What hardware should I use from a 350 Mbps Fiber Optical Symmetrical Internet connection

[CristianEstrada15]

Hi guys

Greetings from Mexico, I'm moving to a new house that I recently buy, and I was looking that my actual ISP has Fiber Optic in my neighborhood, but the maximum speed is 350 Mbps Down and 350 Mbps Up, so I was looking to make my own pfSense Instance, I was looking in a Motherboard that has soldered an Intel Celeron J4125, also take a look to another motherboard that has Intel Pentium J5040, but I don't know is that would be ok, my main usage will be streaming Spotify, Youtube, Netflix and maybe Gaming Online, also I like to use NoIP for connecting to RDP to my main computer, and that's it, also can you recommend what PCIe Network Card should I use for this intance.

Sorry for my English

[patient0]

@CristianEstrada15 do you connect to the Fiber Optic network by PPPoE or without (you may have to askk the ISP)? Without PPPoE and if you only run pfSense on this computer, you are going to be fine with either of them. With PPPoE it is maybe not enough.

I did have a VDSL 400/90 (Down/Up) with PPPoE and that was running on my slower J3455 ok. PPPoE puts more work on one of the CPU cores.

CPU score

• J3455 : 2247
• J4125 : 2947
• J5040: 3265

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/3667vs3665vs2875/Intel-Celeron-J4125-vs-Intel-Pentium-Silver-J5040-vs-Intel-Celeron-J3455

maybe Gaming Online

If you do low latency gaming you would setup traffic shaping in pfSense (https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/trafficshaper/index.html). The other things you have listed will not be an issue.

recommend what PCIe Network Card

Does the motherboard have any network ports?

Generally for pfSense/FreeBSD based OS', avoid RealTek network cards. Buy an (any, even older or used ones) Intel based, two port network card and you are going to be fine.

E.g. an Intel 82576 (older chip, 1Gbit) based one like https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-Gigabit-Ethernet-Converged-Network/dp/B01LXTF48X

or an Intel i350 based (a bit newer, 1Gbit) https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-Gigabit-Ethernet-Converged-Network/dp/B07B4RL9QJ

or a faster, more expensive Intel i226 (new, 2.5Gbit) https://www.amazon.com/PCIe-Ethernet-Network-Compatible-2500Mbps/dp/B0CZ94FWV6

As an alternative you could go for a small fanless mini PC with mininum of 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD and a similar CPU, like

https://www.amazon.com/HKUXZR-Firewall-Appliance-Fanless-Barebone/dp/B0DPVJ2XQ3
or
https://www.amazon.com/HKUXZR-Firewall-Appliance-Fanless-Barebone/dp/B0DPV3YBH4

Above links to Amazon are only examples, I have not bought any of them.

[CristianEstrada15]

@patient0 Thank you so much for the information, my Internet conection will use PPoE, also I was looking to build a PC with Intel Core i3-10105F, and 16 GB of RAM, and a Nvme SSD, or an AMD Ryzen 3 4th Gen, 5th Gen or AMD Ryzen 5 4th Gen, 5th Generation, but I don't know how well will run pfSense in a AMD Ryzen based System, what of those CPU's and Platforms do you think that i should use

[keyser]

@CristianEstrada15 If PPPoE is part of the connection you should know that the reason this is an issue is because PPPoE is not multithreaded in pfSense (Able to use multiple CPU cores). So essentially you should focus on getting a CPU with as high a boost frequency as possible - so you get the fastest possible single core performance.
You have no need for more than at the very most 4 cores, but two is enough if they are running a very high clock.

CPU generations and core design versions matters ALOT here, so take a look at single Core CPU benchmarks. Get the fastest Intel one you can find.

[Gertjan]

@CristianEstrada15 said in What hardware should I use from a 350 Mbps Fiber Optical Symmetrical Internet connection:

also I was looking to build a PC with Intel Core i3-10105F, and 16 GB of RAM, and a Nvme SSD, or an AMD Ryzen 3 4th Gen, 5th Gen or AMD Ryzen 5 4th Gen, 5th Generation,

Humm, your forgot about the GPU

Wait .... pfSense isn't a game device.
The processor you've mentioned, even my xx times smaller :
login-to-view

can paddle through several Gbits/sec over multiple NICs with easy at ab fraction of the electricity consumption.
What you forgot : get good NICs, as pfSense is a router, not a 4K game platform : get Intel NIC, and disable in de BIOS the mother board realtek crap NIC you find on the motherboard ! Do that and you'll never know what misery you just missed ^^

[patient0]

@CristianEstrada15 as @keyser correctly pointed out you want a CPU with a strong single core performance.

The options you mentioned - Intel i3-10105F and AMD Ryzen 3 - are I think overkill if you only let pfSense run. And they use way too much energy, a TDP of 65W for the i3-10105F.

A sensible option IMHO would be a Intel N100 based system or with something like an AMD Ryzen 3 3350U. The TDP of N100 is 6W and the 3350U 15W. The single cpu performance of the two is similar.

[stephenw10]

350Mbps single core throughput is relatively easy to achieve. Any C3K CPU will pass that for example.

I would avoid an N100 system. There are several threads here with users trying to get those tuned correctly. It seems many are supplied with default thermal/power values that are very restrictive. In FreeBSD/pfSense at least.

[patient0]

@stephenw10 You are right Stephen, I forgot about the issues with N100.