A quad core i5/i7 will give you the best performance, then it goes core i3, core 2 duo, dual core, atom.

What kind of bandwidth do you need to handle? What kind of configuration/firewalling are you doing? How much IPsec traffic?

Our experience is an Intel E4600 Core 2 Duo running in 2 core mode (enable multicore in routeros) runs at 16% cpu usage at 70mbps of traffic coming inbound (probably 20mbps going outbound). If you want additional performance or plan to run at 150mbps+, consider building a Core i5-750 solution, the price is about $640-$865 for all the parts (depending on # of nics you need). Prices below are from directron to give you an idea on pricing.

Motherboard : Intel DP55WG $146
Chipset : P55 Express
CPU : Intel Core i5-750 Quad $200
Memory : Kingston DDR3-1333 Dual Channel 2gb Memory Kit ($60)
SSD : Transcend 2gb Flash SSD SATA (TS2GSDOM22V) $44
Additional NICS : EXPI9301CT (QTY 2) $30/each and Intel EXPI9404PTL $368 (serversupply.com)
(7 Intel Network Interfaces Total)

We have this router active with 6 gigabit ports (RouterOS 4.6 doesn't support the onboard nic yet) and are able to achieve 80mbps Upload (15k pps)/50mbps Download (13k pps) at 6% cpu usage under routerOS 4.6. In theory this router should be able to handle 1000mbps upload/download concurrently (460k pps) before hitting 100% cpu usage.

We use the iStarUSA D-300-PFS ($89 from eio.com) and the Antec EarthWatts 430 power supply ($60)
So if you needed a 2 network card setup, cost for such a solution is $640. Clearly this design could handle alot more traffic, ipsec vpn connections, and more extensive rules without worry when it comes to the performance.

NOTE : These network cards are not supported by RouterOS 4.5, have to wait for RouterOS 4.7 to support them. Alternative is the EXPI9300PTBLK or EXPI9400PTBLK, both use the Intel 82572EI chipset and function properly under RouterOS 4.5.

In case of me.
I'm using second hand server from http://www.Auction.co.kr (kind of ebay in Korea, Actually own by ebay)
It just 90$ + buy 2G IDE D.O.M(flash memory hdd) 20$ + 2 of 512 ecc reg ddr ram 20$/each
+ 2 of Intel 1000MT dual NIC 40$/each
Total 230$. + + ROS Level 6 150$

Server spec
Xeon 2.4 dual (4core)
512 ecc reg ddr ram 2ea (I added 2 more)
30G IDE HDD(I'm using this HDD for backup and store log and bought D.O.M for ROS)
Dual Intel 1000MT Nic (I added 2 of second hand intel 1000MT dual nic)
3 HDD bay (2 remain)
380w power supply
52x CD-rom
FDD


I bought 10 of this server. using 4 now and reserved 6 for future expansion.

and it can handle 200Mbps (with 4 core) CPU Usage 30% average.

and I think it's better then Personal Computer. Server architecture is different with PC. it is more stable.
I recommend to buy second hand server product from ebay.

You can also purchase supported and tested hardware at http://www.mikrotikrouter.com. Why mess with trying to get your own hardware to work right.

yeah right, because 90$ is totally not worth it good price you found, hl1ill

+1 to you hl1ill. I'm a built, not bought kinda guy myself...especially when it saves so much $!

A quad core i5/i7 will give you the best performance, then it goes core i3, core 2 duo, dual core, atom.

What kind of bandwidth do you need to handle? What kind of configuration/firewalling are you doing? How much IPsec traffic?

Our experience is an Intel E4600 Core 2 Duo running in 2 core mode (enable multicore in routeros) runs at 16% cpu usage at 70mbps of traffic coming inbound (probably 20mbps going outbound). If you want additional performance or plan to run at 150mbps+, consider building a Core i5-750 solution, the price is about $640-$865 for all the parts (depending on # of nics you need). Prices below are from directron to give you an idea on pricing.

Motherboard : Intel DP55WG $146
Chipset : P55 Express
CPU : Intel Core i5-750 Quad $200
Memory : Kingston DDR3-1333 Dual Channel 2gb Memory Kit ($60)
SSD : Transcend 2gb Flash SSD SATA (TS2GSDOM22V) $44
Additional NICS : EXPI9301CT (QTY 2) $30/each and Intel EXPI9404PTL $368 (serversupply.com)
(7 Intel Network Interfaces Total)

We have this router active with 6 gigabit ports (RouterOS 4.6 doesn't support the onboard nic yet) and are able to achieve 80mbps Upload (15k pps)/50mbps Download (13k pps) at 6% cpu usage under routerOS 4.6. In theory this router should be able to handle 1000mbps upload/download concurrently (460k pps) before hitting 100% cpu usage.

