Mellanox QM8700 Quantum 40-Port HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand Switch

The Mellanox QM8700 provides a practical foundation for fast InfiniBand fabrics in data centre environments. This managed Nvidia Quantum switch supports spine roles with low-latency, non-blocking behaviour that helps keep shared cluster traffic predictable and efficient.

Guide price: Price range: £6,995.00 through £15,995.00 Ex. VAT

Overview

As clustered applications grow denser and node-to-node traffic becomes more sensitive to latency, infrastructure teams need fabric tiers that keep performance predictable without adding avoidable cost or complexity.

Compact HDR Switching for Production Clusters

Mellanox QM8700 is a managed Quantum HDR InfiniBand switch for AI, HPC and storage environments that need a compact 1U platform with production-grade fabric behaviour. It suits leaf, storage and smaller spine roles where HDR performance is the right fit and the move to larger NDR fabrics is not yet justified.

Built for Dense, Low-Latency Interconnects

The switch provides 40×QSFP56 ports at up to 200G, with 16000 Gbps switching capacity to support fast, non-blocking cluster traffic. Hot-swappable PSUs help maintain service continuity during maintenance windows.

Operational Fit for Shared Compute Environments

That combination supports workloads that depend on steady fabric behaviour, from parallel analysis and distributed training to storage-heavy cluster traffic. It gives infrastructure teams a practical way to build responsive HDR environments while keeping power, space and management overhead in check.

For a closer look at Mellanox QM8700 in your environment, our team can help assess fit and deployment requirements.

Key Features​

The Mellanox QM8700 is a spine switching platform for high-density network fabrics, designed to provide scalable throughput and operational consistency in demanding data centre environments.

Spine Fabric Scaling

High-Capacity Spine Role
The platform is designed for spine deployment, providing a core switching layer for fabric architectures that aggregate traffic efficiently.

200G Port Alignment
Maximum port speed reaches 200G, supporting high-bandwidth connections at the fabric core.

Fabric Throughput Capacity
The switch delivers 16,000 Gbps of switching capacity, enabling large-scale traffic transport across spine networks.

Network Core Consolidation
Its spine-oriented architecture helps consolidate east-west traffic into a central switching layer for predictable data centre interconnects.

Operational Fabric Control

Centralized Traffic Handling
The switch is built to manage high-volume fabric traffic through a core layer model suited to structured network operations.

Platform Consistency
A defined spine architecture supports consistent deployment behaviour across the network fabric.

Scaling Without Role Drift
The platform preserves its spine function as capacity grows, supporting expansion without changing the fabric design intent.

Speak to a Mellanox Networking Specialist

If you are designing a spine network that must balance scale and throughput, our team can help align the QM8700 to your fabric architecture requirements.

Technical Specifications

Full specifications for this model are listed below.

Additional information

Evaluating whether this is the right fit for your environment?

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Deployment Scenarios

Nvidia Mellanox QM8700 is a practical InfiniBand switching choice for compact HDR clusters that need low-latency, scale-out connectivity without the cost and operational jump to NDR. It fits teams running tightly coupled AI, HPC and shared storage workloads.

AI and HPC Cluster Fabrics in Data Centres

In data centres supporting AI training or HPC jobs, the fabric must stay fast, predictable and easy to operate. QM8700 suits HDR tiers where low latency matters, but NDR scale and power are not yet justified.

Render and Simulation Farms for Media Workflows

Media teams running distributed render or simulation jobs need node-to-node traffic to remain consistent under load. QM8700 helps keep those jobs moving on busy clusters, while avoiding overspend on larger fabric designs.

Shared Research, Imaging and Genomics Clusters

Healthcare environments often need parallel processing for imaging and genomics, but budgets and power envelopes stay tight. QM8700 gives research teams the interconnect performance they need, without overbuilding the cluster fabric.

Quant and Risk Compute Grids in Finance

Finance teams running pricing, risk and simulation workloads depend on deterministic communication between nodes. QM8700 supports those tightly coupled runs with predictable HDR behaviour, helping analysts finish model cycles more quickly.

AI and HPC Development Test Beds

Software development teams need a realistic InfiniBand environment for training, benchmarking and parallel code validation before workloads move into larger production estates. QM8700 provides that test bed at a more manageable cost.

Planning a Mellanox QM8700 Deployment?

Our team can help design and deploy QM8700 fabrics for HDR cluster tiers, including sizing, topology choices and rollout planning that fits your workload demands, recovery expectations and operating model.

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Tailored recommendations for your infrastructure

Below you’ll find alternative models, suitable software and services that pair with this solution – helping you to avoid compatibility issues, reduce support overhead and deploy with confidence.

Not sure where to start?

Not all deployments fit standard configurations. If you’re weighing up options or want a second opinion on your setup, our team is here to help with honest, straightforward advice backed by decades of vendor knowledge.

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