New price/performance leader for Ethernet switches?

[Doug Shubert]

>

Hi Greg and John,
Thanks for the heads up on this new Intel switch.
Our network runs primarily on HP 2424M's.
The HP spec. sheet indicates a backplane speed of 3.2 Gbps
on the 2424M and 3.8 Gbps on the 4000 & 8000.

We are looking to setup 144 nodes in a FFN design.
The 420T would work perfectly in a 12 switch, 4 NIC's per node arrangement.
At $30 per 10/100 port price, we will have to seriously consider this candidate.

Doug


>
> 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?
>