Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?
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Hello
Im trying to replace my ISP's router with a pfSense. This uses a PPPoE connection if that makes any difference.
I want to know if it can handle my symmetric 1Gb download/upload fiber connection. My current virtualized solution seems it cannot handle it.
At max, there are 3 users. Obviously multiple devices.
The only additional feature I use is OpenVPN but that is only used by me (one user)
Im looking at two hardware configuration which both probably look familiar:
Product one, hardware:
Intel Celeron J6412 Quad Core at 2 GHz (Burst up to 2.6 GHz)
32GB RAM
Quad Intel 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet NIC ports
pfSense installed on a m.2 SATA SSDProduct two, virtualized:
Two Intel Xeon E5-2630L V3 at 1.80GHz (Burst up to 2.90GHz)
RAM up to 128GB
Dell X550-T4 Quad Port 10GbE and Intel I340-T4 Quad Port 1Gbps
pfSense installed on a RAID1 SATA SSDSo can it handle it?
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@riahc8 To my knowledge PPPoE handling is singlethreaded in pfSense, so the only thing that matters is the effectiveness and clockspeed of the single CPU core that handles that.
To that end your option two is likely not capable of handling your needs. Option 1 might be as that is more a more modern and higher clocked CPU (even thought it’s only a Atom core).
So to answer your question you probably need to search for posts from people that succesfully can do 1Gbe PPPoE, and see what kind of single core performance numbers they have (based on CPU model). Then you can compare it with your suggested CPUs
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@keyser This is the only thing that popped up
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/109768/hardware-recommandation-for-1gbe-over-pppoe
Let me take a look
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Also, in that case, would it be better to build a custom PC and stick a Intel NIC?
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@riahc8 said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@keyser This is the only thing that popped up
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/109768/hardware-recommandation-for-1gbe-over-pppoe
Let me take a look
Yeah, that suggests you need quite a lot more powerfull CPU core than the elkhart based celeron 6xxx series.
I would see if I could find a OEM miniPC build based on a 13 or i5 based 11th gen mobile Intel processor. They can be had fairly cheaply, but the cores are very efficient, and while the base clock is around 2 Ghz, they turbo easily to around 4Ghz which is exactly what you need for workloads that hits 1Gbe once in a while in small bursts.
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@keyser said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@riahc8 said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@keyser This is the only thing that popped up
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/109768/hardware-recommandation-for-1gbe-over-pppoe
Let me take a look
Yeah, that suggests you need quite a lot more powerfull CPU core than the elkhart based celeron 6xxx series.
I would see if I could find a OEM miniPC build based on a 13 or i5 based 11th gen mobile Intel processor. They can be had fairly cheaply, but the cores are very efficient, and while the base clock is around 2 Ghz, they turbo easily to around 4Ghz which is exactly what you need for workloads that hits 1Gbe once in a while in small bursts.
Yup, thats exactly what I was looking at.
Base clock at 2 Ghz should be enough then?
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@riahc8 Yeah that should be fine, but you need to make sure it turbo's to somewhere around 4Ghz. You need that turbo speed to handle downloads @ wirespeed.
Also - you should be aware that the turbo speed is not sustainable in prolonged durations (probably >30s ) because of heat generation, so you might experience a slight scaleback in bandwidth if you are doing a sustained wirespeed download.
But it's hard to predict how much of an impact this will have.
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@keyser said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@riahc8 Yeah that should be fine, but you need to make sure it turbo's to somewhere around 4Ghz. You need that turbo speed to handle downloads @ wirespeed.
Also - you should be aware that the turbo speed is not sustainable in prolonged durations (probably >30s ) because of heat generation, so you might experience a slight scaleback in bandwidth if you are doing a sustained wirespeed download.
But it's hard to predict how much of an impact this will have.
The thing is the J6412 is only 2 and burst up to 2.6 ..... But it has 2.5 NICs
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I have tested the C3558 passing 1Gbps over PPPoE but only locally.
There are multiple threads here showing, for example, the J1900 is not capable of passing 1Gbps over PPPoE.
Both of those are unidirectional though.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/3129vs2131vs4474/Intel-Atom-C3558-vs-Intel-Celeron-J1900-vs-Intel-Celeron-J6412
Steve
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@riahc8 said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@keyser said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@riahc8 Yeah that should be fine, but you need to make sure it turbo's to somewhere around 4Ghz. You need that turbo speed to handle downloads @ wirespeed.
Also - you should be aware that the turbo speed is not sustainable in prolonged durations (probably >30s ) because of heat generation, so you might experience a slight scaleback in bandwidth if you are doing a sustained wirespeed download.
But it's hard to predict how much of an impact this will have.
The thing is the J6412 is only 2 and burst up to 2.6 ..... But it has 2.5 NICs
Well taking steve’s post above into account, the J6412 should be more than enough. Its quite a lot faster than the C3558 which he could reach 1Gbe PPPoE with. So the J6412 would be a great choice as that uses very little power.
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@keyser said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@riahc8 said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@keyser said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
@riahc8 Yeah that should be fine, but you need to make sure it turbo's to somewhere around 4Ghz. You need that turbo speed to handle downloads @ wirespeed.
Also - you should be aware that the turbo speed is not sustainable in prolonged durations (probably >30s ) because of heat generation, so you might experience a slight scaleback in bandwidth if you are doing a sustained wirespeed download.
But it's hard to predict how much of an impact this will have.
The thing is the J6412 is only 2 and burst up to 2.6 ..... But it has 2.5 NICs
Well taking steve’s post above into account, the J6412 should be more than enough. Its quite a lot faster than the C3558 which he could reach 1Gbe PPPoE with. So the J6412 would be a great choice as that uses very little power.
Since Im making a investment, it would be nice to invest just in ONE device....
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/3129vs2131vs4474vs2588/Intel-Atom-C3558-vs-Intel-Celeron-J1900-vs-Intel-Celeron-J6412-vs-Intel-Xeon-E5-2650L-v3
The Intel Xeon E5-2650L v3 can run up to 2.5 Ghz ... I could enable Turbo Boost always on and that would be enough, correct?
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@riahc8 It would seem so - just be aware that virtualization adds overhead - especially when it comes to interrupt handling from NICs.
So even though the processing power is present, there could be a virtualization latency penalty that prevents you from exploiting it.
But as far as I remember, the v3 series of XEONs has the needed nested hardware virtualization tables to avoid the massive penalty of interrupt handling that older hardware can suffer. -
That Xeon is really a completely different class of CPU. Both in terms of processing power and power consumption. The hardware cost would need to be a lot less to justify it for me. Or your VM requirements sufficiently high.
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@stephenw10 yeah, I live in Denmark and the powercost for that server would likely be comparable to the intire system cost of the atom based system - every year
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Yup, same in the UK. I have some boxes like that and only ever power them up for specific tests.
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@stephenw10 said in Is this enough to run a symmetric 1Gb download/upload connection?:
That Xeon is really a completely different class of CPU. Both in terms of processing power and power consumption. The hardware cost would need to be a lot less to justify it for me. Or your VM requirements sufficiently high.
...It obviously will not be dedicated to only pfSense
I actually mention it will be a VM on the Xeon
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Right. If you have a virtual environment requirement that justifies larger hardware like that then it's an easy choice.
