AMD Solarflare X4 NICs Launched for Low Latency Trading

AMD Solarflare X4 Cover

AMD has a new generation of NICs for the trading communities where low latency is paramount. AMD Solarflare X4 represents the latest generation of the latency-focused NIC series. These are not the highest throughput NICs, but instead are designed for trading applications where even a nanosecond of additional latency can be enormously expensive.

AMD Solarflare X4 NICs Launched for Low Latency Trading

The new NICs come in two models. The AMD Solarflare X4522 is the dual SFP56 model. That means each port can run at up to 50GbE speeds. We pulled this from the data sheet, but our best guess is that the ports actually run at 1/10/25/50GbE speeds, not 15GE. We might be wrong on that. The other model is the AMD Solarflare X4542, which utilizes dual QSFP56 for up to 100GbE speeds per port.

AMD Solarflare X4 NIC Models

A key component of how these work is the CTPIO, or Cut Through Programmed Input Output. In cut-through mode, this allows for a packet to start being transmitted before it even finishes crossing the PCIe bus.

AMD Solarflare X4 Block Diagram

Solarflare NICs are not what you would generally look for with standard enterprise or AI networking. For high-frequency trading applications, these are used all over.

Final Words

It is great to see Solarflare NICs continue with this new series. It is also a good reminder that while we are doing a lot of 400G/800G content on STH these days, there are still many markets where lower maximum throughput but lower latency makes a lot of sense. Hopefully, one day we can show you how these NICs work as we bring the new CyPerf network testing suite online. You should start seeing that $1M+ Keysight CyPerf tool appear more often in our reviews over the next few weeks.

AMD Solarflare NS9480 Chip

Some of our readers may not know Solarflare. Solarflare was THE hot thing in financial trading NICs in the 2010s. Then, in 2019, Xilinx to Acquired SolarFlare for SmartNIC Capabilities. Following that, AMD Completed its Acquisition of Xilinx, making Solarflare AMD’s NIC IP. AMD had NIC IP such as 10GbE networking built into its original EPYC processors, which you can still see in some AMD EPYC 3000 series processors. AMD’s NIC IP was inexpensive since it came integrated, but it also lacked features, and although “free,” it tied buyers to AMD’s NICs. Solarflare was in many ways a big upgrade for AMD’s NICs, but then AMD Acquired Pensando, a company playing in the enormous AI and hyper-scale infrastructure markets. Frankly, AMD has had this stellar NIC IP for years, but it has largely gone under the radar just because of Pensando. Now the company is out with new NICs again in the X4 series.