So I got a little carried away…
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I just installed my new pfsense hardware.
I am running:
1000w power supply
16GB PC4-2400 DDR4 RAM
Gigabyte AORUS GA-Z270X-GAMING 5 Motherboard
Intel Core i7 7700 4.5ghz / 8MB / Quad Core CPU
Intel EXPI9402PT PRO 1000 PT Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
Samsung 1TB SSD 850 EVO Series HD
Corsair Carbide 400Q V2 Black Mid-Tower ATX CaseThe motherboard has 2 x NIC's, plus the Dual Port card bringing it to four NIC's. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the motherboard NIC's working yet.
My internet connection is 100mbit down / 2.4mbit up.
I think I might have slightly over spec'd my firewall.
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Waste of Money more like!!
Specially for the Bandwidth your pushing, mine is close to the same with 5% the price/Specs as your rig and using OpenVPN at 20/30% Load
AMD A4-5000 APU Built onto an Asrock ITX Motherboard
4 GB of RAM
80GB SATA Hard Drive.Built into a 1U Case.
Total Cost: 150 Quid.
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Bought support, they got my NIC working. One of them is a "killer" NIC which is actually QUALCOMM, and that is unsupported, so bad luck for me on that one.
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Waste of Money more like!!
Specially for the Bandwidth your pushing, mine is close to the same with 5% the price/Specs as your rig and using OpenVPN at 20/30% Load
AMD A4-5000 APU Built onto an Asrock ITX Motherboard
4 GB of RAM
80GB SATA Hard Drive.Built into a 1U Case.
Total Cost: 150 Quid.
I'll be going to gigabit at some port and besides, its fun :)
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The Spendage makes sense then! :)
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Which games are you gonna play on that device? Surely not "Mario Packet Pushing".
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My internet connection is 100mbit down / 2.4mbit up.
For that Internet connection a APU2C4, SG-1000 or SG-2440 will be more then sufficient.
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Wow that is a dumb build. Even for gigabit that build is awful.
All that nice shit and you got 12 year old NICs?! Not that there's anything wrong with a PRO/1000, but if you are going to spend extra money, maybe spring for a $40 i340-t4 instead of gaming CPU, silly motherboard, top -tier SSDs that you can't tell the difference from a bargain SSD on pfSense and a 1000W PSU!? Your system will probably pull something like maybe 60W running pfSense with just about every package enabled. So a 1000W is going to be horribly inefficient. If you wanted to throw your money away you could at least have purchased redundant power supplies, or a true-sine wave UPS… something that could in some scenario actually help your performance instead of hurting it.
Also, 7700 isn't 4.5GHz, it's 3.6. Which is funny because an i3-7350K is 4.2GHz for like half the price :o.
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Wow that is a dumb build. Even for gigabit that build is awful.
All that nice shit and you got 12 year old NICs?! Not that there's anything wrong with a PRO/1000, but if you are going to spend extra money, maybe spring for a $40 i340-t4 instead of gaming CPU, silly motherboard, top -tier SSDs that you can't tell the difference from a bargain SSD on pfSense and a 1000W PSU!? Your system will probably pull something like maybe 60W running pfSense with just about every package enabled. So a 1000W is going to be horribly inefficient. If you wanted to throw your money away you could at least have purchased redundant power supplies, or a true-sine wave UPS… something that could in some scenario actually help your performance instead of hurting it.
Also, 7700 isn't 4.5GHz, it's 3.6. Which is funny because an i3-7350K is 4.2GHz for like half the price :o.
Lol - each to their own I guess.
1000w = no fan due to massively overspec'd and drawing little power = dead quiet
I have ordered an i340-t4 as well to add to the system
That SSD is standard in every build I put together - I know it well and it works perfectly
CPU is awesome for what I wantFor you, it might be a dumb build, for me, it brings me satisfaction.
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Hi Larikin,
You are right, i love my build, and so should you.
I know the people here post a little harsh, but they want the best outcome for you! :)
Thanks
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I'm using a 6 core xeon, no complaints here.
7700k is 4.2ghz - I know because I de-lidded one and use it in my VR rig.
I would recommend de-lidding it, you'll shave off up to 30 degrees Celsius.
Im actually about to retire the xeon and use a skylake I have laying around.
I think Kaby Lake is a great chip for this. The speed shift stuff will keep cpu/watt low and only ramp up as needed with much less latency between the cpu freq changes. It is a very welcome addition to processor tech IMO.
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What you could possible be doing on your firewall that you would need a 1TB SSD? That is 250$ just wasted, the 250GB would of been overkill ;)
How much did that build cost? Prob could of gotten a SG-4680 for half of that..
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LOL - willy waving on the pfsense hardware forum! Isn't this something normally on the gamers forums?
