I am reading the specs here:
https://mikrotik.com/product/CCR1036-12G-4S-EM
It says 36 cores x 1.2GHz CPU. Is this 36 cores? or 36 threads?

Please confirm

And what would be the x86 comparision to this?
Would a 4 core Dell poweredge server perform better than this CCR for routing/firewall etc?

The best friend is the datasheet.

http://www.mellanox.com/related-docs/pr ... E-Gx36.pdf

It depends of the x86 processor if it is better or not.

I can't find benchmarks, less comparisons between these processors.

Regards.

Cores. CCR is pure core quantity.

That said, most tasks in RouterOS are single threaded so I'd argue that a strong Xeon would wipe the floor with Tilera in some applications. What are you planning on using the router for is the ultimate question?

Are we talking as an Edge router or Firewall protecting a lot of users? How many for example?

I'm using it for a core router with 1gbps traffic, serving 800 clients, meaning many thousands of packets per second. My current CCR 1016 is showing around 36k p/s on the main WAN interface. And one of the CPU cores are 95% usage all the time, while the others are around 0 to 20% used.

When you say a STRONG Xeon what do you mean? 2.5ghz? like: Xeon E5420 Core2Quad @ 2.5GHz?

The router functions as:
PPPOE server using external radius on about 9 interfaces (VPLS and VLANS included)
Shaping router (simple queues)
DNS server
Simple firewall and mangle rules like blocking address lists and redirecting DNS to self, port forwarding, NAT etc.
about 10 VPLS tunnels. OSPF enabled

Thats about all..

Cores. CCR is pure core quantity.

That said, most tasks in RouterOS are single threaded so I'd argue that a strong Xeon would wipe the floor with Tilera in some applications. What are you planning on using the router for is the ultimate question?

Are we talking as an Edge router or Firewall protecting a lot of users? How many for example?

And one of the CPU cores are 95% usage all the time, while the others are around 0 to 20% used.

Use /tool profile cpu=N (replace "N" with index of loaded CPU) to check what kind of process is hogging that CPU. Usual traffic should load all CPUs more or less evenly, it shouldn't persistently hog one processor.