Cisco Hardware refresh model recommendations

Cisco Hardware Refresh Jun 2025

Based on various Cisco website and other online resources

Acces switches

Old Device	New Device
2960X/2960XR	catalyst 9200
3650/3850	catalyst 9300
4500-E series	catalyst 9400
Desktop switch	catalyst 9200CX

Cisco catalyst 9200 switch characteristic:

• Lower total stacking bandwidth
• Lower switching and forwarding capacity than catalyst 9300
• Powered by IOS XE Lite OS
• Only ethernet connectivity no fiber
• No application hosting support

Catalyst 9300

• Provides both fixed and modular uplink option
• Application hosting support
• Fiber and copper connectivity options
• Stacking upto 8 switches with power stacking

Catalyst 9400

• Multiple supervisor modules
• Modular chassis design for access layer, available in 4 ,7 and 10 slot chassis with multiple supervisor modules
• Dual Chassi stacking (StackWise virtual)
• Application hosting support
• Great for long-term investment protection.

Core switches

Old Device	New Device
3850-XS /4500	Catalyst 9500 series
6840 -X /6880-X	Catalyst 9500 series
6500-E/6807-XL	Catalyst 9600 series

Features 9500

• 1RU
• High performance
• Core layer device
• 1gig to 400Gig port speed
• Not stackable

Features 9600

• For high-capacity environment like campus core
• Come with big ACL, MAC and route table scales and buffers
• Rely on a centralized architecture
• 25.4 Tbs switching capacity

Wireless Controller

Old Device	New Device
WLC 5820	WLC 9800

WLC 9800 WLC Feature

• Cisco Catalyst 9800 hardware or VM
• 100 Gb bw
• 250 to 6000 ap
• 5k to 64K client.

Branch WAN Router

Old Device	New Device
ISR 4221 and 4321	catalyst 8200L
ISR 4321 and 4331	8200 Series
ISR 4351, 4431, 4451	8300 Series

WAN aggregation Router

Old Device	New Device
ASR 1000	Catalyst 8500

Catalyst 8500 and 8500L series switches

• 1RU or 3RU
• Fixed configuration, no expansion model
• This router focused on high performance and bandwidth compared to 8200 and 8300

Virtual Router

Old Device	New Device
CSR 1000v, ENCS 5100 Series	Catalyst 8000V