Evaluation of the dual-NIC computer Dell Optiplex 780 (henceforth referred to as PCR1) compared with Cisco 2901 router regarding performance.

Both devices are tested to show maximum throughput with increasing numbers of parallel links. A Cisco Catalyst 2960G switch is used to provide more access ports. The software Iperf is used throughout the tests as both traffic generator and throughput measuring tool, meanwhile the software Dstat on PCR1 is used for CPU usage measuring. PCR1 and Cisco 2901 are tested separately. A few basic tests are performed in phase 1 to discover the maximum throughput between the devices' interfaces. In phase 2, additional client computers are added on one side of the router device, one pair at a time. All these clients receive max-load traffic simultaneously from a single server computer, which reside on the other side of the router. Phase 2 tests are meant to investigate how well the router devices handle max-load traffic in a situation where there are multiple clients, whether they prioritize any traffic or function abnormally.

After both phases are done, an analysis of the collected data is presented, both devices's performance and differences between them will be analysed.