three manufacturers of CX4 Gigabit Infiniband Cable

A properly designed CX4 Gigabit Infiniband Cable should feature die-cast SFF-8470 InfiniBand type latching connectors.  These connectors are easy to engage and will maintain continuity even if significant strain or vibration exists along the body of the cable.  SFF-8470 thumbscrew style (i.e. SAS) connectors should be avoided since most equipment does not support them.  Amphenol CX4 cables utilize the best connector on the market today, the Fujitsu microGiGaCN?.  The microGiGaCN is the market’s original high-speed, differential-signal, copper interconnect for high-performance (data I/O) applications.

CX4 has numerous advantages over 10GBase-R (Fiber) and 10GBase-T (Cat-6).  An optical connection would require (2) 10-Gig optical modules and a fiber patch cord to function.  This has significant cost and power budget implications.  Running 10-Gigabit Ethernet over UTP cabling like Cat-6 may sound promising, but it is plagued by power consumption and latency issues.  Today's 10GBase-T chipsets are power hogs, as they require several Watts just to separate out signal noise.  Here's a comparison of how CX4 Gigabit Infiniband Cable up in terms of power-consumption in a 50-server datacenter.  Essentially, CX4 consumes 6x-20x less power.