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

[Patrick Kennedy]

We found the new Intel E610 NICs for 5.1W dual 10Gbase-T and the new quad port 2.5GbE at HPE Discover 2025 sitting quietly in a booth

The post New Intel E610 NICs Shown for Low Power 10Gbase-T and 2.5GbE appeared first on ServeTheHome.

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[Phence]

Agree on the confusion on the little media coverage.

 

[nasbdh9]

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]

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Can we double check few points, to me kind a outdated - 5-6 years old tweaked design.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

                      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)

                      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.

 

[WhiteNoise]

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.

 

[( )]

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]

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.

 

[( )]

...
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%20Ethernet%20Network%20Adapter%20E810-XXVDA2%20Product%20Brief.pdf

( Ethernet Network Adapter E810-XXVDA2 Product Brief.pdf )

 

[WhiteNoise]

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.

 

[Halken]

The E610 has another advantage, as its 4x PCIE 4.0 not 8x 3.0, so it will fit many cheaper motherboards without taking up the GPU slot. This will make for cheaper systems overall.

Spec for the E830DA2 says 8W avg idle. Could be interesting to hear from someone who has one installed?
10-12W w dual 25gb would not break bank.
I have DAC in my 710DA2, so

 

[WhiteNoise]

The X710da2 works fine if you place it in PCIE3x4 (open ended) slot, no bottlenecks.

The X550-T2 is PCIe3x4.

 

[Halken]

The X710da2 works fine if you place it in PCIE3x4 (open ended) slot, no bottlenecks.

The X550-T2 is PCIe3x4.

Thx. I'll do that.

 

[WANg]

...bit of a nothingburger for today, but probably relevant in a few years when their replacement comes out and they end up on eBay?

yeah, the stuff I really care about is:
a) RoCE/RDMA?
b) SRIOV/how many vfs they can do?
c) How much airflow do I need for cooling them in an embedded/passive/convective cooling setup?

Considering that Intel might be selling their network business (well, it's a spinoff but I would not be surprised if someone goes and sweep them up), this might end up being a headache later on (if it's Broadcom and its "I can tell you but you'll have to sign an NDA, and whatever I tell you is likely vague") practice. Qualcomm (or AMD) isn't likely better.

 

[WhiteNoise]

There's no RoCE/RDMA (you need E810+ for that).
The E610 is a redo of X550 on newer manufacturing process, so I would expect similar number of vf.
I think you can get away with passively cooling it or it needs very minimal airflow, that's the only great thing about this card.

 

[WANg]

There's no RoCE/RDMA (you need E810+ for that).
The E610 is a redo of X550 on newer manufacturing process, so I would expect similar number of vf.
I think you can get away with passively cooling it or it needs very minimal airflow, that's the only great thing about this card.

Yeah, that's one of the negatives of the E610, so no RDMA, although it's not a dealbreaker since it's meant as a control plane board. Plus if they went from, what 28nm to Intel 4 (what their marketing team decided to call their 7nm equivalent) it should show at least a 25-40% power usage drop...no?

Eh, I would need to look at the actual physical specification of the card (assuming that it exists) and see what it says in terms of cooling requirements - one thing I gotta give Mellanox for...they actually have the physical diagrams of their cards in the documentation with stuff like heatsink dimensions/locations and airflow CFM requirements, which is something that Chelsio and Solarflare (now with AMD) seem to be not-as-forthcoming on.

 

[Phence]

Anyone test these cards yet?

 

[WhiteNoise]

I don't think they went to intel 4, that's node is very modern and it's wasted in such a card. I think they went with "7nm"-class node, It's still a pretty big jump.

Also, I haven't see anywhere where they claim they are using their own manufacturing. They could be using TSMC, they have used TSMC for making network controllers in the past.