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. 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.
The dual ports support 10GbE, 5GbE, 2.5GbE, and 1GbE. At full dual 10Gbase-T speeds, this card is rated at only 5.1W! That is awesome.
Also at the show, we saw the Intel E610-IT4 in an OCP NIC 3.0 form factor (SFF with pull tab in this case.)
This card has quad 2.5GbE ports. Interestingly, this can use up to 8.6W with 7.2W typical power. For an OCP NIC 3.0 SFF slot, this is not much to cool, but it is also just a neat solution.
A lot of folks who might have used the Intel i350 4-port 1GbE NICs are probably looking for a 2.5GbE solution these days, and Intel now has one. That is pretty neat.
Final Words
The somewhat crazy part about this is that these cards were launched by Intel with very little fanfare. I spoke to an Intel product rep at the booth who is a STH reader (hello if you are reading this.) I simply said it is a bit strange that Intel would release new chips and cards in this segment and I did not hear about it. There is a lot of change at Intel these days. At the same time, I know a lot of folks would be interested in these cards. I certainly am. Hopefully we can get some to show-off soon.