I7-13700 Thermal Sensors widget

Unoptanio

With pfsense the CPU load is always at 0%, 1% no more for the moment.

Yes, temperatures are low.

The same machine with Windows 11 in idle recorded around 35/40°C but perhaps the CPU load is greater

stephenw10

Hmm, interesting. Windows is often better at using the CPU power saving features. I guess not the case here.

tman222

Just to add another data point here, one system I run pfSense on has an Intel i3-10100 CPU (65W TDP, like the OP's CPU), which shows similar temps when lightly loaded (approx. upper 20's degrees C).

Unoptanio

@tman222
Hello,

the only way to try to make the cpu work a little harder was to use an openvpn connection. I saw that the maximum is 3%. Probably with multiple simultaneous openvpn connections the percentage of CPU load increases further. I had read that if you use many simultaneous OpenVPN connections you need to choose more powerful CPUs, for this reason I put an Intel I7-13700 (it is still oversized).

Do you know if there is a stress test inside pfsense to test the system?

Before installing pfsense on this new machine I installed Windows 11 and did stress tests with AIDA64 to see if it was stable. I also updated the motherboard firmware to the latest version.

My motherboard is:
https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/IMB-X1314
Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314 Micro ATX Motherboard with 32Gb Ram ECC Unbuffered
with n.3 integrated Intel-i225 LM and n.1 card Intel I350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN PCi Ex 2.0 4x

My rack case 2U is this:
https://www.multicase.de/en/products/17/ipcc236.html

My CPU Cooler for case 2U: Q5 Dynatron MAXIMUM POWER 185 W
https://www.dynatron.co/product-page/q5

N.2 Samsung 870 EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB in Raid1 ZFS

Standard Power supply: Asus ROG STRIX 750W Gold (16-pin cable)
https://rog.asus.com/power-supply-units/rog-strix/rog-strix-750g/

Unoptanio

@stephenw10

For my configuration which of these two settings is best to use?
I've always had this doubt

I still don't understand why pfsense detects 24 CPUs? Could it be a widget error?
Actually it should be 16 CPUs

fireodo

@Unoptanio said in I7-13700 Thermal Sensors widget:

For my configuration which of these two settings is best to use?
I've always had this doubt

The first one (AES-NI CPU-based Acceleration)
(the second one in your highlight needs a extra electronic component that handles Crypto)

I still don't understand why pfsense detects 24 CPUs? Could it be a widget error?

Do you have Hyperthreading enabled in BIOS?

Unoptanio

@fireodo

hyperthreading should be active, I don't remember having it disabled, I'll check

fireodo

@Unoptanio said in I7-13700 Thermal Sensors widget:

hyperthreading should be active, I don't remember having it disabled, I'll check

You should disable it (its quiet useless on a firewall). Then it should be only 16 CPUs.

stephenw10

Half of the cores (the performance cores preseumbly) support hyperthreading so it appears as 8+8 performance cores and 8 efficient cores. 24 cores total.

Unoptanio

@fireodo

Okay. I confirm.
As you said, by deactivating hyperthreading in the BIOS, the cores detected by the widget are now 16

What do you recommend?
Do I leave hyperthreading on or off?

stephenw10

With a CPU that powerful I doubt you'll see any difference!

fireodo

@Unoptanio said in I7-13700 Thermal Sensors widget:

What do you recommend?
Do I leave hyperthreading on or off?

The general consensus is to leave it off - a Firewall takes no profit from Hyperthreading.
And as Steven said, the CPU is in your system for sure not the bottleneck ;-)

Unoptanio

@fireodo

OK

The CPU temperature detected inside the BIOS (32°C) is a little higher than that detected by the pfsense widget

fireodo

@Unoptanio

Its a big Machine