. The X550-t2 is smaller.

The way I see it, this card is intended for control plane only.
 
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( )

Member
Jul 8, 2017
45
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Certainly a lot of comments on this article.

> "... One series shown was its newest 10GbE and 2.5GbE NICs based on the latest Intel E610 chipset. This is a new lower-end networking solution that will bring lower power to some key markets.

Intel E610 NICs Shown for Low Power 10Gbase-T and 2.5GbE
The first adapter did not look like anything too exciting, until I realized what it was. This is a PCIe Gen4 x4 adapter for dual 10Gbase-T connectivity. It is based on the new Intel E610 chipset".


I missed why / how the six series is new or exciting, since it's actually more costly, slower, and has fewer features than the eight series:

6: Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E610-XT2 - Product Specifications | Intel

7: Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter X710-T2L - Product Specifications | Intel

8: Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810-XXVDA2 - Product Specifications | Intel

Might as well use the eight and run it at 10GbE, it supports copper and optical.
 

WhiteNoise

Member
Jan 20, 2024
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The only thing that this card has really great is the power consumption (sub 5W).

However, I believe the X710-t2l has actual power consumption lower that reported on the datasheet (9W). The x710-da2 (~4W) paired with modern (sub 2w) sfp+ to basedT module is also very competitive.

Again, I believe that this card is intended for the control plane (out of band management) and that's it.

I would like to see the actual power consumption of the E830-XXVDA2 (the successor of the E810), the number on the datasheet does not look promising, but the actual numbers might be better.
 

( )

Member
Jul 8, 2017
45
5
8
...
I would like to see the actual power consumption of the E830-XXVDA2 (the successor of the E810), the number on the datasheet does not look promising, but the actual numbers might be better.
Looking at the product brief: "Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810-XXVDA2", it uses double the wattage; but the enormous additional features that the hardware supports would certainly save a few watts of CPU power, not to mention the advantages of offloading to the NIC.


( https://cdrdv2-public.intel.com/641674/Intel Ethernet Network Adapter E810-XXVDA2 Product Brief.pdf )
 

WhiteNoise

Member
Jan 20, 2024
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The E830-XXVDA2 should be more power efficient than the E810-XXVDA2 since it's manufactured with a newer note (Intel 7). I have tested many cards and sometimes the numbers reported on the datasheet are deceiving.
For example, I pretty sure that the mellanox cards consume more power than what's on their datasheets.
 
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