Cisco 3850 vs. 3750-X Series – Router Switch Blog

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Cisco catalyst 3850 switch, a new industry’s first fixed, stackable GE switch that Cisco released earlier this year. As we known, Cisco has a big family of catalyst switches that meet the different sizes of offices and organizations, including Cisco 2960, Cisco 3560, 3750, 4500 and 6500 switches. Cisco switch users like to compare the new Cisco 3850 with Cisco 3750 series. Which series is more suitable for your business? Here let’s have a discussion, also list some main points to know them well.

Some Questions about Cisco 3750 vs. Catalyst 3850 series

“Hi, we are in the process of replacing an order for Cisco switch and we got an upgrade offer without extra cost from 3750 V2 to 3850. Is there a technical comparison between the two models? Our big concern is about stacking, how many is supported by 3750 v2 ( I think 9) and how many for 3850 ( Is it 4)?”

“Hi all, anyone can tell some similarities and differences between the new 3850 series switches and 3750X series.”

The two above typical questions we got from the Cisco learning community, also there are many similar questions of Cisco 3750 and 3850 series comparison.

Firstly, we check main different features of Cisco 3850 and Catalyst 3750-X series.

Comparison of Catalyst 3750-X and 3850 Switches

Features	Cisco Catalyst 3750-X	Cisco Catalyst 3850
Stacking bandwidth	64 Gbps	480 Gbps
Cisco IOS Software wireless controller	No	Yes
Queues per port	4	8
Quality-of-service (QoS) model	MLS	MQC
Uplinks	4 x 1GE2 x 10GE NM4 x 1 GE or 2 x 10GE SM	4 x 1GE2 x 1/10GE4 x 1/10GE(on 48 port model)
StackPower	Yes	Yes
Flexible NetFlow support	Yes (C3KX-SM-10G required)	Yes
Multicore CPU for hosted services	No	Yes
Flash size	64 MB	2 GB
Operating system	Cisco IOS Software	Cisco IOS-XE Software

More tips of difference between Cisco 3850 and 3750X switches

1. The color of 3850 is silver and not green.

2. The Cisco 3850 series switches have the USB port in front while the 3750X series have it in the back.

3. The 3850 series switches come with 3 hot swappable fans while the 3750X come with 2.

4. Both Cisco 3850 and 3750x series support up to 2 hot swappable power supplies.

5. Cisco 3850 series uses a different data stacking cable then the 3750X (not compatible).

6. The power stacking cables are compatible between the 2 Cisco 3850 and 3750X series.

7. The uplink modules are not compatible, but with 3850 you can have up to 4 10Gig interfaces vs with the 3750X the max is 2. 1Gig uplinks are the same for both series (max 4).

8. The 3850 series switches support gig port for out of band management while the 3750X support fast Ethernet.

9. The Cisco 3850 runs IOS-XE while 3750X run IOS.

10. The 3850 series switches utilize a vrf for the out of band management interface.

11. The 3850 series come with Wireless controller while the 3750X series do not.

12. Currently, Cisco 3850s only stack up to 4 while 3750s can stack to 9. Also, 3850 stack bandwidth is 480 Gbps vs. StackWisePlus 64 Gbps.

13. The CISCO 3850’s 4x10g option is only for the 48 port models.

14. Netflow is standard with 3850 series; requires a module for the 3750-X.

15. Catalyst 3850 offers 8 egress queues and is configured with MQC while the 3750-X offers 4 egress queues and is configured with MLS.

16. Cisco 3850 offers multi-core for hosted services.

More about Cisco Catalyst 3850, Unify Wired and Wireless Networks

The Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series is the next generation of enterprise-class stackable access-layer switches that provide full convergence between wired and wireless on a single platform.

Main Cisco Catalyst 3850 Switch Models