We use the iStarUSA D-300-PFS ($89 from eio.com) and the Antec EarthWatts 430 power supply ($60)
So if you needed a 2 network card setup, cost for such a solution is $640. Clearly this design could handle alot more traffic, ipsec vpn connections, and more extensive rules without worry when it comes to the performance.

NOTE : These network cards are not supported by RouterOS 4.5, have to wait for RouterOS 4.7 to support them. Alternative is the EXPI9300PTBLK or EXPI9400PTBLK, both use the Intel 82572EI chipset and function properly under RouterOS 4.5.

Did you have any problems booting to the SATA SSD?
I am trying this motherboard with 4.16 and 5 beta and can not get a sata drive to boot.
I must be doing something wrong.

What error message do you see when trying to install/boot?
Try different SATA port modes in the BIOS.

What error message do you see when trying to install/boot?
Try different SATA port modes in the BIOS.

I have tried 2 SATA settings in the BIOS both IDE and AHCI.
The only other option is RAID.

When I am trying to boot from a Netinstall SATA drive or SATA SSD drive
"No bootable device - insert boot disk and press any key"
Yet a USB thumb drive with netinstall created the same way works.

When trying to boot from a SATA CDROM with RouterOS 4.16 ISO
It starts loading and then gives:
"ISO Linux 2.08 2003-12-12
Loading Linux...........
Loading initrd.rgz..........
Ready.
Loading Drivers
Looking for Hard drives....
found hard drive as SATA 1
FATAL ERROR: no CDROM found

Core i7-930, 1.5 gbps traffic, 30% CPU load
Core i5-760, 1.5 gbps traffic, 45% CPU load
Dual Quad Xeon 5506 (total 8 core), 3+ gbps traffic, 30% CPU load (10 ethernet interfaceson router)
Core 2 Duo 2600 MHZ, 400-800 mbps, 40-50% CPU load

All routers have intel ET ethernet dual or quad port (i82576)

What error message do you see when trying to install/boot?
Try different SATA port modes in the BIOS.

I have tried 2 SATA settings in the BIOS both IDE and AHCI.
The only other option is RAID.

When I am trying to boot from a Netinstall SATA drive or SATA SSD drive
"No bootable device - insert boot disk and press any key"
Yet a USB thumb drive with netinstall created the same way works.

When trying to boot from a SATA CDROM with RouterOS 4.16 ISO
It starts loading and then gives:
"ISO Linux 2.08 2003-12-12
Loading Linux...........
Loading initrd.rgz..........
Ready.
Loading Drivers
Looking for Hard drives....
found hard drive as SATA 1
FATAL ERROR: no CDROM found

Try ethernet booting using netinstall, it should find that SATA1 drive as the CD-rom install did find that.

Dual Quad Xeon 5506 (total 8 core), 3+ gbps traffic, 30% CPU load (10 ethernet interfaceson router)

i just wonder, where you get those multi-ethernet interfaced routers...

*old dell dual core p4 (@3.4GHz), 512M RAM, booting from USB flash drive. BGP, routing, vlan-tagging on most of the trafic, firewall and mild shaping for 100+ mbps -- load below 30%. up to 40Kpps - flight conditions seem to be OK.

notes - try to avoid tagging a lot of traffic, it really eats up CPU. also, it seems, that routing is still happening mostly on one core (could not get more than 55% load, even under heavy flood conditions ).

and what are your experiences ?

I make them myself )) motherboard with 3 PCI-Ex slot and two 4-port ethernet and one 2-port ehernet ))

hi
i have HP ML350, when i'm trying to install Mikrotik OS v4.16 i get "no hard drive found".
this server has 1 hard drive but connecting to MB with raid controller.
it seems mikrotik doesnt support raid,does it?
by the way i want to use mikrotik as centeral BRAS with more than 10k concurrent pppoe sessions and 1 Gb bandwidth.
what kind of server/pc regarding CPU and RAM suggested?

