EdgeRouter ER-X or Mikrotik hEX RB750Gr3?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Looking for a small inexpensive wired only router that can run OpenWRT very well and route 350Mbps or more.

EdgeRouter ER-X and Mikrotik hEX RB750Gr3 look like pretty much identical hardware.

I’m leaning towards a brand new Mikrotik hEX RB750Gr3. Pluses over ER-X:

  • can buy it new, ER-X seems to be discontinued and expensive on the used market
  • microSD storage
  • 2Gbps internal routing, though not sure what to make of this 2 Gbps CPU bandwidth - is it in latest OpenWRT, does the ER-X have an internal hardware limitation, or applicable to all MT7621 including the Mikrotik hEX?

There’s also the TP-Link ER605 V2 which is very similar. Does it matter which one? Any other recommendations that are similar, small, with a built-in switch?

2

Lanner NCA-1010B or Cloudgenix ION 2000, both below $30 on US eBay, but they got standalone NICs, no switch ports.

3

Cloudgenix ION 2000 throughput seems to be max 250Mbps. I need higher than that, 350+.

The MT7621 appear capable of close to 1Gbps, with offloading, though not sure how well that works with OpenWRT.

4

99% certain the ION can do gigabit without sweating, the NCA-1010 def can.

5

Be careful not to end up with the unsupported hEX refresh

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6

Yep, I’m aware of it :+1: hence my specific model RB750Gr3 mention. Or the hEX S (2025), EN7562CT CPU.

7

The specs claim max 250Mbps throughput, are they wrong?

But there’s also a note:

‡ Encrypted throughput is measured with 1400 byte HTTP packets with all features turned on.

I don’t know whether that means VPN throughput or something else.

8

Depends on what/how they measure.

I think the CPU load at ~gigabit was somewhere between 25-40%.

It does Wireguard at 725Mbps - A Wireguard comparison DB - #364 by frollic, routing at 1gbit shouldn't be an issue.

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9

I run an ER605 V2 , with h/w offloading enabled it will certainly max out my 900/115Mb FTTP connection. Of course h/w offload precludes using any QoS. Without offloading its down to around 250Mb.

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10

The TP-Link ER605 v2 or TP-Link FR205 are also good choices although they only have 128MB of flash instead of 256MB. The do have a USB 2.0 port that is missing on the ER-X though. They are essentially the same device with different labeling and use the same OpenWrt firmware. Both are still relatively easy to find.

11

What is the issue with the internal 2Gbps connection between the CPU and the switch? The ER-X doesn’t seem to have it unless you get the SPF version and don’t use the SPF port or something confusing like that. Does it matter in practice if I do not care about inter-VLAN routing, though I do use VLANs, but they are pretty much isolated, just very little traffic, e.g. some ssh.

they only have 128MB of flash instead of 256MB

Mikrotik RB750Gr3 lists flash as “16, microSD”. Is that a potential problem going forward if OpenWrt decides to drop support for 16MB flash or not because it has microSD so all I’d have to do is put a microSD card in it?

12

If you’re OK with only 16MB flash another option is the Cudy R700 which can sometimes be found very cheap.

13

I ended up with a used ER-X on the cheap, I hope it works.

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14

I’m very happy with this one only wired https://openwrt.org/toh/meraki/mx65w Can find cheap on ebay

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15

wow very interesting! lot of 3 for $20. backup for the backup!

They would also make great managed switches with 12 ports.
Edit: maybe not as exciting as a switch because “Packets between LAN3-7 and LAN8-12 go through the Broadcom CPU/switch instead of directly between QCAs”

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