If you're willing to leave the cisco/Arista/etc cocoon, NIC costs are actually the big ticket items. http://whiteboxswitch.com/collections/10-gigabit-ethernet-

If you're willing to leave the cisco/Arista/etc cocoon, NIC costs are actually the big ticket items. http://whiteboxswitch.com/collections/10-gigabit-ethernet-switches/products/edge-core-as5600-52x http://whiteboxswitch.com/collections/10-gigabit-ethernet-sw... $5595 for the switch, $699 for the software. You can split the 4 40G ports into 16 10G ports using splitter cables, giving a total of 64 10G ports: (5595+699)/64 = $98.34 per 10G port. A 1M cable is $30 from here: http://www.fiberyes.com/sfp-cable-cab-10gsfp-p1m-30 http://www.fiberyes.com/sfp-cable-cab-10gsfp-p1m-30 So $122.34 for switch and cable. I've never seen a 10G NIC that cheap per port. (disclosure: I co-founded Cumulus, who is behind the software in this price comparison)