Recommended dual port SFP+ 10gig card?

[cypherx]

Hi,

I'm looking for some recommendations on dual port pci-e network cards to connect to a 10 gigabit switch using OM4 850nm MM fiber optic LC to LC cable.

I am trying to keep the budget at $200 or less per card.  I can find some Intel X520 cards however there have been mixed reviews at that price point.  Either they come with off brand optics, which apparently can be overridden in every operating system except VMware (how much is Intel paying you, vmware?).  Or they don't come with optics at all.  Optics are easy at about $16 a piece on fs.com, however VMware must have taken a good bribe from Intel and apparently the cards only work with the overpriced $50 and up Intel brand SFP+ modules.

Are there any other reliable and recommended network cards from manufacturers that may not have such shady business practices?  Or does someone know of an off brand inexpensive SFP+ that works with these Intel cards, or maybe an override option or hacked card bios?

I'm running ESXi 6.0 update 3.

Thanks!

[ITaaP]

Do you have to use a transceiver? I've been using the X520 for several years, but they are all using copper DACs. No issues there.

[cypherx]

I have 88 open ports across two Extreme X690 SFP+ switches, but only half of that on the X690 1/10gbps switches.  Plus the riser cable between the vmware rack and the core switch rack is Cat 5e, but we are putting in OM4 multi-mode between the racks.

Long story short, we have plenty of open fiber ports and newer fiber cable going in, thus our want for fiber.

In the VM rack there are two 24 port Cisco switches (3750g v1 and 3560) and we want to consolidate those gig switches and home run Dell R620 ESXi hosts to the core via two 10gbps fiber cables in an MLAG across our two core switch stacks.  All of our VM Networks will be trunked over this MLAG.  We already have QLogic dual port SFP+ cards in these servers for a number of years, but they are connected to two Brocade Ti24x switches using passive twinax cables.  These switches are connected to EMC VNX5200 and NX4 storage arrays.  Both will be consolidated into a Tegile T4800 all flash storage array.  We keep the storage network (nics, cables, switches) completely separate and not connected to the regular network.

I'd consider twinax cables, but they have to traverse racks (all the way up, then across the ceiling), so fiber patch panels make more sense.