Hi,

I'm evaluating a performance of a dual port ethernet bridge, and the
results are a bit disappointing. I would appreciate any hints on improving
the results.

I'm using a Dual Xeon 2.66 GHz box based on Intel  5701 chipset with  1G
of RAM. NICs are e1000 82546 connected to PCIX bus. Kernel is 2.4.22-pre8,
e1000  driver version 5.1.13-k1 with NAPI support. NICs' interrupts are 
bound
to CPU0.

The test consists of sending 200 byte UDP packets from 2 ports of Gigabit
IXIA traffic generator to 2 bridge ports. The bridge is capable to sustain
the rate of ~170000 pps from each IXIA port without drops. I was
expecting it to be able to do at least 250000 pps (our own bridge code 
 based
on 2.2.x kernel sustains ~266000 pps on the same hardware).
e1000 driver drops 0 packets, all drops occur at higher level.

The output of oprofile attached. I'd be happy to provide any info you may
need.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Felix.