At Computex 2026, we saw something that was really neat, and Ada grabbed a few photos. The Senao SX906 is a new SmartNIC (DPU) with Intel Xeon 6 is a really neat card. Onboard, it leverages the Intel Xeon 6 SoC (Granite Rapids-D) to provide up to 200Gbps of network performance and also additional PCIe connectivity. This is not some low-power 8 core DPU. Instead, this starts at 24 of Intel’s latest generation P-cores.
Senao Next-Gen SmartNIC DPU with Intel Xeon 6 at Computex 2026
First off, the card looks a lot like a GPU of yesteryear. I was walking around the booth and saw this on display, and to be fair it looks like an earlier sample.
The card may not seem exciting from that view, but then I saw what was powering it. There was an Intel Xeon 6 SoC and up to 200GbE of network connectivity. The Xeon 6 SoC we have seen in servers, but this is a PCIe card.
On the faceplate, you can see the management interfaces for the card, as well as the two QSFP28 ports for up to 2x 100GbE depending on the Xeon 6 SoC used.
On the end with the fan, there are three connectors. One is a power input, then there are two PCIe Gen5 x8 MCIO connectors in addition to the edge connector (also an x8 link) so there are 24 PCIe Gen5 lanes exposed.
This is really more of a server on a card since there is also an ASPEED AST2600 BMC onboard.
Here are the key specs from the card:
| Category | Item | Specification | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key Features | Platform | Intel Xeon 6 SoC processor | ||
| CPU | Intel Xeon 6523P-B processor | Intel Xeon 6553P-B processor | Intel Xeon 6563P-B processor | |
| CPU Cores | 24C | 36C | 38C | |
| Base Frequency | 2.5GHz | 2.6GHz | 2.4GHz | |
| Processor Total Bandwidth | 100G | 200G | 200G | |
| Power Consumption | 295W | 355W | 355W | |
| Ethernet Controller | Intel Ethernet Controller E830 for 200GbE PCIe Connection to Host CPU | |||
| BMC Controller | Aspeed AST2600 Controller | |||
| PFR Controller | Aspeed AST1060 Controller | |||
| Network Interface | Dual 100G QSFP28 | |||
| Memory Support | 4 X DDR5 memory channels | |||
| Security Features | TPM2.0 support for Secure Boot | |||
| Firmware and Management | OpenBMC, Intel Platform Firmware Resilience (Intel PFR) | |||
| Cooling | Dual Slot Active Cooling | |||
| Expansion | MCIO Connectors for function expansion | |||
| Physical | Form Factor | Dual Slot, FH10.5L+ (266mm) | ||
| Dimensions | W266 x H98.4 x D40.6 mm | |||
| Weight | 1 kg | |||
| Power | Power Supply | Power delivered through PCIe edge finger and 16-pin PCIe AUX Power connector (12VHPWR) | ||
| I/O Configuration | Ethernet Port | 2 x 100G QSFP28 | ||
| Display Port | 1 x MiniDP | |||
| USB Port | 1 x USB3.0 Type-C 1 x USB3.0 Type-C Console |
|||
| Management Port | 1 x RJ45 1GbE | |||
If you only get the 24 core option, then you are limited to the 100GbE network throughput total. All three SKUs are the double QAT variants and the 36/ 38 core SKUs also have the media transcode accelerator which makes them extra interesting.
These are very powerful cards.
Final Words
I was mid-conversation when looking at these cards, but I am glad I asked Ada to grab a few photos. If you have ever wanted a DPU that has a standard x86 P-core design with QuickAssist, then this is a really neat option. Sometimes it is just fun to see cool hardware at trade shows.
I will say that we are going to call these DPUs not SmartNICs. This is firmly in the DPU camp.
