FAQ banner
Get the Help and Supports!

This help center can answer your questions about customer services, products tech support, network issues.
Select a topic to get started.

ICT Tech Savings Week
2025 MEGA SALE | In-Stock & Budget-Friendly for Every Project

Cisco 4000 Series Routers: The King of ISR


Cisco Integrated Services Routers Family consists of five series: 800, 1900, 2900, 3900 and 4000 series. More powerful than ISR Generation 1 and 2, Cisco 4000 series is the King in the ISR family. It’s the Terminator of ISR, before Cisco announces another new ISR.

Except this performance, we can find out more features of Cisco 4000 series. Here, let’s begin to scan its abilities as a King. Next figure shows us how it can be the King. Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers deliver high quality experiences across all branches.

Cisco Integrated Services Routers

Overview

Cisco 4000 Series Routers revolutionizes WAN communications in the enterprise branch. Concurrent software services at speeds from 50 Mbps to 2 Gbps. This feature means that we can buy a license to upgrade the speed when keeping one router for a long time. If we need a router that does 10 Mbit/s, then we can get the 4321 and keep using it until we reach 100 Mbit/s.

Cisco 4000 routers also provide distinctive module, the Network Interface Module (NIM), which is different from the EHWIC modules. This new modules are not compatible with EHWIC, which is playing good role in other ISRs. Cisco 4000 series support up to 8 CPU core integrated UCS E-Series server modules.

Otherwise, they support Cisco Integrated Services Card (ISC) slot on motherboard. These cards support the new Cisco High-Density Packet Voice Digital Signal Processor Modules (PVDM4s), providing greater-density rich-media voice. It means we can use ISC slots to get voice communication without DSP slots.

Especially, Cisco 4000 series also run a new software, the Cisco IOS-XE Operating System, which is not available on ISR G2 routers.

Last, we can find that 4000 series save more space by delivering only 1 or 2 RU size.

Models

It’s commonly said that, Cisco 4000 series consists of 4300 and 4400 series. The Cisco 4400 and 4300 Series ISRs are very similar in design user interface. The biggest difference to most users is that the Cisco 4400 Series supports dual power supplies, whereas the Cisco 4300 Series does not; this difference makes the Cisco 4451 and 4431 the preferred choices for organizations that cannot tolerate any downtime.

They offer five models: 4321, 4331, 4351, 4431, and 4451-X.

We can compare these different models with the similar name by one table.

Models

ISR4451-X/K9

ISR4431/K9

ISR4351/K9

ISR4331/K9

ISR4321/K9

List Price

$ 18000.00

$ 11000.00

$ 8000.00

$ 3300.00

$ 1995.00

Aggregate Throughput

1 Gbps to

2 Gbps

500 Mbps to

1 Gbps

200 Mbps to

400 Mbps

100 Mbps to

300 Mbps

50 Mbps to

100 Mbps

Total onboard WAN or LAN 10/100/1000 ports

4

4

3

3

2

RJ-45-based ports

4

4

3

2

2

SFP-based ports

4

4

3

2

1

Enhanced service-module slots

2

0

2

1

0

Doublewide service-module slots

1 (assumes no singlewide SM-X modules installed)

0

1 (assumes no singlewide SM-X modules installed)

0

0

NIM slots

3

3

3

2

2

Onboard ISC slot

1

1

1

1

1

Rack Height

2 RU

1 RU

2 RU

1 RU

1 RU

Desktop


Categories: Routers