Hi All,

Today I noticied that the RB850Gx2 is no longer on the mikrotik website.
In place there is a routerboard called RB450Gx4.

What is the main difference and why is the RB850Gx2 no longer availible?

Info RB450Gx4:
https://mikrotik.com/product/rb450gx4

Anybody any thoughts?

Newer, faster, cheaper, but same size.

RB450Gx4
Four core 7160MHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 5xGigabit Ethernet, PoE out on port #5, RouterOS L5

Newer, faster, cheaper, but same size.

indeed it's cheaper than the 850Gx2, but compared to the hAP ac2 - which is almost the same - it's more expensive ($99 vs $69)
i know it packs faster 1GB RAM instead of 256MB, and has a _lot_ bigger flash and an uSD card slot. and finally af/at poe and poe OUT - the stuff i miss from hAP ac2.
but hey, the price is still very good!

Newer, faster, cheaper, but same size.

can we assume that Mikrotik will ditch the PPC platform altogether?
the RB1100 series is already arm. now the RBx50 as well. the last survivor seems to be the RB800.

just to know the difference between IPQ4018 (hap ac2) and IPQ4019 (this baby and wap60G)

just to know the difference between IPQ4018 (hap ac2) and IPQ4019 (this baby and wap60G)

So according to your sheet the RB450Gx4 should have the possibillity for dualband wifi?
Wonder why mikrotik did'nt put it in.

So according to your sheet the RB450Gx4 should have the possibillity for dualband wifi?
Wonder why mikrotik did'nt put it in.

i guess space constraints. the extra power input jack, the serial console, poe-out, all take up valuable space. and to have wifi you would need some extra circuitry

No heatsink on the IPQ4019 chip?! Is it really that power efficient?

No heatsink on the IPQ4019 chip?!

Probably only on demonstration photo. I think that the CPU will have heatsink in serial models of boards.

No heatsink on the IPQ4019 chip?! Is it really that power efficient?

1) 2.4 GHz module is disabled
2) 2.4 GHz wlan co-processor CPU #1 is disabled
3) 5 GHz module is disabled
4) 5 GHz wlan co-processor CPU #2 is disabled
5) no 2 amplifier modules for 2.4GHz
6) no 2 amplifier modules for 5GHz

As total, power consumption is 5Wt - compared to 11 Wt for hAP ac^2

Anyway... near CPU we see 2 holes for heatsink.

The new products sound great, but I wish MT would stop taking model #s that mean one thing and twisting them to mean another. It's confusing. Please be consistent. RB1xxx has always meant PowerPC. Likewise, RB4xx has always meant MIPSBE. So RB1100AHx4 is nonsensical (expectation is PPC), as is RB450Gx4 (expectation is MIPSBE).

It's especially confusing since it wasn't just as though one specific architecture (PPC) morphed into another (ARM). If it was RB1100AHx2 > RB1100AHx4, and then RB850Gx2 > RB850Gx4, it would still be silly, but it would at least make more sense, since in both cases, the migration was from PPC to ARM. But instead the ARM reincarnation of this series is being called RB450Gx4 instead of RB850Gx4, which ties it mentally to the MIPS version instead of the PPC one, for apparently no reason.

RB850Gx2, on the other hand, made complete sense as the name for the successor to the RB450G since RB8xx series has always been PPC, and the 850Gx2 was PPC-based.

Maybe part of the problem is that all of the 3-digit RBxxx model #s have already all been claimed? 1, 4, 5, 7, and 9 are all MIPS (1, 5 are LE & 4, 7, 9 are BE), and 3, 6, and 8 are all PPC. So either make this board (and the RB1100AHx4) an RB3xxx (4-digit), or an all-new 4-digit series (4xxx?).

I don't understand MT marketing sometimes...oh well, "first-world problems" I guess...

-- Nathan

No, they haven't They are product series. Unrelated to architecture. We have a wiki article about it:
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Product_Naming

In the past, when naming scheme was not yet defined, there were exceptions. Nowadays it it more or less consistent.

...We have a wiki article about it:...

`
But wait a minute, that wiki article existed back when RB850Gx2 was released, and was more-or-less the same back then as it is now, so...
`

No, they haven't They are product series. Unrelated to architecture. [...] In the past, when naming scheme was not yet defined, there were exceptions. Nowadays it it more or less consistent.

