Cisco Catalyst 4500 40 Sfp/80 C-Sfp

The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series offers two classes of line cards: classic and E-Series. Classic line cards provide 6 gigabits of switching capacity per slot, while E-Series line cards offer increased switching capacity per slot. This increase in per-slot switching capacity with the E-Series line cards requires the Cisco Catalyst 4500E Series chassis and the Cisco Catalyst 4500E Series Supervisor.

Two types of E-Series line cards are available based on the per-slot switching capacity. E-Series line cards numbered 47xx operate at 48 gigabits per slot, while E-Series line cards numbered 46xx operate at 24 gigabits per slot. Classic line cards can be deployed in both classic and E-Series chassis with either classic Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series supervisor engines or the Cisco Catalyst 4500E Series Supervisor Engine.

With the E-Series supervisor engine, the per-slot switching capacity for classic line cards remains at 6 gigabits per slot. However, due to the centralized switching architecture of the Cisco Catalyst 4500, the classic line cards will adopt all of the new E-Series supervisor engine features such as eight queues per port, dynamic QoS, and hardware-based IPv6 routing.

Classic line cards and E-Series line cards can be mixed and matched within a Cisco Catalyst 4500E Series chassis with no performance degradation: classic line cards will operate at 6 gigabits per slot, and E-Series line cards will operate at either 48 gigabits per slot or 24 gigabits per slot, depending on whether they belong to the 47xx or 46xx family of line cards.