[ale] Choke point (or when to bring on router)

[Jeff Hubbs]

Bao C. Ha wrote:

>A 25-Mhz 486 can do a T1 or 2,3,4 T1s easily!  A T3 is only
>45 Mbits/s full-duplex.  You will need to go to ATM/Sonnet
>speeds before you will see a stall in Linux.
>
>A Cisco is better in pushing packets, not because its CPU
>is faster, but rather its backplane can handle a lot more
>bandwidth.  PCI is the bottleneck for PC-based high
>speed transfers.
>
Is there a step up available regarding this PCI bottleneck?  Is 64-bit 
PCI any help?  Are there even 64-bit-PCI-bus NICs?  If yes to both, what 
CPU options are there?  I'm just wondering where you go from here if you 
still want to avoid dedicated router HW but are running up against the 
PCI bus limit.

- Jeff



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