Best Processing Power vs Power Efficiency Compromise - Home Gigabit

racielrod

Hello,
I'm new to Pfsense and I have been browsing for a few days trying to understand what would give me the power I need for the feature set I'm looking for while trying to minimize power consumption and noise.

Features

Future: VPN Client (Maximize bandwidth on a 1Gbps link)
Future: VPN Server
Future: IDS
QoS

Hardware Preferences

Small form factor (mini/micro ITX?)
Passive cooling is preferred
Dual nic is fine (3-4 would be nice to have)
Intel nics
Ability to handle 1Gpbs w/o maxing-out resources (future proof)
Power efficient (not sure about what I should be shooting for here in terms of power consumption while idling vs full load, etc).
Processor supports AES-NI

Ideally I would like to spend ~$300 but I'm open to any suggestions.
I'm looking to build something I can use for a good number of years.

Any recommendations based on your own experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
R. Rod

rainer_d

For 300, pcengines hardware would probably be available (APU2)
AFAIK, it does not do full GB, but pretty close.

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/114731/alix-apu-2c4-board-and-1gbit-internet-connection

I have no experience with it (yet). I'm still debating whether to buy an APU2C4 or an SG3100 (at more than double the cost).

I'm near Zurich, so PCEngines is really a local business here. The price is another factor, but given the intended lifespan of the system, it's not all down to price.