Just to note that's peak power consumption. They idle between 1-4W, or if you're running a PoE HAT, 4-6W.

A RPi is not equivalent to what most would use as a COTS router, which includes a GbE switch and some kind of modem (DSL or cable). The latter on its own needs a few Watts.

On the contrary, OpenWRT and a good CM4-based board allows the Pi to run pretty well as a gigabit router :)

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/two-tiny-dual-gigabit...

No CM4 and accompanying carrier board needed . A regular RPi4 with a USB3 gigabit adapter makes for a good gigabit home router. I have been using one as my home gigabit router for the last 14 months without any issues.

That’s not much of a router with just two ports and no WiFi.

As another commenter already pointed out, this is peak power consumption. A Pi + external HDD runs me to 12 W max in live use. Less if the drive spins down.

yep, which makes them a pain in the ass to efficiently cool down without active cooling (=fans)

My passively cooled RPi4 with 8GiB RAM + 1GiB/USB ethernet dongle working as a 1Gb router never goes above 50 degrees C (all-metal case from aliexpress).