Intel Ethernet Network Adapter E810-CQDA2T

100GbE Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810

Essentials
Product Collection	100GbE Intel Ethernet Network Adapter E810
Marketing Status	Launched
Launch Date	Q3'22
Vertical Segment	Server
Cable Medium	Copper \| Fiber \| SiPh
Cabling Type	QSFP28 port - DAC \| Optics \| AOC's. SiPh
Bracket Height	Full Height
Supported Operating Systems	View now

Product Details
Specifications

Intel Ethernet Network Adapter E810-CQDA2T

Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810-CQDA2T: High-Speed Copper Connectivity for Modern Data Centers

Introduction to the E810-CQDA2T Adapter

The Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810-CQDA2T brings powerful dual-port 100GbE performance over RJ45 copper (Category 8) cabling with PCIe Gen 4.0 x16 interface. It’s designed for environments demanding high throughput, broad compatibility, and simplified cabling — particularly in enterprise, telco, and virtualization-heavy data centers.

Key Specifications

Essentials
Product Collection	100GbE Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810
Marketing Status	Launched
Launch Date	Q3'22
Vertical Segment	Server
Cable Medium	Copper \| Fiber \| SiPh
Cabling Type	QSFP28 port - DAC \| Optics \| AOC's. SiPh
Bracket Height	Full Height
Supported Operating Systems	View now

Supplemental Information
Datasheet	View now
Product Brief	View now

Networking Specifications
Port Configuration	Dual
Data Rate Per Port	100/50/25/10GbE
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Connectivity (VT-c)	Yes
Speed & Slot Width	16 GT/s x16 lanes
Controller	Intel Ethernet Controller E810

Package Specifications
System Interface Type	PCIe 4.0 (16 GT/s)

Intel® Virtualization Technology for Connectivity
On-chip QoS and Traffic Management	Yes
Flexible Port Partitioning	Yes
Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq)	Yes
PCI-SIG* SR-IOV Capable	Yes

Advanced Technologies
iWARP/RDMA	Yes
RoCEv2/RDMA	Yes
Intel® Data Direct I/O Technology	Yes
Intelligent Offloads	Yes
Storage Over Ethernet	iSCSI \| NFS

Why Copper? Benefits of RJ45 for 100GbE

Cost-Efficient Deployment: Uses widely available copper cables
Simplified Cabling: No need for fiber optics or transceivers
Ease of Integration: Compatible with existing RJ45 network switches
Reduced Complexity: Ideal for rack-to-rack and Top-of-Rack (ToR) setups

The E810-CQDA2T is one of the few 100GbE solutions offering RJ45, delivering Intel-grade performance without the fiber-related overhead.

Performance and Virtualization Features

🔸 Advanced I/O Technologies

PCIe Gen 4.0 x16: Maximum throughput with backward compatibility
Dual 100GbE: Up to 200Gbps aggregate bandwidth
Low latency with cut-through forwarding

🔸 Virtualization Support

SR-IOV with up to 512 VFs
Virtual switching optimizations for VMware, Hyper-V, KVM
Overlay Offloads: VXLAN, GENEVE, and NVGRE supported

🔸 RDMA Support

iWARP and RoCEv2 enable ultra-low latency direct memory transfers — perfect for NVMe-over-TCP and HPC setups.

Enhanced Telemetry & Programmability

DDP (Dynamic Device Personalization): Protocol-aware processing
ADQ (Application Device Queues): Ensures deterministic performance for latency-sensitive workloads
Intel® Ethernet Flow Director: Intelligent packet steering to CPU cores

These features make the E810-CQDA2T a critical component for cloud-native, containerized, or microservices-driven architecture.

Security and Reliability Features

MACsec: IEEE 802.1AE support for secure link-level encryption
PTP Support: Hardware-based timestamping for time-sensitive networking
Firmware Signing: Enhanced secure boot and update validation
Secure Device Onboarding (SDO): Streamlined provisioning in enterprise deployments

Use Cases

Data Center Aggregation & Core Switching
Storage Networks using NVMe/TCP
Enterprise Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
5G Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)
AI/ML clusters and distributed compute nodes

Comparison with Other Intel® E810 Series Adapters

Feature	E810-CQDA2T (This Model)	E810-2CQDA2	E810-CQDA1 (OCP)
Interface Type	2 x RJ45 100GbE	2 x QSFP28 100GbE	1 x QSFP28 100GbE
Connector	RJ45 (copper)	Fiber/QSFP28	OCP NIC 3.0
PCIe Form Factor	PCIe 4.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16	OCP slot
Media Type	Copper (Cat 8)	Optical/DAC/AOC	Optical
Cooling Requirement	Active cooling	Passive/Active	Passive
Use Case	Cost-efficient 100GbE	High-speed compute	Hyperscale/cloud

Conclusion: Future-Ready Copper Ethernet for Demanding Workloads

The Intel® Ethernet Network Adapter E810-CQDA2T redefines high-speed copper networking by combining 100GbE RJ45 convenience with next-gen offload, virtualization, and security technologies. Whether you're modernizing your edge infrastructure, optimizing east-west traffic, or building an NVMe/TCP-ready storage backend, the E810-CQDA2T delivers consistent performance, simplified deployment, and enterprise-grade reliability