I have never used a PC before to do routing. I have a spare older machine thats a P4 @3.4Ghz with 2GB ram.

If I buy a good ethernet card or 2 for it can I get as good or better performance from it then a RB1100AHx2 ?

I am thinking about this networking card. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833106209 I assume that would work ?

Can I get 1M pps from a PC based setup with conn tracking on and firewall on ?

You could also try this.

http://routerboard.com/RB44Ge

I have given up on using PC since when I compared a Pentium 4 1.8GHz against a RB493, and surprisingly enough the RB493 was performing better. Thing is, Routerboards have CPU designed for routing purposes, while computers for other things. With a computer you need to by extra network cards, RouterOS License and it consumes more power than the RB110AHx2. Instead, with a RB110AHx2 you already have those network cards, Level6 ROS, and a better backup power plan.
I also have a customer, who once used an HP workstation Pentium 4 3.4GHz, and has switched now to two RB1200. The situation is way better now than before.
There is one more thing. A used PC does have a used HDD. The license of the RouterOS is attached to the HDD. If the HDD fails after sometime you could have some trouble on getting back the license.

My experience is exactly the opposite:
with a RB1100AH (no x2) I only was able to terminate approx 300PPPoE sessions.
(Conntrack off and Fixed MTU mangle optimization already done!)
More sessions would have maxed out the cpu.

With a PC-based Router (Xeon Quad Core 3GHz) I am able to terminate
approx. 3 to 4 thousand PPPoE-sessions.

Hmmmmmmm.....

So this is not a clear cut thing..

The MB does not have PCI-X slots and so im also not sure how much I can get thru the system in Mb/s.

Now im thinking of using 2 of these network cards as they are on the supported list and cheaper http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-NA-_-NA

Looks like I can play around with this whole idea fairly cheaply as all I need are the cards to try out RouterOS on a PC.

why bothering setting up the hardware yourself?
try a ready to go network appliance:
http://www.axiomtek.com/products/ListPr ... ptype3=233

wow... well those are cool... Jeeze even more options...

But I already have a system and for playing around all I need is a second NIC which I just ordered..

The question is... Can I hit the performance numbers of a RB1100AHx2 with a P4 @ 3.4Ghz 2GB 32bitPCI machine ?

Hmmm.... those are pretty cool appliances.. Those are really tempting... Yea see thats a whole world I didn't even know existed. RouterOS+Appliance. BUT how do these compare to things like a RB1100AHx2 ?

Wait a minute... How would I buy one of those Axiomtek appliances ? I checked a bunch of them and I cant find them at all on the net to buy ? I cant even find pricing.

I have given up on using PC since when I compared a Pentium 4 1.8GHz against a RB493, and surprisingly enough the RB493 was performing better. Thing is, Routerboards have CPU designed for routing purposes, while computers for other things. With a computer you need to by extra network cards, RouterOS License and it consumes more power than the RB110AHx2. Instead, with a RB110AHx2 you already have those network cards, Level6 ROS, and a better backup power plan.
I also have a customer, who once used an HP workstation Pentium 4 3.4GHz, and has switched now to two RB1200. The situation is way better now than before.
There is one more thing. A used PC does have a used HDD. The license of the RouterOS is attached to the HDD. If the HDD fails after sometime you could have some trouble on getting back the license.

Pentium 4 1.8Ghz vs RB493

Xymox don't waste your time like sup5 say buy Xeon (except dont know about CCR1036)
I m using also axiomtek with Xeon CPU

For some purposes it is better to use PC but for others it is better to use routerboard .
for example for large number of ppp connections PC is better .
for routing large number of packets or bandwidth routerboards are better .

and for general purposes (some number of ppp,routing,shaping etc on same box) it is better to use x86 routeros.

Well I'm also using x86 Machine (Core 2 dou @ 2.9Ghz, 2 Gb RAM).. I still confuse in between RB1100AHx2 and x86 PCs.
I thought that RB1100AHx2 are designed for RISC Architecture (Reduced Instruction Sets computing) which make the processin gof data flow upto 1Million pps.

While x86 PCs not get upto the Mark as RB1100AHx2 did. If is there any process to calculate the overall pps (packet per second) then we can able to figure out all of the question and problem which are raising in discussions.

Kashif Khan