Optical cross-connects (OXCs) are key elements in all-optical WDM networks. OXC nodes generally consist of demultiplexers (DMUXs), space switching networks and multiplexers (MUXs). These nonideal devices give rise to signal leakage to the unintended channels and lead to the generation of crosstalk. Optical crosstalk imposes a major limit to the practical implementation of optical cross-connects. Intraband crosstalk characteristics of OXC composed by dilated Benes (DB) network and generally modified dilated Benes (GMDB) network are studied. Results show that OXC composed by DB and GMDB network can remove first order crosstalk successfully. At the same time, the power penalty induced by intraband crosstalk is studied by numerical simulation. Compared with DB network, GMDB network can eliminates crosstalk effectively. Simulations have been followed by experimental measurements. Experiments have confirmed and highlighted the beneficial effect of realizing OXCs architectures with GMDB networks. The crosstalk level of optical devices required in GMDB network is about 5 dB lower than that in DB network to keep the power penalty below 1 dB at the bit error rate of 10-9.