`
...if that's the case, then even though naming convention was nailed down by that point, why wasn't the RB850Gx2 called the RB450Gx2 instead, back when it was released?

Instead it got placed in the 800 series, even though it had the exact same form-factor as the 450G and was treated as its successor. Why? Because it's PowerPC, right? Are you really going to deny that this was the thought process behind calling it the 850? Come on now.

It's really not a big deal ultimately, and I do admit that MT has never actually said that specific series always stick to a specific CPU arch, even though you guys mostly tried to keep it that way initially. For us old-timers, it's just confusing and seems to to make for less distinctions between the series, making them less meaningful overall. I guess I should go tell the kids to get off my lawn...

-- Nathan

EDIT: To get this back on track, I hope to have a 450Gx4 to play with soon. Too bad there is no MetaROUTER for ARM, though...makes this less desirable than the prior models in this "series".

I, as maybe another old-timer here, do expect nothing like that. I do not read the numbers and letters mikrotik uses to describe their devices so strictly. I just expect that last digit shows wifi interfaces or slots, and the digit before tries to say something about the ethernets and that's all. I use to check specification rather than guess and not expecting that one device is successor of another even its name differs only by revision number.

i tested
live enviroment
-100 queues - sfq
- 100% nat
-some firewall rules
-~100 mb traffic

in heavy hours


rb850Gx2 ~~ 40 % cpu
ccr1009 - ~~5-10% cpu

rb450Gx4 - 10-15% cpu


Second scenario
rb450gx4
only pppoe + routing ( no nat)
traffic up to 160 MB/s
cpu 1 - 3 %

All comes without heatsink on cpu,
for me temperature of working 850x2 and 450x4 are the ~~ same

Another question: if series has nothing to do with CPU architecture, then why wasn't RB3011 instead called RB2011x2?

-- Nathan

To keep you guys busy with speculations

To keep you guys busy with speculations

Thank you Maris

To keep you guys busy with speculations

`




-- Nathan

I'm considering the local provider's gigabit GPON offering, which comes with an ONT with AC wifi, but I Want to use the PPPoE pass-through option. Would I be able to saturate Gbit wtih an RB450Gx4 and PPPoE using NAT and around 10 effective FW rules?

So, now that you have "corrupted" ( ) the 400-series with a non-MIPSBE CPU, you are faced with the challenge of efficiently communicating this on the ROS download page. Right now, if I am the proud owner of a new RB450Gx4, and I go to this page, I'm being told I need to download the MIPSBE package.

Despite what everyone says, CPU archs really did by-and-large stick with particular series (whether by coincidence or design), and that made this kind of thing a lot simpler. Until 1100AHx4 was released, the download page showed "RB1xxx" in the PPC row (I checked it, on the WayBack Machine / archive.org). Now because of the ARM-arch AHx4, you are forced to list every single PPC 1xxx-series model separately, and because of this you missed some (specifically, RB1000 and RB1100Hx2 do not appear in the list on the download page). But the number of RB4xx models that are MIPSBE are too many to list separately like that. Maybe this changes to "RB4xx (except RB450Gx4)"? And then keep adding exceptions until the list is 100 miles long?? This is going to get real convoluted real fast... Probably need a completely new download page layout model and way of labeling the downloads to accommodate this kind of thing.

I know, I know...beating a dead horse is my hobby-horse.
-- Nathan

I'm considering the local provider's gigabit GPON offering, which comes with an ONT with AC wifi, but I Want to use the PPPoE pass-through option. Would I be able to saturate Gbit wtih an RB450Gx4 and PPPoE using NAT and around 10 effective FW rules?

Has really no one attempted using Gbit PPPoE on this device yet?

I'm considering the local provider's gigabit GPON offering, which comes with an ONT with AC wifi, but I Want to use the PPPoE pass-through option. Would I be able to saturate Gbit wtih an RB450Gx4 and PPPoE using NAT and around 10 effective FW rules?