What benchmarks are you getting hahahaha !!!!11111
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LOL - willy waving on the pfsense hardware forum! Isn't this something normally on the gamers forums?
What benchmarks are you getting hahahaha !!!!11111
Willy waving here would be someone getting it to run on a TI-83 graphing calculator. ;D
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@W4RH3AD yeah ;D
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What you could possible be doing on your firewall that you would need a 1TB SSD? That is 250$ just wasted, the 250GB would of been overkill ;)
How much did that build cost? Prob could of gotten a SG-4680 for half of that..
I got the larger sized hard drive so I have the options to store large log files.
In terms of cost, it was around AUD$2.1k. When I compare that against os the SG-4860, it is just under US$1k. Convert that into AUD, and then our import duties plus tax, it comes up just short of AUD $2k. On that basis, I felt it better to spend the same amount of money and see what I could get :)
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If your build makes you happy that fine. But there's no arguing that it is extremely inefficient and wasteful. It is by no standard a good build. Your component selection was poor, and just didn't make any sense for a firewall.
You could have built a MUCH better pfSense system for ~$1500USD.
All you did was build a gaming computer sans GPU and installed pfSense on it. Obviously it will do everything you could possibly want and more, but you threw a lot of money into silly components when you could have spent that same $ on things that would have had some tangible benefit for a firewall/router.
Spending way more than necessary on a system is all dealers choice, if you want to spend your money that way then have at it. It's your money after all.
You just spent your money on the wrong stuff. -
Obviously it will do everything you could possibly want and more, but you threw a lot of money into silly components when you could have spent that same $ on things that would have had some tangible benefit for a firewall/router.
I bought what was in stock at the time. Out of interest, what could have I changed / added to get further benefit for a firewall/router? Note that I've ordered a 4 port NIC card.
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1000w power supply
This is absurd, and the "no-fan" argument is silly, they make fanless PSU's. If you really want to spend the money then get redundant PSU's, or a true-sine wave UPS. These really aren't necessary for a home build in most parts of the world though. Assuming you didn't buy a bargain bin PSU (which would be a bad idea) you probably paid a pretty penny for this and could have purchased a fanless PSU that would have been more efficient than a 1000W PSU for equal or less than this.
16GB PC4-2400 DDR4 RAM
You'll have to try hard to use 16GB of RAM in a home use system. Even if you could, you almost certainly will never have any sort of perceptible difference in performance from using the latest and greatest DDR4-2400. You would have been better served by saving money and getting slower clocked DDR4.
Gigabyte AORUS GA-Z270X-GAMING 5 Motherboard
~$200USD for a Full size ATX gaming motherboard for a router? This board only has one good built in NIC, and you're paying a lot of money for senseless features like LED lights, pretty heatsinks and "high-end" audio chipsets (things you never sue on a firewall/router). Supermicro has LGA 1151 offerings in the same price range. There are plenty of other pro-sumer boards not aimed at gaming that would have been far better picks for a firewall/router.
Intel Core i7 7700 4.5ghz / 8MB / Quad Core CPU
7700 is only 3.6 GHz https://ark.intel.com/products/97128/Intel-Core-i7-7700-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz
Even if you did go and get the K series @ 4.2GHz that's getting all of the media attention for overheating, you would ahve probably been better off matching the CPU to your intended use case. Even at gigabit speeds, you very likely would have never hit the limits of an i3-7350K @ 4.2 GHz (remember, this is a router [for home use]).Intel EXPI9402PT PRO 1000 PT Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
This is what is crazy to me, out of all the overkill in your rig one of the most important components is where you chose to skimp!? This is actually a totally fine choice for your slow connection and would have worked great at gigabit speeds. But you threw hundreds of dollars at effectively nothing then got a NIC over a decade old…
Samsung 1TB SSD 850 EVO Series HD
1TB of home router logs, really? No, you won't even get remotely close to using this. And an 850 EVO for a home router? You are only going to see tangible performance increases from using this prosumer SSD during bootup, which you should only be doing on very rare occasion anyways. Even then, the difference will be measured in single digit seconds…
Corsair Carbide 400Q V2 Black Mid-Tower ATX Case
You have a full-ATX router/firewall, and you paid more to get this… Why?
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I bought what was in stock at the time. Out of interest, what could have I changed / added to get further benefit for a firewall/router?
Yawarra APU2C4 & 30 GB mSATA & Compex WLE200NX plus antennas for ~AUD$790.00 + shipping
pfSense appliances in australiaNote that I've ordered a 4 port NIC card.
Ok, this might be then not the best option to go with the APU2C4, but at ByteFoundry you should be able to get a
1U appliance that allows you to add a PCIe NIC. But I would be asking at first which PCIe slot that appliance is offering.
