Top
Author
Published
25 Feb 2025Form Number
LP2152PDF size
14 pages, 537 KBSubscribed to LP2152.
Thank you for your feedback.
Table of Contents
Abstract
The ThinkSystem Intel E610 10GBASE-T Ethernet Adapters improve application efficiency and network performance with innovative and versatile capabilities. With two or four 10GBASE-T ports with 10GbE connectivity, and key performance optimizations, the Intel E610 adapters supports solutions across Cloud, Enterprise, and Communications.
This product guide provides essential presales information to understand the Intel E610 adapters and their key features, specifications and compatibility. This guide is intended for technical specialists, sales specialists, sales engineers, IT architects, and other IT professionals who want to learn more about the adapters and consider their use in IT solutions.
Introduction
Simplify network management and enhance control with the ThinkSystem Intel E610 10GBASE-T Ethernet Adapters. These adapters offer industry-leading power efficiency, comprehensive manageability (including Secure SPDM, PLDM, BMC pass-through, SMBus, RMII, and NC-SI), and enhanced security with modern, standards-based cryptographic features and a hardware Root of Trust. The Intel E610 adapters provides versatile and optimized connectivity for applications from cloud to edge.
The ThinkSystem Intel E610 10GBASE-T Ethernet Adapters have two or four 10GBASE-T ports with 10GbE connectivity, and improve application efficiency and network performance with innovative and versatile capabilities. The adapters are available in PCIe low profile and OCP 3.0 form factors.
The following figure shows the ThinkSystem Intel E610-T4 10GBase-T 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter.
Figure 1. ThinkSystem Intel E610-T4 10GBase-T 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
Did you know?
The Intel E610 adapters offer excellent small packet performance, and offer virtualization features with support for GENEVE, VXLAN, NVGRE offloads. The adapters also have planned support for Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) / IEEE 802.3az.
Part number information
The following table provides the ordering part numbers and feature codes for the Intel E610 adapters.
The option part numbers includes the following items:
- One Intel Ethernet adapter
- PCIe adapters: Low profile (2U) bracket attached with full-height (3U) bracket included in the box
- Documentation flyer
E610-T4 4-port adapter: When installing the E610-T4 4-port adapter as a field upgrade, you will need to turn on slot bifurcation in UEFI system settings for the slot the adapter is installed in (System Settings > Devices and I/O Ports > Override Slot Bifurcation > x4x4x4x4). For details see the flyer that ships with the adapter.
Network cabling requirements
The network cables that can be used with the adapters are as follows:
- 10GBASE-T maximum lengths:
- CAT6: 55 m
- CAT6a: 100 m
- 5GBASE-T, 2.5GBASE-T, 1000BASE-T, 100BASE-TX maximum lengths:
- CAT5e: 100 m
- CAT6: 100 m
- CAT6a: 100 m
The following table lists the supported Category 6 (CAT 6) cables supported by adapters with RJ45 ports.
The following table lists the supported Category 5e (CAT 5e) cables supported by adapters with RJ45 ports.
Features
Simplify technology transitions with the ThinkSystem Intel E610 10GBASE-T Ethernet Adapters. These adapters support auto-negotiation between multiple port speeds to provide maximum flexibility for dual and quad-port configurations. The adapters’ efficient design also delivers a significant generation-over-generation reduction in power consumption to enable diverse use cases across servers and network appliances.
The Intel E610 adapters are part of the Intel Ethernet 600 Series, delivering the latest advances in 10GBASE-T and 2.5GBASE-T performance and connectivity, including advanced security features. The 600 Series offers modern standards-based cryptographic security anchored by hardware Root of Trust (RoT) and secure communications with management controllers to enhance Ethernet security.
Low power consumption
With an absolute max power consumption of 5.2 W, the dual port E610-XT2 represents a 45 percent reduction in power compared to the Intel X710-T2L, and a 60 percent reduction in power compared to the Intel X550-T2.
Flexible and scalable I/O for virtualized Infrastructures
Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) delivers outstanding I/O performance in virtualized server environments.
I/O bottlenecks are reduced through intelligent offloads, enabling near-native performance and VM scalability. These offloads include Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) and Flexible Port Partitioning using SR-IOV with a common Virtual Function (VF) driver for networking traffic per Virtual Machine (VM). Host-based features supported include:
- VMDq for Emulated Path. VMDQ enables a hypervisor to represent a single network port as multiple network ports that can be assigned to individual VMs. Traffic handling is offloaded to the network controller, delivering the benefits of port partitioning with little or no administrative overhead.
- SR-IOV for Direct Assignment. Adapter-based isolation and switching enables optimal CPU usage in virtualized environments.
- Up to 64 VFs per port; each VF can support a unique and separate data path for I/O-related functions within the PCI Express hierarchy.
- SR-IOV, used with a networking device, allows the bandwidth of a single port (function) to be partitioned into smaller slices that can be allocated to specific VMs or guests via a standard interface.
Advanced traffic steering
Intel Ethernet Flow Director (Intel Ethernet FD) is an advanced traffic steering capability. Large numbers of flow affinity filters direct receive packets by their flows to queues for classification, load balancing, and matching between flows and CPU cores.
