I have a 1.2Ghz Pentium-M appliance, with 4x 32bit, 33MHz pci intel
e1000 cards.
With maximum tuning I can "route" ~400mbps with big packets and ~80mbps
with 64byte packets.
around 100kpps, whats not bad for a pci architecture.
To reach higher bandwiths, better busses are needed.
pci-express cards are currently the best choice.
one dedicated pci-express lane (1.25gbps) has more bandwith than a whole
32bit, 33mhz pci-bus.
Like you say routing 400 Mb/s is close to the max of the PCI bus, which
has a theoretical max of 33*4*8 ~ 1Gbps. Now routing is 500Mb/s in,
500Mb/s out. So you are within 80% of the bus-max, not counting
memory-access and others.
PCI express will give you a bus per PCI-E device into a central hub,
thus upping the limit to the speed of the FrontSideBus in Intel
architectures. Which at the moment is a lot higher than what a single
PCI bus does.
What it does not explain is why you can only get 80Mb/s with 64byte
packets, which would suggest other bottlenecks than just the bus.
--WjW
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