Well. You need Tomato firmware just because its your preference i assume. Second, you need a cheap router. The TD-W8960N is a 300Mbps ADSL2+ modem/gateway/router and the SoC BCM6358 Viper CPU is designed for ADSL modulation and is like 65$ retail on eBay. You didn't mention where you are from and what kind of bandwidth do you have (to recommend a suitable budget router for you). You don't have to worry about Flash size as 4Mbit flash is enough to accommodate STD (standard) / VPN builds of Tomato. Unless you are looking for a router that has a USB 2.0 port on it for things like BitTorrent client, printer, extRoot, etc. Then again, you didn't mention your budget. Don't be impressed by Linksys high priced routers these days :) The older models are still kick-ass and sometimes even better!
Assuming you are from American region, you can grab a Linksys E2000 for under 30$ on ebay. Specs are:
CPU: BCM4717 rev 2 (MIPS 74Kc) 354Mhz RAM:32MiB Flash: 8MiB
And if you require USB support and more RAM/Flash then Linksys E3000 is the best bet. Specs are:
CPU: BCM4718@480MHz RAM: 64MiB Flash:8MiB
I see them on sale as low as 39.99 Dollars.
Still cheaper than the popular TP-Link 1043ND with a 400Mhz Atheros, 32Mb RAM and 8Mb flash. So if you take my advise, go for either E2000 (if no USB needed) or the E3000.
If you are on an internet line below 40Mbps then i strongly recommend a WRT54G-TM (32M/8M RAM/Flash), WRT54GL (16M/4M RAM/Flash) which are Tomato's best friend and rock stable with a slight over clock of 225Mhz even. Well, its not exactly an over clock as the SoC was designed to handle 264Mhz anyway. Provided that you don't have multiple users streaming HD vidoes. QoS needs help from a faster CPU thats why a slight speed increase helps with better connection handling. Always keep wired and wireless throughput separate when thinking about picking a wireless router. A WRT54G-TM/GL can do up to 40Mbps on wired and 15+Mbps on wireless normally on its stock 200Mhz clock and few Megabits higher with 225Mhz clock. You can grab one of these for like 10-15 $ on eBay.
In case you decide to buy an E2000 or an E3000 then grab Shibby firmware from:
http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26/build5x-115-EN/
After all, Linksys fabrication / quality assurance is better than TP-Link's . Tp-Link doesn't even bother adding an aluminium heatsink on a 400Mhz CPU which gets really really hot under normal use. I have used DDWRT on Tplink 1043ND which was not so stable even after adding a heatsink so I switched over to OpenWRT for that model and it never had any hiccups after that. I hope this information helps in your quest for picking a budget Tomato firmware capable router.
Have a great day!