Has really no one attempted using Gbit PPPoE on this device yet?

i think for that scenario the best choice is rb1100ahx4, it has the highest single core performance of all product line, and the best single tunnel ipsec accelerated performance

remember rb450gx4 uses 716mhz 4 core CPU, at the instant you saturate one core you can get into performance problems

rb450gx4 716mhz x core arm cortex a7
rb1100ahx4 1400mhz arm cortex a15

2x performance advantage by core clock
2x performance advantage by core architecture

almost total 4x the performance x core advantage for rb1100ahx4

@chechito, chanks for the insight, though comparing the devices in itself doesn't tell much. Obviously the RB1100 series is way faster. But many small, cheap routers are capable of what I ask and I think for MT to stay competitive in that price range they should be able to handle that, too. There's also "PPPoE fast path", supposedly helping PPPoE performance, but I'm not sure if that's relevant here or not.

@chechito, chanks for the insight, though comparing the devices in itself doesn't tell much. Obviously the RB1100 series is way faster. But many small, cheap routers are capable of what I ask and I think for MT to stay competitive in that price range they should be able to handle that, too. There's also "PPPoE fast path", supposedly helping PPPoE performance, but I'm not sure if that's relevant here or not.

the fact is

mikrotik can do very high speeds on small devices being very competitive, like another vendors or better

but

mikrotik have a very wide spectrum of functionalities beyond competition that some day maybe you wan to use, like heavy firewall and QoS and traffic management


you can go with a hap ac2 for 1gbps if you are 100% sure dont need heavy features

i am warning you about that because is very frequent to see at the forum complains about the change in performance between for example:

fast-track nat performance VS queueing performance

because that i recommend rb1100ahx4 because 1gbps is serious bandwidth when talking about some heavy features in place

thats the difference, you can do basic NAT at 1gbps with cheap devices, more features will require more hardware

@chechito: I stated my needs. I don't need a $300 router. Believe me, I don't mix up heavy queues with some NAT or filter rules. I also separate my APs and gateway, though HAP AC^2 and RB450Gx4 use a similar CPU. After reading posts on other forums and also here I concluded that the RB450Gx4 would be more than capable for my needs so it's a worthy contender to replace my old trusty RB450G. If I ever get the gbit uplink (I'm pondering since the price difference is so small, compared to slower ones) I'll definitely report back.

@chechito: I stated my needs. I don't need a $300 router. Believe me, I don't mix up heavy queues with some NAT or filter rules. I also separate my APs and gateway, though HAP AC^2 and RB450Gx4 use a similar CPU. After reading posts on other forums and also here I concluded that the RB450Gx4 would be more than capable for my needs so it's a worthy contender to replace my old trusty RB450G. If I ever get the gbit uplink (I'm pondering since the price difference is so small, compared to slower ones) I'll definitely report back.

good

enjoy that rb450gx4, that´s a nice device

As far as I can tell, from a processing power perspective, the two SoCs that hAP ac^2 and RB450Gx4 use (IPQ4018 and IPQ4019) are basically identical. I suspect the only reason that 450Gx4 uses the 4019 is for the SD card interface.

Unless you have specific needs that the Gx4 meets (like microSD slot and huge RAM and NAND storage), and you are mostly interested in CPU power for forwarding packets, I would probably save the $30 (+ whatever you need to spend on a case and power supply!) and just get a hAP ac^2 instead. Both have same CPU "oomph", and although you lose RAM + NAND + microSD, you gain wireless + USB + it comes with a case and PS.

Without MetaROUTER support on ARMv7, I'd guess the primary appeal of the Gx4 is for people who want the most cost-effective Dude server device.

-- Nathan

Isn't 750Gr3 more cost effective as dude server than 450gx4?

Isn't 750Gr3 more cost effective as dude server than 450gx4?

`
You're right, I forgot that MMIPS can run Dude server. However, you will need to purchase and add storage for this in the form of a microSD card, whereas the Gx4 has 512MiB of NAND flash already. (Likely you could get a 2GiB microSD for very cheap, though.)

(And speaking of...why the **** is there no Dude server package for PPC, when it exists for MMIPS? Ridiculous. Any multicore PPC RouterBoard would be more than up to the task. But I digress...)

Perhaps I should have said that the 450Gx4 looks to be the most cost-effective hardware option if you want to run Dude at anything close to scale. Our x86 Dude server with 2,700 devices constantly has half-a-gigabyte of RAM consumed at all times, and the storage required for this seems to be around 700MB.

