- Senao has built a complete Intel Xeon server that resides in your PCIe slot
- 38 Xeon cores and 64 GB of RAM on a single network card
- Two NVMe SSDs, 64 GB of RAM and 200 Gbps, all on a single card
Senao SmartNIC SX906 was one of the standout exhibits on display at Computex 2026 – a PCIe card that functions less like a network card and more like a fully featured server that somehow forgot it was supposed to fit in one slot.
Built around the Intel Xeon 6 SoC in the Granite Rapids-D architecture, the card delivers up to 200 Gbps of networking performance from a dual-slot form factor.
It weighs 1kg, measures 266 x 98.4 x 40.6mm and is powered via a PCIe edge finger and a 16-pin 12VHPWR connector – the same connector that powers power-hungry graphics cards.
More server than network card
This device comes with three processor configurations, including the Xeon 6523P-B, 6553P-B, and the flagship 6563P-B.
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All three SKUs support up to 64GB of 4-channel DDR5-4600 ECC memory, feature dual M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots, and include up to 128GB of eMMC storage for good measure.
The 36- and 38-core variants go even further, adding a media transcoding accelerator that makes them considerably more capable than the entry-level configuration.
Network connectivity comes through two 100G QSFP28 ports, although the 24-core SKU is capped at a total throughput of 100 GbE while the two larger variants unlock the full 200 GbE.
An ASPEED AST2600 BMC oversees out-of-band management via OpenBMC, with an AST1060 controller managing Intel platform firmware resiliency – security infrastructure that belongs in a data center rack, not a PCIe slot.
A card that refuses to stay in its lane
The I/O setup is where the SX906 no longer makes any conventional sense.
Besides the expected network interfaces, the SX906 features a MiniDP display output, a 1GbE RJ45 management port, and a USB3.0 Type-C port.
This Type-C port is functional enough to charge a smartphone on a workbench while the card simultaneously handles network security workloads at 200 Gbps.
A second Type-C console port and two PCIe Gen5 x8 MCIO connectors expose 24 PCIe Gen5 lanes for additional expansion, giving engineers considerable room to expand the card beyond its base capabilities.
The SX906 natively runs Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 and supports TPM2.0 Secure Boot, completing a security profile that most standalone servers would be proud to claim.
Whether this will create a clear market niche beyond cutting-edge deployments of AI and specialized network security remains open.
What’s harder to dispute, however, is that Senao has integrated an entire server’s infrastructure into something that fits into a PCIe bay.
Via ServeTheHome
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