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Would buy something like this as a device you can connect via pcie to your server.

No need to have switches and servers in your rack anymore, every server is a switch and every switch is a server with a 192 threads CPU. Insane.

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All the switches in this series except the one in this review actually have two separate boards inside with a PCIe-over-cable connection between them. For example the SN2700 here (the sleeved cable in the third photo; you can't see the connector from the angle it's taken from):

https://ipng.ch/s/articles/2023/11/11/mellanox-sn2700.html

The cable has a SAS (SFF-8087) connector on each end. I bet you can replace it with an SFF-8087-to-Oculink cable:

https://www.amazon.com/chenyang-SFF-8611-SFF-8087-PCI-Expres...

and a PCIe-to-oculink card like one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Ableconn-PEX-OL153-OCuLink-SFF-8612-A...

(none of the links are affiliate links)

It ends up crazy expensive and complex to configure but go for it.

I bet Nvidia is selling something like that but with only 2-4 ports for the same price as a 48 port switch...

AFAIK DPUs are only ~$2,000 but if you put one in each server it adds up to far more money than a traditional network. They're really not intended to replace TOR switches.

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