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What Routerboard to get?

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xanes

New Around Here
Hi Guys,
I want to upgrade my network by splitting off the router into a dedicated device. For that I am mostly looking at the MikroTik Routerboards, because the seem to offer a lot for their price and I think I will enjoy setting one up.
Right now I am stuck at trying to decide how much routing/computing power I need in the device and was hoping for some experienced advice.
I am on a 16/1 Mbit cable connection now, but might upgrade to 50/5. 3 wired and 1 wireless device and 2 cell phones are in the network. I won't need any VPN, but I would want to apply some QoS.
Will a RB750Gl be able to handle that reliably or should I go for the RB850Gx2? Or are there other options outside of MikroTik I should definitely consider? I thought about EdgeRouter Lite, but I think I would prefer a Routerboard solution.
Thanks and kind regards
 
Both would do well for those speeds. The RB450G used a MIPS24K at 680Mhz and did above 200Mb/s NAT with a bunch of QoS and firewall settings.

If you dont need VPN than you can go with a MIPS based routerboard for the kind of throughput you want but the RB850gx2 has 2 PPC cores which is advantagous if you want to maintain above 500Mb/s NAT with firewall, QoS and stuff or if you want to use scripts and a lot more features. The only difference is that single core routerboards have metarouter.

the 64MB of ram would be sufficient if you arent using many features. The 850Gx2 has 512MB of ram. More ram means more NAT connections and larger tables (technically routerOS is efficient with ram but it depends on what and how many features you are using) so 64MB is sufficient for home internet.

There should be at least some warranty (please do check) so if you arent satisfied you could return it. Alternatively do check if the 750GL lets you overclock the CPU.

RouterOS has more features than ubiquiti EdgeOS but the edgerouter lite uses a dual core 64 bit MIPS CPU with NAT acceleration.

The main difference is PPC is a CPU a bit like x86 that maintains throughput better with complexity whereas MIPS is simple that it will lose a lot of throughput when you give it complexity.
 
I really can't see the value of the routers you are considering? Single purpose and decidedly low end.

An RT-AC56U is a much better buy at an even lower price (when they're on sale) and includes wireless AC1200+ class radios too. As soon as you start to use any features, the performance of the weaker cpu's will become apparent and when you outgrow this router, it will not be of much use at all.

An RT-AC56U or higher (purchased second hand) for less money will still be useful in the future used as an AP, for example. But an old / wired router will be left in the corner collecting dust just like so many 10 / 100 switches I see in customers homes and offices.

Sorry I can't comment directly on your router choices, but I hope this post is helpful by showing how I feel they may not be a good buy today.
 
i dont think you get how much cheaper those routers are. The RB850Gx2 only costs $120 (with the parts) and is faster than the AC56U when using QoS and firewall not to mention that routerOS has way better QoS than any consumer router. Not only can you use priorities, target and managed bandwidths but you can adjust que sizes, types, different ques, etc.
 
The RT-AC56U is $100 or less when it is on sale. I realize I am not familiar with those products, but the hardware in a quick google search seemed wanting.
 
I am an old router guy and believe in routers having router tools built-in. These new routers with built-in hardware acceleration are fast IF you fit their mold. If you want to change things like add an access list or whatever it seems like you lose alot of speed because hardware accerlation drops off. I guess I should add so you need to check out the features you are going to use very closely.
 
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The RT-AC56U is $100 or less when it is on sale. I realize I am not familiar with those products, but the hardware in a quick google search seemed wanting.
When it is on sale. I quoted the normal price for the RB850gx2 though the board itself costs $80.

The people who buy edgerouters and routerboards obviously do more than just set up their internet. RouterOS QoS is one of the most advanced i've seen aside from a full linux based OS. It has configurable firewalls that lets you implement all sorts of controls and lets you implement a firewall on layer 2 too. The OP said that he wants a dedicated router implying that he has another router for wireless.

If you look at the wireless access points from mikrotik (the motherboard ones) which are newer they come with SFP and miniPCIe which lets you do a lot more meaning that you dont need a modem if there is a compatible SFP module for your connection and 800Mhz MIPS CPU and upgrade your wireless when a new standard comes out. These are features you dont get in a consumer router like ASUS or netgear or linksys aside from the additional software features.

