Trying to find an embedded motherboard

Streat · Apr 5, 2015, 3:05 AM

I am having a bit of difficulty and I am hoping for some recommendations. I am looking for an embedded solution from either AMD or Intel that supports AES-NI (I do a good deal of VPN work) with more than a single PCI slot. I was looking into AMD A4-5000 but could not find a board with more than a single slot, and the Atom solutions did not support AES-NI. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thank you for your time and assistance

Apr 5, 2015, 6:47 AM

Hello Streat,

I am having a bit of difficulty and I am hoping for some recommendations. I am looking for an embedded solution from either AMD or Intel that supports AES-NI (I do a good deal of VPN work) with more than a single PCI slot.

If this is not a typo (PCI instead of PCIe) ot would be coming rare to suggest something right
that is matching all of your needs.

Soekris net5501 comes

with two PCI slots
19" rack mount case
Support for pfSense
PCI or miniPCI vpn accelerator cards

But this appliance is pretty old and not so sufficient as todays appliances are offering.
For sure by using the vpn1411 miniPCI card you get what you are watching for but please
have also a look on the price range you where then in side!

AMD or Intel that supports AES-NI (I do a good deal of VPN work) with more than a single PCI slot.

Go with a Supermicro with Intel Atom C2758 (Rangeley) gives you many more benefits
as you would think at first and if the PCI was a typo and should be a PCIe

A1SRM-2758F

8 Cores 2.4 GHz
1 PCIe x8 .20
1 PCIe x4 2.0
3 GB LAN Ports
up to 64 GB ECC RAM
AES-NI and intel QuickAssist

Together with a compression card it should fit your needs.

But please be careful the dimensions of the board are 9.6" x 7.5" and for that the revision M
cases are needed to fit correctly.

I was looking into AMD A4-5000 but could not find a board with more than a single slot,

Perhaps you could go by a Riser card to gain more PCI slots?
Have a look at Supermicro they are offering also those Riser cards for their mainboards.

and the Atom solutions did not support AES-NI.

There are two version they are supporting AES-NI!

The "Avoton" platform more for small servers
The "Rangeley" platform more for small security appliances
Here is a test from the "serve the home" website comparing them against.
Intel Atom C2758 Benchmarks – 8 core Rangeley tested

At last if you are not able to get your hands on a device with two PCI slots and a AES-NI
enabled CPU, I would quite have a look on an Intel E3-12xx CPU based mainboard, the older
ones are holding some PCI slots and the E3 is also a really powerful CPU with AES-NI support.
Ok not so low power consuming.

Streat · Apr 6, 2015, 4:04 PM

Thank you for taking the time to help. You are correct, I did in fact make a mistake, I am looking for PCIe ports on the motherboard rather than PCI. I think the Rangeley configuration does seem to best suit my particular needs, although I would bet it is not as friendly as an Atom to the electric bill! In terms of utilizing a riser card, would I not then encounter a bottleneck passing traffic between 2 subnets? Or is the PCIe's abilities well beyond handling 2 NIC's?

Thank you again!

Apr 6, 2015, 4:36 PM

@Streat:

Thank you for taking the time to help. You are correct, I did in fact make a mistake, I am looking for PCIe ports on the motherboard rather than PCI.

Thank you again!

ok, this was what I want to know first. Likes me I want to go with the Supermicro A1SRM-2758F

I think the Rangeley configuration does seem to best suit my particular needs, although I would bet it is not as friendly as an Atom to the electric bill!

Oh yeah the C2758 based board will be being much better related to the AES-NI and Intel QuickAssist
64 GB ECC memory and two PCIe slots, I will use inside of one of them, this cards here:
Comtech AHA AHA363PCIE0301G 5Gbs GZIP Compression/Decompression Accelerator Card
This would be speeding up much as I see it right and compared to the price it will be enough
for me. The 8 Core Rangeley will be the best choice for me also owed to the electric bill only
the case is not out now that fits this board in but this is not so important for me as the board
it selfs.

In terms of utilizing a riser card, would I not then encounter a bottleneck passing traffic between 2 subnets? Or is the PCIe's abilities well beyond handling 2 NIC's?

Pending on your needs and what kind of NICs do you want to use inside, it should work.
Intel Ethernet Server Adap. I210-T1, Netzwerkadapter two of them should work related to the PCIe lanes.

messerchmidt · Apr 9, 2015, 2:13 AM

depends on your price point.

the amd a4 and celeron j are cheap and will do the job without issue

if you need more power, you are looking towards an i3, atom c2000 series, etc

i would reccomend the amd setup with an ebay intel dual nic @ pcie