recommendation to x86 hardware?

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Hello.. Do you have any recommendation to x86 hardware.
I am interested only 1U server hardware.. Exalple Dell, Hp etc. Need 4xSFP+ ports ( 2 x intel 82599 dual port cards)

How about Dell R320, R620?? Or is it better use older Rx10 series? Any other good hardware?

thanks

2

If you intend to install ROS on bare metal, then you better wait for ROS v7. It will come with greatly improved support for modern NICs. If you intend to run CHR, then HW support is up to Hypervisor you’re going to use.

In any case I’d go for CPU with smaller number of high-performance CPU cores … with HyperThreading disabled. Number of CPU cores help with huge number of parallel IP streams, faster cores help to achieve better single connection performance and some other tasks (such as BGP convergence). If you’ll go for a new server, then you won’t be able to get anything less than 6-8 CPU cores which would already make pretty powerful router.

3

Some good examples of this are the Intel i7-10700k and AMD Ryzen 5600x.

4

We’ve also found that in addition to higher clock speeds, the amount of cache in the CPU helps with performance. Get more if you can afford it.

5

did you manage to install x86 on gen10 CPU?

After boot, I only get a blank totaly black screen. No error message, nothing.

6

Have you try v7.1? v6 has a pretty old kernel.

7

If he work with that device, he do not have time to lost with beta software

8

We found funny specificity when using x86_64 on server platform.

Example. We have server Dell R720 with next hardware setup (one of typical NATs per 2k users):

  • 2 CPUs x Xeon E5-2650L v2
  • basic clock 1,70 GHz
  • turbo boost 2.0 up to 2,10 GHz
  • 10 cores / 20 threads per CPU
  • 25 MB smart cache per CPU
  • energy efficient 70 W
  • 16 GB RAM DDR3 ECC
  • network X520-DA2
  • run from USB

On other side - test setup on old desktop hardware:

  • Intel i5-3330
  • 4 cores / 4 threads
  • basic clock 3,00 GHz
  • boost clock 3.20 GHz
  • 6 MB Smart Cache
  • 6 GB RAM

With default setup settings, old desktop is faster (latency, single client performance) on low-load, because have higher CPU clock.

Solution:

  1. disabling Hyper-Threading / leaving only logical CPUs

  2. disablin C-States and Energy-saving

  3. enabling Performance Profile or custom high performance with no clock downgrade

For today ROS <6.48.6 (long-term) dont have multicore optimization.

9

Hiya.. we have some old R910 and R920.. 4 CPUs 10cores/20threads each cpu clock i think 2.6ghz or 2.8ghz will have to check.. i need to setup a CGNAT server for 2K with expansion up to 5k.. would i be better of running long-term v6.48.xx in bare metal no vmware wise.. or RoS v7? intel x520 dae is fully compatible with v6 routerOS? as we have tried some HP NCxxxx dual slot cards.. and it did not recognize neither in v6 or v7 beta