If only they had SFP in routers than there wont be a need for modems which means more power savings.
 
The RB450G used a MIPS24K at 680Mhz and did above 200Mb/s NAT with a bunch of QoS and firewall settings.
Thanks, this is pretty much what I wanted to know.

The main difference is PPC is a CPU a bit like x86 that maintains throughput better with complexity whereas MIPS is simple that it will lose a lot of throughput when you give it complexity.
I read that in a different thread already (I think you wrote it there, too), the question that remained for me was: what is considered "complex" or is QoS complex? Taking your results from the RB450 I conclude that it is not. Which is great for me. Does that mean though, that adding a lot more rules, will yield a sharp throughput drop-off at some point or just that the "wrong" tasks bring it to its knees quickly?

I really can't see the value of the routers you are considering? Single purpose and decidedly low end.
I definitely see your point and this was something that I thought about for quite some time, too. I partly asked the question to see that I haven't become too fixated on the whole RouterBoard idea, which was brought on by reading of its many features in several places, praising it like the best thing since sliced bread.
For me the RB750GL is ~60€, RT-AC56U ~100€, RB860Gx2 ~140€. Hardware wise I think you are right, that the RouterBoards are not super special at their price point. I hope, though, it will offer finer grained control in particular over QoS than, for example, the RT-AC56U. In addition, it is a lot smaller, wall mountable and can be powered over Ethernet, which should allow for a clean, compact setup down the road, with an PoE access point and a switch to power them both.
As the RB750GL should suffice for me, for now, I am pretty sure I will give it a try. Somehow I can justify spending 60€ a lot better than 140€ on something that might end up eating a couple of weekends before I am ready to admit that I can't make it work and I do have to buy something like the RT-AC46U.
Your point about reusing, I don't think works for me. For my router needs to grow, there would have to be a drastic change in my usage pattern or more users in my household, neither of which I really see happening. On the other hand I definitely can see myself wanting to go with the technical evolution of WiFi, which means I could see myself thinking of AC1200 as too slow. But such considerations are always highly speculative and rather unique to individual preferences.

These new routers with built-in hardware acceleration are fast IF you fit their mold.
This I suspect to be true of pretty much anything in the <150€/$ price-range or am I wrong? Means you either need to know what you need or buy the insurance in the form of a product that can do more than you think you need.
 
I really can't see the value of the routers you are considering? Single purpose and decidedly low end.

An RT-AC56U is a much better buy at an even lower price (when they're on sale) and includes wireless AC1200+ class radios too. As soon as you start to use any features, the performance of the weaker cpu's will become apparent and when you outgrow this router, it will not be of much use at all.

An RT-AC56U or higher (purchased second hand) for less money will still be useful in the future used as an AP, for example. But an old / wired router will be left in the corner collecting dust just like so many 10 / 100 switches I see in customers homes and offices.

Sorry I can't comment directly on your router choices, but I hope this post is helpful by showing how I feel they may not be a good buy today.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Mikrotik routers are some of the best value SMB routers in the world. They compete against pfsense and draytek routers. They can last for years and have WAY more options than even the Merlin firmware for the Asus routers.

This isn't a discussion about wireless, if it were, I wouldn't recommend an Asus solution either. Had one, thought it was awesome till it overheated and the hardware degraded.

OP,
Consider getting an wifi version of the rb2011, I've used that for my 75/75 fios connection and it's been rock solid. For about 100 quid


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
There is nothing inherently magical about Mikrotik.

From a raw hardware perspective its comparing:
RB850x2
  • Dual Core 533mhz PPC
  • 512mb RAM
  • 100-150kpps of throughput
AC56U
  • Dual Core 800mhz ARM
  • 256mb RAM
  • 80-120kpps of throughput
Thats pretty damn close if you ask me and one gives you a dual band AC radio while the other does not.

I like mikrotik for what it does. It gives you pretty good price to performance ratio with a very wide range of features.
It is also inherently complex to setup.
If you won't be using any of the extra features that it offers there is no reason to go through the headache of learning a new routing OS.
 