I suggest you to use more than one server for 10k customers.
On software BRAS only Freebsd with kernel tuning can work with 4-5k concurent sessions. Thats why you need to use 4-5 Xeon/Core-i7 (with Mikrotik OS) servers or hardware BRAS like Ericsson SmartEdge or Redback or Juniper or Cisco

Hey Guys

this is the output for /system resource print and pci

uptime: 18w6d1h19m59s
version: "3.23"
free-memory: 899980kB
total-memory: 1026652kB
cpu: "Intel(R)"
cpu-count: 2
cpu-frequency: 2797MHz
cpu-load: 65
free-hdd-space: 75388kB
total-hdd-space: 116661kB
write-sect-since-reboot: 37637840
write-sect-total: 37637840
architecture-name: "x86"
board-name: "x86"

PCI::

0 04:0b.0 VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6120/VT6121/VT6122 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter... 11
1 04:0a.0 VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6120/VT6121/VT6122 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter... 3
2 04:09.0 VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6120/VT6121/VT6122 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter... 11
3 04:08.0 VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6120/VT6121/VT6122 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter... 10
4 03:01.0 Hint Corp HB6 Universal PCI-PCI bridge (non-transparent... 0
5 03:00.1 Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) ... 10
6 03:00.0 Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) ... 11
7 01:00.0 Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller... 11
8 02:00.0 Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5721 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Expres... 10
9 00:1f.3 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev: 1) 11
10 00:1f.2 Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controll... 11
11 00:1f.1 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev: 1) 0
12 00:1f.0 Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge... 0
13 00:1e.0 Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev: 225) 0
14 00:1d.7 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (re... 5
15 00:1d.3 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (... 10
16 00:1d.2 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (... 3
17 00:1d.1 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (... 11
18 00:1d.0 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (... 5
19 00:1c.1 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev: 1) 11
20 00:1c.0 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev: 1) 10
21 00:1b.0 Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Co... 10
22 00:02.0 Intel Corporation 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics Control... 10
23 00:00.0 Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controller (re... 0

am running a total of 6 interfaces, all are GBIT

we have 1 optical for Core and others are multiple Vlans. the server is used as a pppoe server running a max of 1100 clients during peak.

we have 2 pci-express cards and the others are on pci.

the cpu load goes as high at 100%. its a core-2duo without hyper-threading.

when number of users reach 800 to 950 and bw usage on core is 50 to 63mbps, the users complain regarding getting slower bandwidth. at this stage, cpu reaches 85 to 100%. having all that extra ram makes no difference at all.

in order to help, we have set the Core Queue to 20,000 and the other vlans are at 10,000 which has made the performance slightly better but cpu usage is still pretty high.

an thoughts on the matter? i have a 3.23 level 6 mikrotik, would it be possible to upgrade it to 4.6 router OS ?

any help on the matter will be highly appreciated.

thank you

yes, but I recommend v5 instead. There are many multi-core improvements and new intel drivers. You are free to upgrade to v5, there is no cost involved.

friends where you can get licenses at $ 150 level 6?

friends where you can get licenses at $ 150 level 6?

official list price is 250$, but there are distributors who offer discounts and special deals. make sure they are selling you the key for the latest version, and that they are on our official distributor page.

This is one such page: http://www.mikrotik-routeros.net

I haven't bought anything from them myself, I just know that this page exists.

because I find that such are these people!

i have intel i5-4670k [/b]processor which is best mother-board for mikrotik roter os86. for pppoe tunnel ?????

Guys, I have question regarding this topic.
1. Which CPU RouterOS x86 prefer, A High Frequency Processor but have low core count or A Multiple Core CPU but have low CPU Frequency?
2. Should We enable or disable Hyper-Threading and CPU Virtualization Technology (such as VT-d, VT-x, etc)?
3. How about Memory Speed/Frequency. Is high memory clock speed is necessary?

Thank you, in advance.

1. High-frequency, low core count processor
2. HT should be off, VT-x should not mater much
3. high memory speed is less crucial, but can help to reach slightly better routing performance (not as much as fast CPU though)

Ad. 1. and 2.: it really depends on particular usage pattern. All packets belonging to one connection passing router will be handled by single CPU core/thread to help with in-order delivery. If router is used by small number of concurrent users (SOHO), then single connection throughput will be capped by CPU core/thread performance. In such cases a small cpu core count high frequency CPU is definitely best choice. In case of massive connection count / massive concurrent users (e.g. ISP or medium/large company) large number of CPUs (even though slower ones) can help achieve higher overall throughput while single connection throughput will likely be capped due to multi-user congestion. Even in this scenario a small core count high frequency CPU may perform quite decently as processing will (more or less) evenly distribute over high-performance CPU cores.
In any case HT doesn't help at all due to how HT speed-ups are actually achieved (if two tasks using different parts of CPU core are executed in parallel, they can run more or less without blocking each other) ... with relatively simple computing tasks in a router most packets will require same processing steps and pseudo-parallelism (offered by HT) doesn't help at all ... it might even make it slightly worse due to higher cache-miss rate.

With ROS x86 (ROS running on bare metal) it is much more important to choose hardware (main board, NICs, storage) which is actually supported (in ROS v6 HW support is pretty limited). In case you're planning to use 10Gbps NICs it's highly likely you'll have to go with CHR. Considerations in your post apply there as well.