I don't know how well the CPU on the Gx4 would deal with our Dude database, and the storage would be not quite enough (though could also be augmented with microSD), but at least it would have enough RAM.

-- Nathan

None with clear mind would destroy internal nand by dude database. You always need external flash for that if you would like the device boot after a year of running the dude.

None with clear mind would destroy internal nand by dude database. You always need external flash for that if you would like the device boot after a year of running the dude.

ohh yeah bad idea to use integrated and expensive storage for the dude

better option and cost effective:

hAP ac2 + USB drive

10 us costly than rb750gr3 but with 2 wifi included and far more cpu power to move traffic in spite of the dude cpu usage,

None with clear mind would destroy internal nand by dude database.

`
True.
`

better option and cost effective:

hAP ac2 + USB drive

10 us costly than rb750gr3 but with 2 wifi included and far more cpu power to move traffic in spite of the dude cpu usage,

`
The CPU may or may not be better than the multicore MIPS (I haven't looked at the test results, and also the Dude may exercise the CPU differently than routing/packet forwarding would). But even if the quad-ARM is objectively better, Dude also likes RAM, and even though some lucky hAP ac2s shipped with 256MB, on paper it's only supposed to have 128, while the hEX Gr3 is spec'd for 256. If you buy a hAP ac2, you are not guaranteed to get more than 128MB of RAM.

Gx4 still wins when it comes to RAM + CPU power (no compromise on either), and has microSD slot. So it really just depends on what you use the Dude for and how big your database is. At $99 the Gx4 is not much more expensive than either the hEX or the hAP ac2, so if the primary reason you are buying a RB is for Dude, then it seems like that extra $30-40 is well-spent.

-- Nathan

I found this page on the HAP AC2 the other day. I thought it's relevant because the CPU is almost the same, barring wlan capabilities in the RB450Gx4. It's mostly throughput tests (including PPPoE over Gbit), in Russian but the screen shots should speak for themselves.

None with clear mind would destroy internal nand by dude database.

`
True.
`

better option and cost effective:

hAP ac2 + USB drive

10 us costly than rb750gr3 but with 2 wifi included and far more cpu power to move traffic in spite of the dude cpu usage,

`
The CPU may or may not be better than the multicore MIPS (I haven't looked at the test results, and also the Dude may exercise the CPU differently than routing/packet forwarding would). But even if the quad-ARM is objectively better, Dude also likes RAM, and even though some lucky hAP ac2s shipped with 256MB, on paper it's only supposed to have 128, while the hEX Gr3 is spec'd for 256. If you buy a hAP ac2, you are not guaranteed to get more than 128MB of RAM.

Gx4 still wins when it comes to RAM + CPU power (no compromise on either), and has microSD slot. So it really just depends on what you use the Dude for and how big your database is. At $99 the Gx4 is not much more expensive than either the hEX or the hAP ac2, so if the primary reason you are buying a RB is for Dude, then it seems like that extra $30-40 is well-spent.

-- Nathan

keep in mind we are talking about very little CPU cores

dont expect to move a heavy instance of the dude on a router, even on a rb1100ahx4 (4x the performance per core) you have to keep an eye

forum is full of failures because people not sizing their dude implementation properly

the dude on a router is not a substitute for a real x86 server

the dude on a router is a very useful feature for small, near, and distributed monitoring

but forget about a big database or many objects

please dont use integrated nand flash to host the dude database, is very write intensive and can kill flash prematurely

VPS for Dude posts moved to separate topic.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=136112

The test results for Ethernet test result for the two models seem to be consistent in that RB450GX4 is faster than the older RB850GX2.
But IPsec throughput test published seems to indicate the older RB850GX2 model performing better than the new RB450GX2, by quite a bit too.
I wonder why that is? Is it a mistake? Or difference in test methodology?

The test results for Ethernet test result for the two models seem to be consistent in that RB450GX4 is faster than the older RB850GX2.
But IPsec throughput test published seems to indicate the older RB850GX2 model performing better than the new RB450GX2, by quite a bit too.
I wonder why that is? Is it a mistake? Or difference in test methodology?

I think it's a hardware capability

rb850gx2 is based on Power PC SOC, similar to rb1100ahx2 in features and performance of ipsec, except clock speed

maybe this powerPC SOC was more focused on enterprise market than the SOC of rb450gx4 more focused on mainstream (this SOC includes wifi but not enabled on rb450gx4)

This post seems like it's getting off topic so I might start another one.

