Gigabit Hardware
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I have a Cox GigaBlast 1000/1000 fiber line at home. I just want simple router functionality. No VPN. I am considering one of the following:
- AsRock J3455 (4 cores at 1.5Ghz - Q3'16) - Currently $74.99 on Amazon and NewEgg.
- AsRock J3355 (2 cores at 2.5Ghz - Q3'16) - Currently $54.99 on NewEgg.
I would also use an Intel dual NIC in the PCI-E slot. I already have all the other parts I need for this build.
Would these processors be sufficient for gigabit? Which would be better regarding cores vs clock speed?
Thanks. -
For just NAT and routing, yes they will both work very well for gigabit.
The better CPU in your described scenario is the cheaper one.
If in the future you want to repurpose it or use additional features/packages of pfSense:
J3355 is better for snort/OpenVPN simply because they are both single threaded applications
J3455 is better for suricata/anything else that utilizes multithreading.Looking beyond the CPU, I don't know if there is a mini-ITX J3455B with a PCIe slot that is x4 size. Check that first.
The J3355B is mini-ITX and will fit a NIC out of the box.
IMO, get the J3355B. It's cheaper, smaller, will work out of the box and do what you need!
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I switched the prices. The 3355 is $54.99 and the 3455 is $74.99. You are right about the 3455 only having PCI-E x1. I will go with the 3355 since that has PCI-E x16. The dual port Intel NICs are all PCI-E x4.
I previously had a J1900, but when I upgraded to 1000/1000, the PCI bus could not handle the bandwidth of the connection.
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Both of those board are PVIe v2.0, x1 speeds will be able to handle up to 4Gbps full duplex. So as long as you can fit the card in there you won't have any bandwidth issues with these!