X86 based router or 3x RB433AH

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi Guys

Currently all my highsites are made up of RB433’s but I see that some people use X86 PC instead.

Assuming I need to have 8 antenna’s on a particular highsite:

Should I use :

Option 1) 3x RB433’s
Option 2) a 3ghz intel based pc with two PCI to 4 x MiniPCI Adapters?

Would the PC based option cause too much interferance between the cards?
Would the more powerful CPU improve throughput?

I want to run OSPF and MPLS aswell so the PC based option might be a good idea due to extra CPU and RAM?

Thanks

2

Performance of the RouterBOARD 433 is available on www.routerboard.com
Consider all the steps of the installation, when router will be up high in the mast.
There are not any problems to run OSPF on RouterBOARD 433 with 3 wireless interfaces on high load.

3

i’m also using x86, however, performance-wise i would go for 433ah. If you use a lot of cards on x86 you will have interrupt and bus problems (you can’t use the whole bandwidth potential of all cards at once), however, if you divide that task to 3 433-s it will work ok.

4

What if I used both 3x RB433 and 1x X86.

ie like below:
-Connect each RB433 to a different ethernet port of X86 via cat5
-Create 3x vlans between each RB433AH and the X86. ( 9 in total on the X86)
-Bridge each wlan interface to a vlan on each of the RB433AH’s.
-Do all the routing/ospf/mpls on the X86

Would that be of benefit at all?