I have been pondering for some time getting a new core router, and a
recent question on HP Procurves vs Soekris boxes has kicked me into
thought. I have some more general questions:

I recall hearing tell (on here I think) that amd64 is a better arch for
routing, because of better interrupt handling or somesuch. Is this true?

I am under the impression that if I want to do BGP, I need 1GB of RAM
for the routing tables and whatnot. Given RAM is so cheap, and I'd like
some future-proofing, is there any use in getting 2G instead?

Is PF capable of making good use of multiple processors with GENERIC.MP,
or am I better off with a single faster CPU? With say a Pentium 4 CPU,
am I better off with GENERIC and no hyperthreads, or GENERIC.MP and
hyperthreads?


I believe some of these questions have been addressed previously on this
list some time ago, but I was hoping I could get away with asking again,
on the grounds that the recent major changes to PF and resultant speed
increases may have changed the answers.

I'm currently looking at a Dell PE860 (1U, Quad core Xeon@2.4GHz, 1G
RAM) or a Dell PE SC1435 (1U, Dual core Opteron@2.4GHz, 1G RAM). They're
near enough the same price, so its just a question of what will be best
suited to running PF. My ignorant thought would be that 4 cores is
better than 2, but if PF only uses one core perhaps if the Opteron has
better interrupt handling then AMD would be the better choice. Is it
relevant that the Xeon has 2x4MB cache and the Opteron has 2x1MB?

Hopefully I have started on the right foot by asking the right questions...

Dave Wilson