Steering traffic into specific queues can eliminate context switching required within the CPU. As a result, Intel Ethernet FD significantly increases the number of transactions per second and reduces latency for cloud applications like memcached.
Enhanced Network Virtualization Overlays (NVO)
Network virtualization has changed the way networking is done in the data center, delivering accelerations across a wide range of tunneling methods: VxLAN, GENEVE, NVGRE, MPLS, and VxLAN-GPE with NSH Offloads.
These stateless offloads preserve application performance for overlay networks, enabling network traffic to be distributed across CPU cores – increasing network throughput.
Manageability
Broad system manageability capabilities using the latest DTMF (Distributed Management Task Force) protocols.
- NC-SI 1.2 protocol compliance. Transport options include NC-SI over RBT and NC-SI over MCTP.
- Secured messages using SPDM over MCTP.
- PLDM over RBT with an extended list of message types, including T4, T5, and T6 over RBT, and MCTP transport.
Modern standards-based security
Intel offers modern standards-based cryptographic security anchored by a hardware Root of Trust (RoT).
- Device attestation in compliance with SPDM 1.1.2 Security Protocol and Data Model.
- Compliant with NIST SP 800-193 platform firmware resiliency guidelines.
- Meets FIPS 140-3 level 1 requirements.
- Secure boot isolates sensitive parameters and keys used for boot and operation.
- Secure firmware update verifies digital signatures of new firmware binaries.
- Recovery mode/failsafe mode is activated upon detection of abnormal device operation.
Specifications
The Intel E610 adapters have the following technical specifications:
- Two or four port 10 Gbps Ethernet controller with RJ45 connectors
- Support for these connections:
- 10GBASE-T
- 5GBASE-T
- 2500BASE-T
- 1000BASE-T
- 100BASE-TX
- Based on the Intel E610-XT2 (2-port) and E610-XT4 (4-port)
- Host interface:
- 2-port adapters: PCIe 4.0 x4
- 4-port adapters: PCIe 4.0 x8
- Network Features
- Compliant with the 10 GbE and 1 GbE Ethernet/ 802.3 Clause 70, 71 (KX only) Specification
- Compliant with the 10 GbE 802.3 Clause 72 (KR) Specification
- Compliant with SFI Interface
- SerDes Interface for External PHY Connection or System Interconnect
- SGMII Interface
- Full-Duplex Operation at all Supported Speeds
- 10 GbE/1 GbE/100 Mb/s Copper PHYs Integrated On-Chip (MCP only)
- 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) Support
- Support Jumbo Frames of up to 9.5 KB
- MDIO Interface Clause 45
- Flow Control Support: Send/Receive Pause Frames and Receive FIFO Thresholds
- Statistics for Management and RMON
- 802.1q VLAN Support
- Double VLAN
- Host interface features
- PCIe 4.0
- 64-bit Address Support for Systems Using More Than 4 GB of Physical Memory
- Outstanding Requests for Tx Data Buffers: 16
- Outstanding Requests for Tx Descriptors: 8
- Outstanding Requests for Rx Descriptors: 8
- Miscellaneous Features
- Serial Flash Interface
- 4-wire SPI EEPROM Interface
- Configurable LED Operation for Software or OEM Customization of LED Displays
- Protected NVM Space for Private Configuration
- Device Disable Capability
- Watchdog Timer
- Time Sync (IEEE 1588)
- NVM authentication on update
- NVM authentication on read
- Firmware authentication RSA3K-PKCSv1.5
- Key validation: SHA384
- SPDM
- Secure MCTP
- Fused based SVN (Security Version Number)
- Key revocation
- LAN Functions Features
- Programmable Host Memory Receive Buffers
- Descriptor Ring Management Hardware for Transmit and Receive
- ACPI Register Set and Power Down Functionality Supporting D0 and D3 States
- Software-Controlled Global Reset Bit (Resets Everything Except the Configuration Registers)
- Software-Definable Pins (SDP): 4 per port
- SDP Pins Can Be Configured as General Purpose Interrupts
- Wake on LAN (WoL)
- IPv6 Wake-up Filters
- Configurable (through NVM) Wake-up Flexible Filters
- Default Configuration by NVM for all LEDs for Pre- Driver Functionality
- LAN Function Disable Capability
- Programmable Memory Transmit Buffers: 160 KB per port
- Programmable Memory Receive Buffers: 384 KB per port
- LAN Performance Features
- TCP/UDP Segmentation Offload
- TSO Interleaving for Reduced Latency
- Data Center Bridging (DCB), IEEE Compliance to Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS) - 802.1Qaz
- Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) - 802.1Qbb
- Rate Limit VM Tx Traffic per TC (i.e. per TxQ)
- IPv6 Support for IP/TCP and IP/UDP Receive Checksum Off load
- Fragmented UDP Checksum Off load for Packet Reassembly
- Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI)
- Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI-X)
- Interrupt Throttling Control to Limit Maximum Interrupt Rate and Improve CPU Use
- Rx Packet Split Header
- Multiple Rx Queues (RSS)
- Flow Director Filters: up to 32 KB Flows by Hash Filters or up to 8 KB Perfect Match Filters
- Number of Rx Queues: 128 per port
- Number of Tx Queues 128 per port
- TCP Timer Interrupts
- Relax Ordering
- Virtualization Features
- Support for Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq1 and Next Generation VMDq): 64 queues
