CRS354, RouterOS which features would slow down the switch?

Hi, I’m installing a new CRS354-48G-4S+2Q+RM switch.

I have noticed from the test results (the results are from official product page) that the switch’s throughput depends a lot if its used in switching, bridging or routing mode. I tried to boot the switch to SwOS, so that only switching features would be available, but the switch went to boot loop. I needed to connect with serial cable to change the boot OS back to RouterOS. I realised afterwards CRS354 runs only with RouterOS as RouterOS is the only OS listed on the product page.

Now I’m wondering which features of RouterOS I can use, so that I don’t accidentally start using routing features which would slow down its performance.
All routing should be done by the firewall CCR1036-8G-2S+. Basically I need separate VLANs for couple servers, different WiFis and admin network.

Previously I’ve been only configuring L2 switches with VLAN capabilities, so I’m bit confused with the configurations. In the throughput results it’s stated that Bridging way slower than Switching, but it’s not clear to me what the bridging means in this context. Does this bridging include Bridge VLAN Filtering like in the wiki article below?
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/Bridge#Bridge_VLAN_Filtering


Switching results CRS354-48G-4S+2Q+RM

Mode	   Configuration			1518 byte		512 byte		64 byte
						kpps	  Mbps		kpps	  Mbps		kpps	   Mbps
Switching  Non blocking Layer 2 throughput	13,662.2  165,914.0	39,497.2  161,780.5	250,148.8  128,076.2
Switching  Non blocking Layer 2 capacity	13,662.2  331,828.1	39,497.2  323,560.9	250,148.8  256,152.4
Switching  Non blocking Layer 1 throughput	13,662.2  168,100.0	39,497.2  168,100.0	250,148.8  168,100.0
Switching  Non blocking Layer 1 capacity	13,662.2  336,200.0	39,497.2  336,200.0	250,148.8  336,200.0

Ethernet test results CRS354-48G-4S+2Q+RM

QCA9531 all port test
Mode		Configuration		1518 byte	512 byte	64 byte
					kpps	Mbps	kpps	Mbps	kpps	Mbps
Bridging	none (fast path)	37,4	454.2	82,8	339.1	162,5	83.2
Bridging	25 bridge filter rules	33,8	410.5	47,8	195.8	75,6	38.7
Routing		none (fast path)	37,2	451.8	73,3	300.2	144,9	74.2
Routing		25 simple queues	36,4	442.0	52,4	214.6	54,4	27.9
Routing		25 ip filter rules	33,8	410.5	41,4	169.6	41,7	21.4
RouterBOOT booter 6.45.7

CRS354-48G-4S+2Q+

CPU frequency: 650 MHz
 Memory speed: 300 MHz
  Memory size:  64 MiB
 Storage size:  16 MiB

Press any key within 2 seconds to enter setup..
Please, check ethernet cable...
Ethernet link absent...
trying bootp protocol................................. failed
kernel loading failed

Hardware being used:

These videos are excellent sources of knowledge.

Magic words seem to be “switch chip” and “hardware offloading”.

As shown in the source below CRS3xx series devices are only devices capable of using Bridge VLAN filtering and hardware offloading at the same time.
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/Bridge#Bridge_Hardware_Offloading

I’m building a test network with RouterBoard to test firewall rules and other configurations before I’ll connect the new CRS354 to production network, so I haven’t yet made any performance tests.