RB 9xx has AC wifi, miniPCIe, SIM, USB, SFP
For really good performance you could use an RB 850gx2 with an RB9xx as an AP

Ofcourse the RB9xx has a 700-800Mhz MIPS CPU so it itself can act as a modem (for cable and fibre) and router and AP at the same time and has miniPCIE for updating to newer wifi standards in the future. I doubt any consumer router like ASUS has this feature. The RB 9xx with AC wifi costs $70-$100.

and mikrotik routerOS has way more features than you'd find in ASUS or other consumer routers, really useful features. netduma R1 uses mikrotik with different interface for their gaming routers just to reduce lag and protection against attacks so if you took a mikrotik router and configured it it'd work better for gaming than ASUS.

Sure ASUS has got hardware NAT but all hardware NAT are limited in what features you can use. OP wants to use QoS and you dont get QoS with hardware NAT. Auto QoS doesnt count because he wants to configure it by himself. Even configurable firewalls cant be used with hardware NAT.

Xanes, complex meaning to use of different features. On a MIPS based CPU the performance scales down rapidly (use of a single firewall rule can drop throughput by half, use 10 firewall rules and each packet would go through 10 cycles or more), on a complex CPU use of firewall, QoS,etc only drops throughput by a very small amount because the instructions/packets are processed in a different way that 10 firewall rules may not mean requiring 10 cycles. Also some instructions use less cycles on a complex CPU than a simple one such as branching, certain math. Theres also the other factor of CPU cache which the PPC and x86 has more than ARM or MIPS.
 
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There is nothing inherently magical about Mikrotik.

From a raw hardware perspective its comparing:
RB850x2
  • Dual Core 533mhz PPC
  • 512mb RAM
  • 100-150kpps of throughput
AC56U
  • Dual Core 800mhz ARM
  • 256mb RAM
  • 80-120kpps of throughput
Thats pretty damn close if you ask me and one gives you a dual band AC radio while the other does not.

I like mikrotik for what it does. It gives you pretty good price to performance ratio with a very wide range of features.
It is also inherently complex to setup.
If you won't be using any of the extra features that it offers there is no reason to go through the headache of learning a new routing OS.

You also forget. Mikrotik is much more stable. I used to have to reboot my Asus Dark Knight once a week (sometimes more). My Mikrotik doesn't ever need restarting, ESPECIALLY when I make a change. That alone makes it better than any Asus router.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Thanks for the clarification on the complexity System Error Message.
For anyone wondering, I went with the RB750GL. So far I like it, setup was a lot easier than I had feared. It comes with a very workable default configuration (DHCP client for WAN on port 1, DHCP server on the other 4 ports, which are switched and NAT and some basic firewall is setup), so for the beginning I could just drop it in and have a working solution. Now I can go from there and start playing with the settings, whenever I have time.
One thing I only discovered now and I don't like is that Mikrotiks "PoE-In" does no conform to IEEE 802.af (The RB750GL requires 8-30V, where most devices supply 48V). I was thinking to eventually power the router of a switch, but that won't work now.
 
One thing I only discovered now and I don't like is that Mikrotiks "PoE-In" does no conform to IEEE 802.af (The RB750GL requires 8-30V, where most devices supply 48V). I was thinking to eventually power the router of a switch, but that won't work now.

They use Passive POE.
There are a few switches that support this targeted at markets that usually run everything on 12/24v power.
3 common examples;
http://www.netonix.com/wisp-switch.html
https://store.ubnt.com/edgemax.html (they also make https://www.ubnt.com/accessories/toughswitch/)
http://routerboard.com/RB260GSP

You can also use a passive injector
 
I have a mikrotik 450G, Asus AC56U and Edgerouter. I use the edgerouter as a router and the AC56U as a wifi.

I can't really see what the asus would have over the others apart from a friendlier web interface (compared to mikrotik at least).

The mikrotik has similar performance to the edgerouter with 100/10 fiber. Both saturate the link easily and don't mind having a lot of open connections etc.
 

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