MikroTik CRS804-4DDQ-hRM Internal Hardware Overview
Inside the switch, we get a fairly simple layout.
Pulling off the two big heatsinks, we can see the main chips in the switch.
First, we have the 10GbE PHY for the two 10Gbase-T management ports under this heatsink.
Then we have the quad-core Annapurna Labs AL52400 with 4GB of what appears to be ECC memory onboard, given that there are five DRAM packages. Many may wonder if, given RouterOS has the functionality, if this CPU means that this would be a good 1.6Tbps firewall box. To be clear, this is not enough performance for that much bandwidth, and there is only a 10Gbps link between the Annapurna CPU and the switch chip.
On that switch chip, there is a Marvell 98DX7335A1. This is a 32-lane 50Gbps switch (or 4x 400G in this case.) It is also a 5nm Marvell Prestera switch chip, which is neat for a lower-cost switch like this.
One nice feature is that MikroTik has put decent-sized heatsink fins on the QSFP56-DD cages to help cool hot-pluggable optics modules.
Since we review many MikroTik switches, we noticed that the power supplies mate with the switch PCB directly, which is different from some of the company’s other models.
Here is a block diagram if you want to see how this is all put together. Again, it is worth noting the 10Gbps link between the switch chip and management processor, which limits the amount of bandwidth for any application traversing the CPU path.
Next, let us get to the management.
