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Comment by kingsleyopara | Hacker News Reader

Wish this thing had a second 2.5 GbE port instead of a 1 GbE port.

Seems odd, what's the point of an asymmetric speeds on a 2 port router? Dual 1G (cheaper) or dual 2.5G would make much more sense.

I expect it's mostly a cost thing, but I can see a couple of scenarios where it could make sense:

* >1G internet in a mostly or exclusively wifi home

* <=1G internet + a 2.5G LAN, so that ethernet <=> wifi and ethernet<=>SSD transfers are faster

The second scenario could actually fit me right now, but my ISP is expecting to roll out multi-gigabit options later this year year.

At any rate, I agree with everyone else, I would prefer two 2.5G ports.

In the first case I'm dubious that MT7981B can handle usefully more than GigE with the usual small packets, firewall rules, anti-buffer bloat, QoS, numerous clients, and related that people expect of a router these days.

Seems to really limit the audience and shorten the useful life of a router to penny pinch. How about a $88 NanoPi with dual 2.5G, 4GB ram, 32GB eMMC, and wifi? Is it really worth $10 to have 1/4th the ram, 1/256th the storage, 1G instead of 2.5G and less CPU[0]?

I got similar with the faster RK3588, 8GB ram, dual 2.5 and 1G, and metal case for $120. I've been quite impressed, it's about half as fast as my xeon E3-1230 from years ago.

[0] https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804821229437.html

The WiFi is also >1Gbps.

It is probably a SoC limitation... Feel free to suggest an alternative ;)

RK3588 can handle 2 2.5G ports. Would bump the price a bit, but also is a significant CPU upgrade so you are likely to get much better usable bandwidth with packet inspection and/or QoS.

That’s a pretty significant jump in complexity, the RK3588 is one of the most powerful SOCs available. A cool part, but I’m not sure it fits the OpenWRT use case

What's the complexity? They start at $70 or so in the RK3588S flavor, it's basically a CPU with a PCIe bus, the software, board complexity, and cost seems just about the same as the proposed OpenWRT solution.

1. that isn't going to help you get under the $100 price point

2. Mediatek might not be willing to provide their WiFi SoC if you are not using their compute SoC, and Rockchip doesn't have any WiFi chips.

The rk3588 is frankly a non-starter.

> Mediatek might not be willing to provide their WiFi SoC if you are not using their compute SoC

There are some China-only ZTE devices that do this, but they obviously have a different order volume and scale that makes it possible. (The main SoC is replaced with a ZXIC one, a ZTE subsidiary)

These are $30+ with PMIC in China. Very expensive SOC. RK3566es are around $6.

Sure there's a bit of a premium, seems like a pretty big CPU and PCIe upgrade and would allow 2x2.5G.

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