What are the benefits of using a wireless router with its own CPU?

[ceemuk]

As per title, I notice that the some of the more expensive wireless routers (taking budget models as the baseline) seem to have their own CPUs. What benefits does this bring to the routers abilities?

Cheers.

 

[thiggins]

The more features a router has, the greater the CPU load. Dual-band routers require more CPU than single-band. AC routers need more than N.

That said, the issue is the simultaneous load on the CPU. A router that is connected to 100 Mbps/100 Mbps internet service, has lots of wired and wireless clients and has USB file sharing that gets used a lot will have a big CPU load. If the router isn't designed properly (including having enough memory), things will start to slow down.

The same router connected to slower internet service, a few clients and light use of storage sharing will probably have no problem.

Here's an example of what happens when a router is stressed.

 

[Nerre]

As per title, I notice that the some of the more expensive wireless routers (taking budget models as the baseline) seem to have their own CPUs. What benefits does this bring to the routers abilities?

I'd say all routers have their own CPU...

 

[thiggins]

I'd say all routers have their own CPU...

yep. I was interpreting the question as separate CPU

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Ditto. in any system the more cpus, the more powerful. Today's super computers have arrays of cpus to fill a big room. Modern apps. are always power hungry. Comparing to a car, 4 cylinder engine vs. 8 cylinder one?

 

[stevech]

These inexpensive consumer WiFi routers with attached disk drives struggle to do WiFi packet bridging, QOS, NAT, and all that, and file system work overwhelms, if one is hoping for no reduction in WiFi performance. Even ethernet to WAN speeds will suffer.

The all-in-one situation - cheaper but things have to be compromised.
Best to do routing on a router and file systems on a computer or NAS.