Is this better?

lynx

my current hardware set up for my pfSense is

Pentium4 CPU
4G RAM DDR2
160G HDD SATA
2 pcs intel Pro 100+ NIC

currently serving: Radius(server2008r2) for captive portal + squid and squidguard ….. 250++ client PCs....

I like to replace my box with

Intel i3 CPU
4G RAM DDR3
160/250G HDD SATA

1pc IntelPro 100+ NIC (WAN)
+
onboard Intel 82579V gigabit NIC (LAN)

is this a good idea? is this a better hardware for my pfSense box?

thank you

stephenw10

Better in what way? It's a far more powerful machine and probably uses far less electricity.

Steve

lynx

@stephenw10:

Better in what way? It's a far more powerful machine and probably uses far less electricity.

Steve

better in terms of network performance . . . throughput … overall.. .

stephenw10

Well an i3, any i3, is a much faster CPU than a Pentium4. The Netburst architecture in the P4 was notoriously power hungry so the i3 is almost certainly going to use far less power and run cooler even while moving far more packets.
That said if you have one 10/100 and one Gigabit NIC then you can only ever pass 100Mbps of traffic (assuming no VLANs) and the P4 should easily manage that. You probably won't see 100Mbps of VPN traffic though if you need that. So although a new i3 system would be far faster you may not see any improvement due to other restrictions.

Steve