Review on 🔌 Mikrotik hEX RB750Gr3: High-Performance 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Router by Lisa Zimmerman

Excellent value for money. Can run full duplex at 1 Gb/s on 2 of the 4 LAN ports (eth2 and eth4, more on that later) and works pretty cool. I bought an EdgeRouter ER-X but returned it because it can't run at 1Gb/s full duplex and was looking for EdgeRouter ER-Lite and ER-4 routers. But they cost 2-3 times more, run quite warm and are much larger. Although the web interface (and Windows) is quite complex, I was able to connect to the internet within 5 minutes using the Quick Set setup page (just set the WAN IP to automatic and change the LAN IP, the DCHP area and the password). This default configuration installs a firewall that blocks all external WAN traffic that does not originate from the local network. The only additional setup I did was enable UPNP (WebFig IP->UPNP->Enabled=Check. Then add interface: bridge=internal, ether1=external). An initial speed test with iperf3 showed WAN->LAN speeds as low as 1Gbps. - dulex. When using iperf3 in a bidirectional test, the speed was only 450/450 up/down at the same time. This happened with a WAN connected to the eth1 port and a LAN connected to the eth3 port. After looking at Mikrotik's online document "Disabled Switching Block Diagram" I realized that I need to move the LAN port to an eth2 or eth4 port to get the full 2 Gb/s between CPU and get Ethernet bandwidth. This is because the CPU has 2 lanes of 1Gb/s each, with one lane connected to the odd-numbered ports (eth1, eth3, and eth5) and the other to the even-numbered ports (eth2, eth4). That is, to achieve 2 Gb/s throughput, the processor must simultaneously read from one line (eth1/eth3/eth5) and write to the other (eth2/eth4) or vice versa. I tested this theory and found it to be true. With WAN on eth1 (default config) when I moved the LAN connector to eth2 or eth4 I got 900/900 up/down at the same time but only 450/450 up/down at the same time when I moved the LAN connector to eth3 or eth5. Test configuration: iperf3 in bi-directional mode, with Synology NAS and Asus desktop computers connected to WAN port via switch, and MacBook Pro connected to LAN port. Overall I think this port/bandwidth limitation is easily overcome and this router offers excellent value/space/performance. Update: 10/31/2020. It was found that in the default settings, hardware switching is disabled, which means that LAN-to-LAN traffic is processed by the CPU and WAN-LAN upload/download speed from LAN-to-LAN traffic depends, ie eth2 traffic eth3. To check: Click Bridge->Ports->ether2->Status->Hw. Unload (check or uncheck the box, the box is not checked by default). There are two ways to work around this: 1) use a 5 or 8 port switch for ALL LAN devices and then connect the switch to the RB750Gr3 (eth2 or eth4), or 2) change the bridge RSTP protocol mode to None (do not do this if you are not sure if you should). RSTP is used to prevent loops in large networks by automatically disabling specific ports on smart switches (or routers) that are causing the loop. However, using this protocol disables hardware switching on the MT7621A chip in the RB750Gr3. If you only have unmanaged switches, they probably don't support RSTP anyway (unless you have a mesh network at home).