On 04/07/10 17:34, Ed W wrote: > Obviously these are quite a lot more power hungry than some ARM device, > but if you want to filter 8x gig E ports then I wonder if you need > something a bit more beefy anyway?
If you want to do that, then you need a specialized hardware (for relatively low power consumption) or Core2/Phenom class CPU, right? These recent incarnations of small routers with GigE interfaces is of limited use. Most even have no memory bandwidth to do the routing on full speed of one 1Gbps stream. I agree, it is better to have GigE, because (1) 100Mbps+ speeds are attainable, or (2) if there is an ethernet switch chip built-in and actual processing only happens on WAN port. Sure, 1GHz PPC RouterBoard or Lanner system has the value, but is it better or cheaper than a generic Atom/Nano board + multiport ethernet card?
