You may be surprised at the performance of modern CPUs. Even the slow ones are pretty fast.
> That is not only it, the cost are going to support the linux firmware these router will be based on. Which having ARM ecosystem will be beneficial. So your initial cost estimate will have to include that into calculation as well.
The Linux ecosystem is highly portable. It's not like Windows where you're stuck with already-compiled binaries for the wrong architecture. You have the source code, it already runs on half a dozen processor architectures, so you compile it for the one you're using.
> And it is part of the reason why all routers are moving from their own MIPS CPU to ARM CPU.
They're doing that because MIPS is dead. The company that owns MIPS went bankrupt and has now announced they're going to make RISC-V processors:
https://www.eejournal.com/article/wait-what-mips-becomes-ris...
Before that they half-heartedly tried to open source MIPS, but that was after they were already sinking and it was too late to save them.
You may be surprised at the CPU requirement for modern WIFi Router.
>If that amount of money is less than you'd have to pay to license ARM, you might as well do that.
That is not only it, the cost are going to support the linux firmware these router will be based on. Which having ARM ecosystem will be beneficial. So your initial cost estimate will have to include that into calculation as well.
And it is part of the reason why all routers are moving from their own MIPS CPU to ARM CPU.