Best CPU speed for 60mbits WAN cable ISP

francisuk22 · May 16, 2012, 2:04 PM

Hi all.

What is the best CPU for 60 Mbits connection? My girlfriends laptop would be wireless and the reset would be PS3, My PC, Sky+ Box for Anytime+ with Ethernet connections.

The sky box would be downloading midnight 00:00am to 08:00 as the TV program in HD / Movies HD are about 2GB in size (Unless recommend via QoS)
Laptop would be browsing all day (If my girlfriend isn't on her Wii)
My PC would be about 6PM - 11PM from when i get home from work
PS3 with like Netfix/ilovefilm would be sometimes weekend
Wii (never hardly used over WiFi but it still connects)
Spare PC is for FRN (Free Radio Network used for PMR446/462, CB) This can very sometimes is busy some days it can be quite

LAN: 192.168.5.1/24 - 10/100 Nic
WAN: Public IP from Virgin Media / ISP

Thankyou all :)

Edit:
Would a intel celeron 1.7 ghz with 384 ram would do the job nicely? And would that support for web caching transparent for squid?

stephenw10 · May 16, 2012, 7:30 PM

An old school Celeron?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Celeron_microprocessors#Netburst_based_Celerons

It will handle 60Mbits NAT/firewall no problem. I'm unsure about Squid.
I'm running a 1.8 P4-M underclocked to 1.2GHz and it can forward 200Mbps+ without Squid. It's probably similar performance.

However that old beast is not power efficient. At all! You could probably make back the money from your electricity bill in less than a year by buying an Atom based board.

Steve

francisuk22 · May 17, 2012, 11:06 AM

@stephenw10:

I'm running a 1.8 P4-M underclocked to 1.2GHz and it can forward 200Mbps+

Nice! Is interesting to know for 120Mbps Down and 10Mbps Up :P ::) What % of RAM you using?

stephenw10 · May 17, 2012, 2:12 PM

Shows around 20% of 512MB on the dashboard. Ram usage is not high though unless you are running packages, I'm not at least not any that use ram.
If you are running Squid more ram helps, if you are running Snort you want as much as possible.

Consider that the older Alix boxes have 128MB ram and a 500MHz CPU and can firewall/NAT at 85Mbps. They do also use less than 5W!

Steve

francisuk22 · May 17, 2012, 10:15 PM

@stephenw10:

Shows around 20% of 512MB on the dashboard. Ram usage is not high though unless you are running packages, I'm not at least not any that use ram.
If you are running Squid more ram helps, if you are running Snort you want as much as possible.

Consider that the older Alix boxes have 128MB ram and a 500MHz CPU and can firewall/NAT at 85Mbps. They do also use less than 5W!

Steve

Excellent info

Thanks again Ste!

starshooter10 · May 18, 2012, 9:27 PM

I run a low power 1GHZ VIA cpu from 04? with 512 ram… I've never been able to get it to really work.

Im running IDS+IPS+QOS+squid and a few other logs...

50 down and 10 up.

2 desktops nonstop working (i work from home) as well as a half dozen servers heavy on VOIP and web...

asterix · May 24, 2012, 1:23 AM

Just get a simple mini-ITX mobo with i3 processor and 4GB RAM in case you want to install heavy packages like snort which consume significant processor power and especially RAM.

Cry Havok · May 24, 2012, 5:10 PM

According to the official guidance you're looking for anything 1 GHz and up.

ipv6kid · Jun 14, 2012, 5:04 AM

I would recommend an Intel Core2Duo to allow for future expansion. Install as much RAM as the computer your using will allow, within reason. 2-4 GB is a good amount of RAM.

rcfa · Jun 17, 2012, 10:54 AM

I have one of these, and couldn't be happier:

http://www.lannerinc.com/x86_Network_Appliances/x86_Desktop_Appliances/FW-7535

I got this sub-model: FW-7535F: Pineview D-510 CPU 1.6GHz; w/ 1 x SO-DIMM slot, 1 pair bypass, fanless

Saturating a 20Mbit/s link doing 256bit AES IPSec barely registers on the CPU scale…

I put 4GB RAM in the box, and recently replaced the CF card with a 60GB SSD from intel, which I got for $60 at NewEgg.
The thing is now fast, and doesn't have any moving parts, since it's passively cooled, too.