- L2 Ethernet MAC Address Filters (Unicast and Multicast): 128
- L2 VLAN Filters: 64
- PCI-SIG SR IOV
- Multicast and Broadcast Packet Replication
- Packet Mirroring
- Packet Loopback
- RSS Replication
- Traffic Shaping
- Anti Spoof: MAC, VLAN, Ethertype
- Malicious Driver Protection
- Forwarding Modes: MAC, VLAN, E-tag
- VEB Support
- VEPA Support
- E-tag filtering support
- Tunneling protocols NVGRE, VXLAN
- Tunneling protocol GENEVE
- Manageability Features
- Advanced Pass Through-compatible Management Packet Transmit/Receive Support
- SMBus Interface to an External MC
- NC-SI Interface to an External MC
- L2 Address Filters: 4
- VLAN L2 Filters: 8
- Flex L3 Port Filters: 16
- Flexible TCO Filters: 1
- L3 Address Filters (IPv4): 4
- L3 Address Filters (IPv6): 4
- Host-Based Application-to-BMC Network Communication Patch (OS2BMC)
- Flexible MAC Address
- MC Inventory of LOM Device Information
- iSCSI Boot Configuration Parameters via MC
- MC Monitoring
- NC-SI to MC
- NC-SI Arbitration
- MCTP over SMBus (pass through and control)
- MCTP over PCIe (pass through and control)
- NC-SI Package ID Via SDP Pins
- NC-SI Flow Control
- PDLM Monitoring and Control
- PLDM Firmware Update
- PLDM RDE support
- SPDM support
Server support
The following tables list the ThinkSystem servers that are compatible.
Support of adapters with generic firmware
One or more of the adapters described in this product guide uses standard vendor firmware (look for "Generic FW" or "Generic" in the adapter names). These adapters are supported in Lenovo servers however there are currently limitations on the use of Lenovo management tools.
Support in Lenovo XClarity management tools for adapters with generic firmware is per the following table.
Tip: Always use firmware that is obtained from Lenovo sources to ensure the firmware is fully tested by Lenovo and is supported. You should not use firmware that is obtained from the vendor web site, unless directed to do so by Lenovo support.
Physical specifications
The PCIe adapters have a Low Profile form factor with the following dimensions:
- Length: 168 mm (6.6 in.)
- Height: 69 mm (2.7 in.)
The OCP adapter has the following dimensions:
- Width: 76 mm (3 in.)
- Depth: 115 mm (4.5 in.)
Operating environment
The Intel E610 adapters are supported in the following environment:
- Operating temperature: 0 to 55 °C (32 to 131 °F)
- Storage temperature: -40 °C to 70 °C (-40 °F to 158 °F)
- Relative humidity (non-operating): 10% to 90%
Warranty
One-year limited warranty. When installed in a supported server, these adapters assume the server’s base warranty and any warranty upgrade.
Agency approvals
The adapter conforms to the following standards:
- FCC Class A
- UL 62368-1 and CAN/CSA C22.2 No. 62368-1-14
- cULus
- CE
- VCCI
- BSMI
- RCM
- KCC
- EEE
Related publications
For more information, see the following resources:
- ThinkSystem Ethernet and InfiniBand Adapter Reference
https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1594-thinksystem-ethernet-infiniband-adapter-reference - Intel Ethernet Products web page
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/ethernet.html - Lenovo ServerProven compatibility information
http://serverproven.lenovo.com
Trademarks
Lenovo and the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both. A current list of Lenovo trademarks is available on the Web at https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/legal/copytrade/.
The following terms are trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both:
Lenovo®
ServerProven®
ThinkSystem®
XClarity®
The following terms are trademarks of other companies:
AMD is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Intel® is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
Configure and Buy
Please select a locale
Full Change History
Course Detail
Employees Only Content
The content in this document with a is only visible to employees who are logged in. Logon using your Lenovo ITcode and password via Lenovo single-signon (SSO).
The author of the document has determined that this content is classified as Lenovo Internal and should not be normally be made available to people who are not employees or contractors. This includes partners, customers, and competitors. The reasons may vary and you should reach out to the authors of the document for clarification, if needed. Be cautious about sharing this content with others as it may contain sensitive information.
Any visitor to the Lenovo Press web site who is not logged on will not be able to see this employee-only content. This content is excluded from search engine indexes and will not appear in any search results.
For all users, including logged-in employees, this employee-only content does not appear in the PDF version of this document.
This functionality is cookie based. The web site will normally remember your login state between browser sessions, however, if you clear cookies at the end of a session or work in an Incognito/Private browser window, then you will need to log in each time.
If you have any questions about this feature of the Lenovo Press web, please email David Watts at dwatts@lenovo.com.