I'm looking at the RB850Gx2 and thinking I'd like to use it. But it seems like it might be the last, or nearly the last PPC based board available. If so, will RouterOS support for PPC end shortly after the last PPC based boards end production or will it go on for a while?

I'm also looking at the RB450Gx4 and hAP-ac2. I don't need WiFi and real PoE power input for the RB450Gx4 is a big plus for me, so it's really RB450Gx4 vs. RB850Gx2.

Why shouldn't I buy the RB850Gx2?

Why shouldn't I buy the RB850Gx2?

ARM SOCs are faster, run a lot colder and more commonplace (~= cheaper). If you don't need the additional speed of IPSEC HW acceleration, there's no real need to consider the outdated RB850Gx2. The new one beats it in every other way.

EDIT: oh, and the RB850Gx2 doens't support FastTrack.

I should have said that I'd like to use MetaROUTER, which I think is not possible on arm yet? Does it work on PPC?

You can't always have it all I suppose.

I should have said that I'd like to use MetaROUTER, which I think is not possible on arm yet? Does it work on PPC?

You can't always have it all I suppose.

Metarouter does not work on RB850Gx2.

Metarouter does not work on RB850Gx2.

The menu is actually there in Winbox, but it doesn't work? Never tried it since I don't need it at that site.

Metarouter does not work on RB850Gx2.

The menu is actually there in Winbox, but it doesn't work? Never tried it since I don't need it at that site.

It doesn't work.

It doesn't work.

Well, I guess that would nail it for @acruhl then.

I should have said that I'd like to use MetaROUTER, which I think is not possible on arm yet? Does it work on PPC?

You can't always have it all I suppose.

Rule of thumb: if it has more than one cpu core it will not run Metarouter.

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Metarouter

RouterOS support for PPCs will go on for a while even after the last board ceases to be manufactured, if history is any guide. MIPS-LE boards stopped being manufactured years before RouterOS officially discontinued software upgrade support for those models. So you should be pretty safe.

MetaROUTER only is supported on single-core MIPS-BE and PPC boards. The reason the option sometimes shows up on boards that it doesn't work on is because some multicore boards share the same architecture as supported single-core models (e.g., RB1100 single-core is supported, RB1100Hx2 dual-core is not, but both are Freescale SoC and all of the software "bits" between them are identical, so the option shows up on the Hx2 but throws an error when you try to use it, since the support check is performed at that moment).

The RB850Gx2 is also built on a Freescale SoC and actually *can* run MetaROUTER...if you do a little unorthodox software patching first. It involves disabling a CPU core and using the uniprocessor Freescale PPC kernel. (The good news is that you can actually overclock most 850s that are forced to run in single-core mode to 1066MHz and have it run 100% stable.) You will also need to re-do this every time you update the RouterOS software. I've written "HOWTOs" on doing this years ago which you can probably still find elsewhere on these forums, though they may need to be updated for 6.40+ which has changed some things and become more "tamper-resistant". I have not tried to update an 850 that I have patched to run MetaROUTER to these later versions of RouterOS yet.

The great irony is that a "modified" 850Gx2 is THE MOST STABLE board to run MetaROUTER on, even though it's not supported. RB1000 and 1100 are both officially supported but have both had longstanding software stability issues when running MetaROUTER guests that have NEVER been fixed. MIPS-BE boards had tons of problems, too, until pressure was brought to bear on MT to fix them, but then shortly after most of the problems were seemingly addressed, later changes to ROS introduced more bugs that, again, have never been dealt with, and I largely gave up on MetaROUTER after that. The 850s that I have modified to run MetaROUTER, though, have all been exceptionally stable!!! Go figure that all the board models it SHOULD work on, it doesn't, and the board model it shouldn't work on, it does.

-- Nathan

Anyone tried getting OpenWRT running on one of these yet? Looks like a great board for non-ROS systems.

recently i have tested RB450Gx4 and i can say the performance is very good,

in most scenarios performance is comparable with RB3011 but is cheaper, smaller and consumes less power

in relation to temperatures RB450gx4 operates way cooler than hAP ac²

Very satisfied with this device