Thank you all of you for the information, it really helps me so much.
 I think I'll use following machines for testing (using iperf) :-
 Endpoint A:
- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2GHz)
- 1GB Memory (Dual Channel)
- RHEL 4 / Windows XP
- Marvell Gigabit Ethernet
 Endpoint B:
- Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz HT
- Intel D865GLC Motherboard
- 512MB Memory (Dual Channel)
- Windows XP
- Intel Pro/100 VE Ethernet
 Gateway1 (to be benchmarked):
- Intel Pentium II 450MHz
- 256MB Memory
 - (motherboard to be checked)
- 3Com 3C905C-TX Ethernet
  Gateway2 (to be benchmarked):
- Intel Pentium III 450MHz
- 256MB Memory
 - (motherboard to be checked)
- 3Com 3C905C-TX Ethernet
 Gateway3 (to be benchmarked):
- Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz
 - 256MB Memory
- (motherboard to be checked)
- 3Com 3C905C-TX Ethernet

Gateway4 (to be benchmarked):
- Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz HT
- Intel D865GLC Motherboard
- 512MB Memory (Dual Channel)
- 3Com 3C905C-TX Ethernet
 However, the bad news is that I don't have enough Gigabit Ethernet card for 
testing, I'll try to see if I can purchase more to do the test, otherwise, I 
can only test with those 100Mbps Ethernet card :(
  P.S. I also wonder whether different motherboards (south/north bridge 
chipset) will have different performance on this kind of task, so I might 
also test about it :)
 Thank you all of you~
  
-- 
Jacky C.K Tsoi
Apr 27, 2005 


 On 4/27/05, Chris Buechler <cbuechler at gmail dot com> wrote: 
> 
> On 4/25/05, Jacky C.K Tsoi <cktsoi at gmail dot com> wrote:
> > Hi All, 
> > I'm going to do some throughput testing of m0n0wall on various CPUs 
> (maybe
> > P2-450, P3-450, P4-1.6, etc...) to see which hardware platform would 
> meet
> > our requirements (we're going to have a dedicated 100Mpbs broadband 
> > connection). And we'd like to have more than 100Mpbs thoughput in 
> average.
> > Anyone can give me some advices on doing this kind of benchmark? What 
> would
> > be the best packet size? any good software recommendation? anything to 
> > notice?
> 
> Iperf gives a decent indication of maximum single TCP stream
> throughput. On some recent benchmarks I've done (results to be
> published soon), I also used NetPIPE [1]. It tests throughput with a 
> wide range of message sizes. The maximum throughput from NetPIPE
> ended up being roughly the same as the Iperf results.
> 
> I tested with a P4 1.6 and a PIII 733 as the two end points, connected
> to the tested m0n0wall platform via crossover cables. The two test 
> boxes have Intel PRO/1000 (em) NIC's, both running FreeBSD 5.3.
> Performance with a crossover directly between the two boxes was over
> 400 Mbps at 1000BT. A VIA 1 GHz [2] was the fastest box I tested, and
> it came out at around 93 Mbps. 
> 
> If you're looking to get "more than 100 Mbps" throughput, you'll have
> to test with gig NIC's if you use this type of testing. You could use
> 4 10/100 NIC's with 4 testing systems and kick off iperf/NetPIPE tests 
> simultaneously on both sets of systems. That's not an extremely
> scientific test, but it'd give you a decent idea at least. Iperf
> would probably work out better in that situation since it's a timed
> test so you know they'll both run for a set amount of time and finish 
> at the same time.
> 
> 1 - http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/netpipe/paper/full.html
> 2 - http://tinyurl.com/b8dyf
> 
> -Chris
>