Does anyone have recommendations on what motherboard, memory, CPU, etc., to use for a core router that has up to 10 gigabit ethernet ports (not because we actually need that much now, but to make sure that latency is almost non-existent), 5 100mbps ethernet ports and 100mbps connection to the Internet (using a gigabit ethernet port). We may also want it to provide some firewalling, QoS and bandwidth shaping for up to 3000 users. Actual traffic will start at about 10mbps and ramp up to over 100mbps.
Why???
We are quite sucessfully support 2500 Users on 2x 2.8 GHz Machines in a VRRP Setup???
It really depends on the setup and what you are trying to do, how many queues etc… MT Works very well when configured correctly.
Lee
that’s right, we have some customers who use intel xeon machines for similar purpose. there is a lot of power in a standard pc if you put routeros on it 
We’ve been successful with Intel motherboards, Intel P4 2.8GHz - 3.2GHz CPUs and Intel GigE adapters. YMMV, as MikroTik dropped support on some of the Intel GigE fiber adapters.
We had a wonderful time discovering this during an upgrade from v2.9.7 to v2.9.27. Fortunately for us we had several Intel fiber adapters on hand to replace the ones that were no longer supported. Shame on MikroTik for not listing the NICs no longer supported. Imagine if this had occurred on a router we didn’t have immediate access to? Because MikroTik has yet to provide a list of supported Intel GigE fiber adapters we haven’t upgraded a few other routers. Loss of revenue for MT…
We use Kingston RAM…usually one stick of 512MB sometimes two sticks for 1GB. Honestly we haven’t seen any performance difference between 512MB and 1GB.
We’ve pushed more than 700Mbps FDX aggregate between two 3GHz MikroTik routers and more than 800Mbps HDX. At this level we have found one GigE adapter to another will vary a bit.
Drawback to using MikroTik at the core is their lack of stable BGP and OSPF. I haven’t seen anything in the Change Log indicating they are making any improvements in this dept.
Best,
Brad
Using vlans on a managed gig-e switch with gig-e to the computer would probably be better than putting 10 gig-e cards on a pc motherboard.
We use a couple amd2600 machines, which are getting old, to do 30+mbps to a similar number of users with no serious CPU load. We use 100mbps cards, typically 3com or via-rhine based. It does some firewalling. QOS/shaping is done closer to the subscriber at smaller MTs.