New price/performance leader for Ethernet switches?

[Greg Lindahl]

For a long time, the HP Procurve 4000M was the price/performance leader for
fast ethernet switches. One of my co-workers (John Eshleman) points out a
new contender:

http://intel.com/network/products/exp420t.htm

The 420T has 48 ports and 2 slots which take gigabit expansion cards. It is
apparently always store-and-forward, but claims 20 usec switching latencies
for 100 mbit. Street price (www.hardwarestreet.com) is $1540, the gbit
uplinks are $377.

This compares to $1943 for a 40-port HP -- half populated, but that is about
all the backplane can handle at full speed.

The Intel switch claims 21 gbits of bandwidth, and that it can run all its
ports at full speed at any packet size.

Anyone know of any other new contenders for the crown?

-- g