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    Is this setup going to work without any errors?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • P
      plikmuny
      last edited by

      Hi friends,  simply put I want to build a Chao but powerful and less watt consuming build.  Hence I came up with my own parts selection.  Can you guys review the parts and give me your feedback whether it really works or is there a better alternative one?

      AMD A4-6300, 2x 3.70GHz: CPU,  costs 27€
      GigaByte GA-F2A68HM-S1: Mobo, costs 36€
      Chieftec Compact Series IX-01B Ultra Small Form Factor Mini-ITX: case, costs  30€
      Mini-Box PicoPSU-90, 90W extern: power, costs 29€
      Mini-Box 90W universal power adapter for pico psu: costs 15€
      IBM i340-T4 nic card: costs 37€
      4GB RAM ddr3l: costs 32€
      64GB ssd:costs 40€
      Total: 246€

      Is it better than buying qotom mini pc or building diy kit like this?
      Pls share your thoughts on my budget build.
      Thanks in advance.

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      • GrimsonG
        Grimson Banned
        last edited by

        @plikmuny:

        Chieftec Compact Series IX-01B Ultra Small Form Factor Mini-ITX: case, costs  30€
        IBM i340-T4 nic card: costs 37€

        That case AFAIK has no room for an expansion card.

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        • P
          plikmuny
          last edited by

          @Grimson:

          @plikmuny:

          Chieftec Compact Series IX-01B Ultra Small Form Factor Mini-ITX: case, costs  30€
          IBM i340-T4 nic card: costs 37€

          That case AFAIK has no room for an expansion card.

          Which case would you suggest for this combination?
          When it's adjusted,  do you think it's better than qotom q350g4 with i5 4200u CPU?

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          • GrimsonG
            Grimson Banned
            last edited by

            If the NIC is a low profile version: Silverstone ML9 otherwise the: Fractal Design Node 202. Those are my personal favorites, and with those you can use a normal SFX power supply.

            As for the CPU performance I'd suggest to google some benchmarks and compare them.

            IMHO a selfbuild system with standard parts is always preferable, as you can upgrade/replace individual parts much easier. So I would never buy these Qotom boxes and as such don't have any experience on how they perform.

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            • K
              kejianshi
              last edited by

              Most people like to see if they can make their pfsense be about the same form factor as your average consumer router and run forever on 5w or so.

              I'm with Grimson.

              I like being able to easily pull and replace components and I don't like to wrestle with space, so I use cases that will fit just about any hardware.

              I'm not too concerned with space or power requirements.  Just reliability.

              Everyone is different.  Depends on your wants and needs.

              If you are like me, you can build a very nice and reliable pfsense using parts that people might pay you to cart away for them.

              Note - Bandwidth, throughput expectations and pps are a concern.  Extremely fast connections and some packages may require faster / newer hardware.

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              • ?
                Guest
                last edited by

                Unless you plan to tweak and toy with your router, this build is rather pointless. There a a lot more points where things can go wrong, yet it's not cheaper or better than a Qotom or MiniSys.

                Before you build something, check this:

                • What do you actually need? (PPS/bandwidth)
                • What are your power requirements?
                • What are your environmental requirements (space used, heat, wall mounting etc)
                • What is the expected life

                If you need something small, ready-to-go, cheap, low-power, and well known, you're not going to get there building something yourself.

                On the other hand, if you need cheap copper multi port gigabit ethernet, and need SFP fiber in 2 years, and need heavy crypto in 3 years and need a lot of audit logging later on, and the budget isn't there to do all of it at once, then you pretty much have to build something custom and no ready-made box will suit your needs.

                Also, I'd suggest going with a Celeron of Pentium series rather than AMD, not because AMD can't work, but because most custom builds use Intel, making the knowledge base on Intel-Based builds bigger than other builds. Since you are here on this forum, I suppose if you run into issues, you'll also turn up here to discuss them. If you run something other people are also running, you'll have more information and experience to draw from.

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                • P
                  plikmuny
                  last edited by

                  That means from all your inputs my custom build is a no go right?
                  I want to use it for openvpn, adblock and squid at this moment for home use.  I have 50/10 vdsl connection.

                  I want to ask here a budget build for my needs.  Is there a one?

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • ?
                    Guest
                    last edited by

                    @plikmuny:

                    That means from all your inputs my custom build is a no go right?
                    I want to use it for openvpn, adblock and squid at this moment for home use.  I have 50/10 vdsl connection.

                    I want to ask here a budget build for my needs.  Is there a one?

