What is switch capacity?
Similarly, it is asked, what is switch fabric capacity?
Switch Fabric Capacity: It usually means the maximum rate the hardware can move information between cards/ports. The Switch Fabric Capacity is listed in bits per second (bps) and is usually double what it really does since the vendors count full duplex.
Considering this, what is a switch forwarding rate?
So a "forwarding rate", is the count of how many packets you can examine, per second, as they transit your switch (toll gate analogy). It's bandwidth is 160 Gbps, the forwarding rate is 65.5 Mpps. It means that the smallest packet size can be ~320 B (160 Gbps / 65.5 Mpps) to utilize the maximum available bandwidth.
I'm no expert, but it seems like the term "Switching bandwidth" refers to the amount of data that can be pumped through the switching plane, and that "Forwarding Bandwidth" actually refers to the amount of data that can be forwarded out interfaces. These numbers are probably based on optimal conditions.