Could you further elaborate? Are you mentioning this fact if one was to use the interface switch config (switch chip config method?). Or in regards to the new bridge vlan config way?
I am mentioning this fact because "hardware acceleration" of L2 forwarding actually means letting the switch chip do the forwarding between devices connected to its ports. However, probably for cost reasons, Mikrotik often uses two chips with 5 Ethernet ports and additional internal ports rather than a single one with 8 or 10 Ethernet ports, and the internal ports of these chips are only used to connect each chip to the CPU, not the two chips to one another. So if you need to forward a frame from one switch chip to another, the only available path is via the CPU, so via software.
It doesn't depend on whether you use the
/interface ethernet switch menu or not. If you are happy with a single VLAN, you can use a single bridge with vlan-filtering switched off and hardware acceleration enabled under
/interface bridge port. When you do that, hardware accelerated forwarding is used whenever possible, i.e. between ports of the same switch chip. If you need VLAN tagging and untagging on ingress/egress, with 3011 you can choose whether to configure it using the
/interface ethernet switch tree (with some limitations but faster) or using
/interface bridge vlan-filtering=yes which means that all L2 forwarding, including between two ports of the same switch chip is done in software (so the frames have to go to the CPU and back); with 4011, you only have the second option.
Which would be best on either 3011 or 4011 model? Or is it fact RB4011 has no proper VLAN switch chip so am forced to use the new bridge vlan way (makes config more readable). If that is true, would the 4011 offer faster performance over a 3011 running switch chip vlan method? Or fact the 4011 with bridge vlan will still not be HW accelerated and slower wire speed over the 3011?
Which one is better depends on the task. If you do mostly routing and IPsec, take the 4011; if you want L2 forwarding in hardware and you need VLAN handling, take the 3011; if you want L2 forwarding in hardware and VLAN handling and MSTP, take a CRS3xx but you have to complete it with the 4011 or a hAP ac2 to have a decent routing and IPsec as the CPU of the CRS (which does the routing) is as weak as the one in the 2011.
I'm confused with the RB4011 mentioning HW Accelerated CPU, so this must only be for IPSec traffic? Or what about the bridge vlan traffic being pumped into the CPU since the switch chip isnt vlan aware like the RB3011. This is my confusion....
Yes, HW acceleration with regard to CPU means HW accelerated encryption. HW accelerated L2 forwarding is automatic when there is a switch chip, but the VLAN and MSTP requirements have a different impact depending on switch chip model.
Are we to assume the RB3011 would offer better vlan aware wire-speed performance over the RB4011 due the the RB3011 having vlan aware switch chip and it being an ASIC?
As said above - yes, under particular conditions. The 3011 allows more complex L2 tasks than 4011 without losing the wirespeed, but it is limited here as compared e.g. to the CRS3xx product line.
And none of 3011 and 4011 gives you more than 1 Gbit/s per direction between the switch chips due to the available bandwidth of the internal ports of the switch chips.