Atom Mobo w/ integrated NICx4 inquires
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i found this Atom mobo googling around. I'm not too familiar with Atoms and was too sure if they handle under load. I'm looking for any opinions on its specs. i have attached pics
It could be to replace my current 3xNIC-PII 533-512MB rig I'm thinking if the price it right. It supports 5pcs on LAN and 7pcs on OPT1, running Squid Cache, OpenVPN Site-to-Site + Road Warrior, Captive Portal on LAN, and IP Block List packages.
I would like to run snort too but current config struggles under load.
cheers
Specifications :
. CPU : Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz
. FSB : 533 MHz
. Chipset : Intel 945GSE + ICH7M (82801GBM)
. BIOS : Award BIOS
. Graphics : Integrated with Intel 945GSE + Dynamic Video Memory Technology(DVMT 3.0)
. RAM : On board DDRII SDRAM 1 GB + 1 x DDRII SO-DIMM socket (max. 2GB) (option)
. NAND flash memory : CF Card Type II socket for ATA interface + On board SSD 2 / 4 / 8 GBytes ( option )
. SATA : Support 1 x SATA port. 2 x SATA ports ( option )
. Audio (Option) : Intel HD Audio Specification Rev. 1.0 compliant Support Line-out / Mic-in / Line-in
. LAN : 4 x Realtek RLT8111C or Intel 82574L 10/100/1000 Mbps.
. IO Function : 1 x COM2 Wafer 5pin ( TTL signal Level ) or VGA
. USB : 5 x USB 2.0 ( 2 external + 3 internal )
. WDT (Option) : Hardware Watch Dog Timer, 0~255 sec programmable
. Expansion interface: 1 x PCIe Mini card for USB interface
. Power : On board DC +12V ± 5% convert to +3.3V / +5V / +12V for system
. Dimension : 145 x 102 mm (3.5 inch)
. Operation Temp. : 0 ~ 60°C
. Operation Humidity : 5~95% @ 60°C, non-condensing
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You're replacing something very old with something modern with a clock speed about 3 times higher. In reality the Atom you're looking at is similar in performance terms to a 2.2 GHz P4.
For Snort load the thing with as much RAM as you can ;)
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I'm running pfSense on Atom, no specific issue.
CPU load rarely overcome 10% but ok, my network is not so heavily loaded (VPN, SIP, various servers).
Fact is network stuff are not soooo CPU intensive. Your computer spends time analyzing packets, probably the most complex task perform is encryption (for VPN or SSL handling), and then computing checksums. Besides of that, the task of a network analyzer (which is the biggest part of the firewall) is not really demanding.