4500-E switching speed

[billybjo1]

A classic 4500 gives 6gb per slot, a 4500-E can give 24gb per slot with E line cards.

I know in a classic 4500 all switching was central so it was a max of 6gb per slot even with local forwarding between ports on the same line card. Can a 4500-E do local forwarding with E line cards (as like a 6500 can do) or are they still limited to 24gb max even between local ports? Many thanks.

[Jon Marshall · Accepted solution]

Billy

The 4500-E still uses centralized forwarding, it's just improved over the 4500. The line cards cannot do local switching in the way a 6500 line card with DFC can.

Jon

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Besides what Jon notes, it's not clear the 6500 distributed forwarding is really better vs. 4500's central forwarding, except for total capacity.

The 4500-E provides 6 or 24 Gbps per slot using a fabric, but the 6500's slot bandwidth varies based on sup, (opt., and out-of-date) fabric cards, and line cards (classic, 1 or 2 channel fabric, 8 or 20 Gbps channel bandwidth). Also, I believe many of the 4500 sups guarantee wire speed, but a 6500 sup alone always can't for the chassis and even DFCs (max 48 Mpps?) don't for all cards.