On Jul 27, 2011, at 5:05 PM, Denys Fedoryshchenko wrote:
On Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:15:04 -0500, David E. Smith wrote:
<snip>
I think on cheap platforms, they have wirespeed gigabit only on switching functions, but rest will suck. Their top products can do more, but they are still cannot beat PC with Linux. RB1100, $400 for 150 Kpps with NAT and 300 Kpps without, it is not that good.
atheros ar7161 system on a chip can run as fast as 800mhz has dual gig-e macs and supports 32bit 66mhz pci operation and when coupled with a companion ethernet switch it can result in a fairly hefty little router platform. an example of one would be routerboard 433AH or ubiquiti router-station pro. BOM and flexibility is going to ultimately determine cost but these are substatially more powerful than a lot of smaller embedded platforms we've be using including geode/elan based pc devices.
The only major and important difference in "schematics" with routers that can be reflashed is flash size and sometimes RAM. 64Mbit SPI flash 2.12$, and Mikrotik uses this days 512Mbit NAND, $7.01 . ALso they have nice circuits for variable power, with DC-DC converter, but nothing unusual or innovative, like Cisco or others has. Before they had some funny circuit with Xilinx FPGA to run NOR flash over SPI. Note: DD-WRT on RT305x suck. Their wireless support are incomplete, and no NAT offload.
--- System administrator Denys Fedoryshchenko Virtual ISP S.A.L.