mikrotik releases dual core ARM qualcomm based router

While i was browsing for firmware updates I spotted a router based on the qualcomm IPQ-8064.
Block diagram
http://i.mt.lv/routerboard/files/RB3011UiAS-151124114519.png
http://routerboard.com/RB3011UiAS-RM
It has usb3 and a lot of ethernet ports. For the price i think it is a good deal considering you get a touchscreen and if you want a qualcomm dual core ARM based router running at 1.4 Ghz with but broadcom has already beaten it with their 64 bit chips. I hope this version of routerboard would have much better NAS capability if you ever hope for decent NAS from routerOS.

Looking at the block diagram it has 10 ethernet ports divided among 2 switches and an SFP port. It does have a better internal wiring design than many switched based routers and SFP which makes it great for fibre optics so you wont need a modem if you can find a compatible SFP module (you can try asking your ISP for the module instead of a modem).

I still think it does better than other current ARM based routers except the broadcom 64 bit dual dual cores. I would expect realistic speeds to be the 25 ip filter rules for NAT. At the very least it wont be as buggy as many of the routers using the same CPU such as google's stuff. They might release a version with wifi in the future but i wouldnt expect much in wifi seeing the router line's history if you look at their naming scheme.

The quoted price is $179USD...

I do have some concerns that it might be throughput bound - esp. since the SFP drop is shared with the second switch on the 1GB leg...

See below:

I wonder if you just use ETH1 for WAN and use ETH6 for LAN with no other ports used what the through put would be. Any idea?

Like I mentioned - it's an odd layout - the IPQ8064 has a 5GB internal backplane, so I'm curious as to why they're breaking out the SFP onto a 1GB leg, when they could have just used an 8 port switch on the MII, and dedicate the other MII to the SFP.

Weird... I'm sure they have their reasons for doing this...

Yes I would either use copper or fiber but not both.

I wonder if this router will process a real GIG internet connection.

PS
Maybe you could use the fiber side on the internet and accept fiber in. You could then maybe split IPTV off and route the rest.

sfx2000 said:

The quoted price is $179USD...

I do have some concerns that it might be throughput bound - esp. since the SFP drop is shared with the second switch on the 1GB leg...

Click to expand...

Did I read the pic in a wrong way? I see the second switch and SFP share a 2Gbit link. Only when SFP is plugged in, second switch then gets only 1Gbit while the SFP itself gets the other 1Gbit. If SFP is not used, the second switch gets full 2Gbit just like the first switch.

The picture is correct, when you plug in SFP the 2nd switch gets 1Gb/s but it lets you dedicated the SFP to CPU entirely so that makes it good to use as a WAN port. This is their first product that uses the IPQ8064 and based on their product naming schemes, theres bound to be more. They may be planning a version with wifi which is why they might be preserving the extra lanes.

As a software router this will no doubt saturate a gigabit link which is what makes this better than the broadcom routers out there, since the most a broadcom ARM router can achieve with software is 500Mb/s. We still havent seen much benchmarks from the new broadcom ARM platform though.
Basically if you want an ARM router that can do QoS and firewall without relying on hardware acceleration numbers this would be for consideration.

As with routerboards that have multiple lanes and switches, they always give you more complex options than what an ASUS AC88U does in the wiring. The realtek switch in the AC88U is capable of a dual link MII so you can get 2Gb/s to it and the broadcom chip itself has enough extra MII links, you should ask ASUS why it doesnt give 2Gb/s links when the facility is available. At the very least each switch gets 2Gb/s in this and we have yet to see more products from them.

I still think even without wifi this is way better and cheaper than google's onhub or other similars as an IPQ-8064 platform. And unlike consumer routers that have multi WAN you can at least get 2 gigabit WANs on this properly unlike what you can get on many consumer routers. Whether it supports NAT at that speed is another matter. No doubt it should be able to do software NAT to saturate 1 gigabit ISP. Is there a consumer router that can actually saturate 2 gigabit WANs at wirespeed with hardware acceleration yet?

This is still the first router to ever put more than 1Gb/s on it's switch. Less bottleneck than what you get in consumer routers. I dont think the router is throughput bound unless you plan to use it as a bridge. As a router 2Gb/s is probably the max it can do with NAT.

System Error Message said:

This is still the first router to ever put more than 1Gb/s on it's switch. Less bottleneck than what you get in consumer routers.

Click to expand...

Apparently they have link aggregation in mind when they limit to 2Gbit max for each switch. So at most people can do two lagg - one on each switch. That's sweet for people hungry for bandwidth to their NAS.

you can do LAGG using CPU across both switches to get 4 ports combined for no reason whatsoever .

You forgot that the switches can do LAGG too, the reason for 2Gb/s is for inter switch communications and for dual WANs.

System Error Message said:

you can do LAGG using CPU across both switches to get 4 ports combined for no reason whatsoever .

Click to expand...

Ah, that's right too. How come I haven't thought of that