- Senao built a complete Intel Xeon server that sits inside its PCIe slot
- 38 Xeon cores and 64 GB of RAM on a single network card
- Dual NVMe SSDs, 64GB RAM, and 200Gbps all on one card
The Senao SmartNIC SX906 was one of the more quietly notable exhibits on display at Computex 2026: a PCIe card that functions less like a network adapter and more like a fully featured server that somehow forgot it was supposed to fit inside a slot.
Built around Intel’s Xeon 6 SoC processor on 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 draws power 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.
The Xeon 6523P-B brings 24 cores running at 2.5 GHz with a power of 295 W, the 6553P-B increases to 36 cores at 2.6 GHz, consuming 355 W, and the 6563P-B reaches 38 cores at 2.4 GHz, also at 355 W.
All three SKUs support up to 64GB of 4-channel DDR5-4600 ECC memory, have two NVMe M.2 2280 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 base configuration.
Network connectivity runs through two 100G QSFP28 ports, although the 24-core SKU is capped at 100GbE total throughput, while the two larger variants unlock the full 200GbE.
An ASPEED AST2600 BMC oversees out-of-band management via OpenBMC, with an AST1060 controller handling Intel Platform Firmware Resilience – 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 configuration is where the SX906 stops making conventional sense entirely.
In addition to the expected network interfaces, the SX906 includes a MiniDP display output, a 1GbE RJ45 management port, and a USB3.0 Type-C port.
That Type-C port is functional enough to charge a smartphone on a workbench while the card simultaneously processes network security workloads at 200Gbps.
A second Type-C console port and two MCIO PCIe Gen5 x8 connectors expose 24 PCIe Gen5 lanes for further expansion, giving engineers considerable room to extend the card beyond its base capabilities.
The SX906 runs Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 natively and supports TPM2.0 secure boot, rounding out a security profile that most standalone servers would be proud to claim.
It remains an open question whether it will create a clear business niche beyond edge AI deployments and specialized network security.
What’s harder to argue with, however, is that Senao has packaged an entire server’s infrastructure into something that slots into a PCIe bay.
Via ServeTheHome
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