Why do you bother with these overpriced routers?

[moeller0]

@slh

I consider 'modem' and 'telephony' external to the power usage, as -with OpenWrt in mind- neither will be served by the OpenWrt router, so in the electricity tally it doesn't make a difference if the same modem is used in front of an OpenWrt x86_64 router or a plastic router

Well, there is xrx200 (getting a bit long in the tooth), but there is also VRX518 coming along with a somewhat more modern quad-core arm a9 CPU. So modem is debatable IMHO. For VoIP I tend to agree, getting asterisk up and running does seem like quite a chore, especially given that my bast station only takes an average 1.4 W...

But sure the fewer functionality is handled by an all-in-one (or maybe better a some-in-one?) and the more separate devices are in use the smaller the advantage of the combined device gets....

@slh

--> there isn't really a lantiq vr9 device like a bthub5 with FXS ports

Not living in the 80s anymore my "users" expect wireless dect phones for better or worse, so FXS ports do not matter (for my network, obviously not speaking for other or even all OpenWrt users).

@slh

• FXS ports mean one core gets reserved for the voice core, in other words you lose half of the performance - which is already lacking in SMP configuration

Always wondered how to look at the two processing components of the MIPS CPU, full autonomous cores or more like SMT siblings?

@slh

x86_64 obviously does not make sense for a 100/40 MBit/s VDSL contract, which can easily be taken care of by ath79, mt7621a and just about anything else.

Although single core ath79 will not allow traffic shaping close to 100/40 combined... Been there tried that (the BTHH5a was even worse, due to the CPU demands on operating the modem, nice device but IMHO already at its limit as all-in-one at around 50/10 Mbps).

@slh

• • this also means the modem is external to the electricity tally, as ONT/ cable modem can't be done by an OpenWrt device anyways

Well, this brings up the IMHO interesting question whether/how much energy can be saved by using an SFP-ONT in a router with an SFP cage (like e.g. a turris omnia)?

@slh

to quote myself, I'm considering the case of "and once you cross the border of 4+1 ethernet ports and a single AP" here, so the need of an external switch (at least one) and an additional AP (at least one)

I accept your point, but raise you the turros omnia with 5 LAN ports plus 1 WAN/SFP port ;(
But again a typical AIO with its 4 LAN ports might save you from going for a 16 port switch or 2 8 port ones...

@slh

• mvebu (cortex a9) might be better, but I'm disqualifying it here because of mwlwifi (yes, the Turris Omnia is special, but also quite expensive)

Mine currently clocks in with ~8Watt average, but it is not working that hard on a 105/36 shaper limited link. This is with using both radios but not not excessively (I took pains to measure normal usage and neither artificially quit or busy network).

@slh

• I assume 5-11 watts for an x86_64 router here, which is a reasonable figure - a modern 4-port/ Atom based one should be close to the lower end of that range, a cheap/ used device closer to the upper end of it

I would love to see longer term average power numbers for different ATOM SoCs, not becsuse I doubt you, but because I believe that there are still differences and not all Atoms are equally suitable. Not that I have data to support that hunch.

@slh

there is very little difference between a 5-port 1 GBit/s switch and an 8-port 1 GBit/s switch, nor is there a significant difference between a managed- and an unmanaged switch of the same port count, in terms of its power consumption - you do have to skip multiple sizes, to get a noticable delta

Yes, but there is a difference between an AIO'r 4 ports plus an 8 port switch versus an x86 with two 8 port switches or a 16 port switch. The question is, how many ports will be needed above 4.

@slh

• EEE helps a bit, if supported on both ends

Personally I wish it would work better, I have seen issues that required disabling EEE in the past. I ike the sentimet, but the reality so far has been underwhelming.

@slh

• • I'm guessing about the sqm performance here, early benchmarks suggested 1 GBit/s, but DSA has dropped full-duplex performance and modern -non-artificial-benchmark- uses might be more demanding, what about ~600 MBit/s?

Bidirectional traffic shaping on an omnia topped out at 550/550 when I tested a few years ago, the 1 Gbps numbers floating around are at best unidirectional tests. I would guess 300/300 is well within my omnia's wheelhouse, but 500/500 probably only after reducing the number of services I run/use on the router.

But that is not really the point here. If you go into the >= 500 Mbps WAN territory I think we all agree that AIO is not a real option anymore due to lack of affordable options. However the initial claim read like "anybody still using a plastic AIO" should question the rationality of doing so", and I think that for low enough WAN speeds that can still be a rationally defensible decision.

@slh

--> my guess is around 4-5 watts plus, ergo not that much different from the 6-7 watts of modern Atom x86_64 - everything else being the same (external switch needed, external AP needed); this figures for a NanoPi r4s/ r5s or dfrobot base board plus RPi CM4 shouldn't be much different either.

Probably, yet I would love to actually see numbers here. (Though I would guess 4-5 watts for a pi routing @1Gbps might be too stingy a guess). Again there is no question that at the wan speeds we are talking about now exusting cheap AIOs are out of their league.

@slh

Details do heavily depend on your your exact environment and requirements, for sub 200 MBit/s WAN speeds you may get by with a single plastic router - beyond that, the air is getting thinner.

+1 however that is a considerably more detailed and data-supported position than the one I interpreted the first post to take.

@Lynx

Certainly it seems very much a sign of the times that power consumption of even networking devices seems to be a significant consideration.

Yes, with electric current prices doubling or quadrupling saving electricity has a much more immediate return on starting-to-bother-abou-and-replace/retire-overgreedy-devices

@Lynx

Thanks in part to various green initiatives now all of our energy prices have spiked.

I would not necessarily call what is happening in south eastern Europe right now a "green initiative" however it is the driver of the recent massive power price surges.

@Lynx

Did I read correctly that Germany is now going nuclear?

No, what is dicussed is to extend the period of shutting down fission power in Germany. The discussion however is quite nuanced and contains a number of opposite considerations to bring to agreement (e.g. for this winter having more base-load electricity sounds like a great idea, but then extending the operation of fission plants that had their last mandatory safety check waived a few years ago on the basis of them reaching EOL soon, does open questions about how long one should operate a nuclear power plant without appropriate safety checks).
IMHO fission is only ever a worthwhile enterprise if one needs weapons grade material, and I still hope Germany is not...