                    It depends on your budget. With that 50/10 VDSL connection you probably can do with anything faster than the first generation i3 CPU. Maybe buying a used desktop PC with a basic 2012-type hardware setup is the cheapest option. Many people use older HP and Lenovo systems this way, and it works fine. 50/10 really isn't hard to do for any modern CPU, even with snort and VPN. Hell, it'll probably be able to saturate that without AES-NI (but you won't be able to use pfSense once 2.5 comes out, so get AES-NI!).

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                    • K
                      kejianshi
                      last edited by

                      You can do it for $50 probably.  No more than $100.
                      Your SSD will be the most expensive thing you "need", and honestly…  You probably don't "Need" an SSD.

                      AES-NI capable CPUs from 2012 and forward can handle this and can be found very cheap.  Almost free.

                      Just get a couple of good and cheap intel network cards.  I can easily saturate a 60/60 connection with a AMD x4200 dual core processor.  And thats really old junk.

                      Or you could buy the netgate $150 machine.  That also works.

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                      • K
                        kejianshi
                        last edited by

                        Anything sold in the pfsense store, starting with the SG-1000, can probably handle your needs.  Its not expensive.

                        However, you would also have a very hard time finding a used desktop machine made after 2012 that couldn't handle this.

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                        • P
                          plikmuny
                          last edited by

                          If I change CPU to Intel g4400t, will it make a good setup?
                          Is i5 4200u better than g4400t or a custom build with g4400t or g4400 better than qotom q350g4
                          I want to run vpn, ad blocker and squid on a 50/10 vdsl connection.

                          Guide me

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                          • ?
                            Guest
                            last edited by

                            The i5 4200u  is better.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • P
                              plikmuny
                              last edited by

                              Hi, I am sure you definitely have a qotom device.
                              How can a 22nm cpu be better than a 14nm cpu?
                              Interesting for me if it's true.
                              Is there a heating problem with qotom i5 4200u device to run pfsense with vpn, adblock and squid apps?

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                              • V
                                VAMike
                                last edited by

                                @johnkeates:

                                The i5 4200u  is better.

                                The G4400T is better in just about every way for this application. The only reason to consider the i5-4200U is if you have a cooling budget that permits a 15W TDP chip and not a 35W TDP chip. (Or if you get one significantly cheaper than the other.)

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                                • W
                                  wayne622
                                  last edited by

                                  Just wondering and I’m sure someone will chime in….but would the Asrock J3355B work based on the needs? It can handle OpenVPN speeds 200mbps+ has AES-NI and the motherboard and cpu can be had for less than $60.

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                                  • V
                                    VAMike
                                    last edited by

                                    @wayne622:

                                    Just wondering and I’m sure someone will chime in….but would the Asrock J3355B work based on the needs? It can handle OpenVPN speeds 200mbps+ has AES-NI and the motherboard and cpu can be had for less than $60.

                                    If we're playing "favorite solution" I'd spec an APU2 for this and be done with it. :)

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                                    • P
                                      plikmuny
                                      last edited by

                                      APU2 runs hotter than g4400t i guess.
                                      and you can have the two builds for the same Price. then why not a better one ?

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                                      • P
                                        plikmuny
                                        last edited by

                                        @wayne622:

                                        Just wondering and I’m sure someone will chime in….but would the Asrock J3355B work based on the needs? It can handle OpenVPN speeds 200mbps+ has AES-NI and the motherboard and cpu can be had for less than $60.

                                        Does this MoBo has a g4400t CPU built in or am i understanding it wrong ?
                                        can you clear my doubt pls ? did you mean Asrock J3355B as MoBo only or with CPU ?
                                        Edit: sorry did a small Research on Google. i found out the Answer. Dont bother to reply.

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                                        • V
                                          VAMike
                                          last edited by

                                          @plikmuny:

                                          APU2 runs hotter than g4400t i guess.

                                          So what?

                                          and you can have the two builds for the same Price. then why not a better one ?

                                          Well, if you can get them for the same price then go ahead and get the g4400t. Around here the APU2 would be significantly cheaper.

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                                          • P
                                            plikmuny
                                            last edited by

                                            @VAMike:

                                            So what?

                                            I am talking about the longetivity of the parts used here. If ist too hot, it may malfunction and ist life will definitely reduce.

                                            Well, if you can get them for the same price then go ahead and get the g4400t. Around here the APU2 would be significantly cheaper.

                                            I dont know where here means, but in Germany i can get g4400t for 63€ and APU2C4 for 172€. I definitely see a Benifit there in using g4400t. i am not recommending you to use it so that you answer me like so what. i am just pointing out the pros and cons here. i think thats why we are here in a Forum to discuss and suggest.
                                            Anyway thanks for your Time in replying to my message.

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