I am testing the throughput of the new RB1100AHx2. The router works fine but the second core is idle even when the first is 100% utilized. Is there any command I should run to activate the second core? The router is running version 5.14.

Right now it gives me the following throughput doing an RFC2544 layer 3 test with a random MTU between 64 and 1500:
CPU @1066MHz = 445Mbps
CPU @1333MHz = 532Mbps

The router is doing packet marking, setting vlan priorities and doing queue trees.
If the second core was used, this number could be much better. I attached an image of the tools->profile window.

Thanks!

How many different ethernet ports are you using. While RouterOS tries to use multicore CPUs, it cannot load balance traffic coming through only one interface.

Routing itself is inherently not multicore friendly. The more interfaces involved the easier it is to multithread different traffic.

Cheers

Thanks for your answer. I was routing from port 1 to port 11. Do you think it could use the second processor if port 2 routes traffic to port 12 (for example).

does it support RPS?..

I don't think that RPS is supported. At least there is nothing under System -> Resources.

How many different ethernet ports are you using. While RouterOS tries to use multicore CPUs, it cannot load balance traffic coming through only one interface.

Routing itself is inherently not multicore friendly. The more interfaces involved the easier it is to multithread different traffic.

Cheers

You are making a mistake here. There is nothing sequential about packet routing (that is why the packet order is not guaranteed in any IP link), so it is one of the perfect situations where you can do parallel processing.

/in interface queue choose hardware queue, avoid using simple queues (cause usage of global-in and global-out will force all packets go trough single core) run test with huge number of TCP connections or just use UDP traffic. After that it all should be OK.

Thanks for the tip. I selected only hardware queues in the all interfaces and mq-pfifo in the queue trees, I have an outgoing queue with eight child queues for eight different class of service. Still the second CPU is 78.5 idle when the router is dropping packets.

Chooosing only-hardware-queue gives me 545 Mbps vs 508 Mbps using both pfifo and mq pfifo. Still the second core is 75% idle.
Thanks macgaiver