New Alix board for 2013
-
Fair enough for a better model and I would pay for it as I know it's still cheaper than other systems but maybe keep a simpler version still in the market - or even lower the price of the older models 8) - I would order many. It's just that an office of 3-5 people don't need anything better.
Some questions:
1- Would SD Cards be a better option in terms of stability or performance? or is it about price advantage?
2- The MILLION DOLLAR question: Is this still in development or should we expect this month? :P -
2- The MILLION DOLLAR question: Is this still in development or should we expect this month? :P
The web page states:
Status: Prototypes alive and well. Pilot run / customer samples planned for fall 2013. Production expected for early 2014.
-
Things arrive quicker when you don't wait for them.
-
Googling "Realtek RTL8111E" doesn't give me any warm fuzzy feelings. I wish they went with something else. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. I don't mind if some of my workstations have Realtek NIC's, but I want my router/firewall to have the best.
-
You still have the two miniPCIe slots.
There you can put something like: http://www.spectra.ch/produkte/130224/web/spectra/Datasheet-MEC-ETH-101.pdf -
Hmm, about warm fuzzy feelings. What does that actually translate to in relation to network interfaces?
edit: Please no "intel" answer. I am interested in nasty technical details.
-
The newer Realtek NICs aren't all that bad. Mostly their throughput isn't quite as advertised and they require more CPU cycles to push packets.
Steve
-
I think that's a little bit steep. Maybe same price to replace old board would be a better choice. If units are installed on clients site and used for minor traffic then old units do just fine.
If plan is to not sell many of this (which I don't see why) then yeah higher price would be better. However, it's probably now cheaper to make the newer model than it is to make the older model.
Um, $125-150 is pretty close to the street price of current Alix boards. And this has GB nics. Right now if you want to get a low power box with gig ports you need to get something like a 6501, which is twice the price. I predict they will sell well. Even if they come in at $175, I'd take one over a 2D13 every time.
At the ~175$ range, in Canada, you can grab a Giada N70E-DR with a Celeron 1037U with 2 82574s in a mini-itx format.. With ram, it'll cost a touch more but still, IVB vs bobcat/atom and it'd crush a 6501 into little bits for less cost.
After seeing the specs, I'm not really a big fan, but their component placement seems pretty great but it'll live or die depending on heatsinking performance to the case.
However, the "Roadmap: We will upgrade to the newer AMD Kabini / Jaguar core based SOCs, up to 2 GHz quad core (Opteron X1150), up to 4 GB ECC DRAM" is dangling a carrot in front of me and would probably be closer to my dream alix. Hoping they avoid Realtek, but not counting on it..
-
Hi!
At the EuroBSDcon in Malta we had a paper with the specifications of the new alix platform!http://i.imgur.com/712EXOx.jpg
-
hi, will pfsene 2.1 support these APU/chipsets ?????
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Accelerated_Processing_Unit
Since it‘s x86: yes -
can i install pfsense 64 bit here? and FreeBSD 9.2?
-
The Bobcat core CPU is 64bit capable and I see no reason why you couldn't install FreeBSD 9.2 if you wanted to. It wouldn't be pfSense though.
Perhaps you've asked the wrong question here? ;)Steve
-
Looks like it fits into the old enclosures (the alix.2 ones).
This now seems unlikely, at least without some modification, since they are relying on the enclosure to cool the CPU. Existing enclosures will not have the appropriate accurately positioned conduction surfaces.
Steve
-
Steve, couldn't this be achieved by using conductive rubber pads?
I have seen this done in other cases to accommodate differing boards.
Of course it may truly need a new case, possibly for profit margin reasons :) - time will tell
-
Possibly. Most of the old cases are steel, as far as I know, which isn't the greatest conductor of heat. However the CPU doesn't require much cooling anyway. I have never been a fan of those conductive sticky pads, all those laptops with overheating GPUs used them for starters.
I'm sure it will all become clear. :)Steve
-
FWIW, the pcengines and Netgate cases I have are aluminum. My Soekris cases have been steel.
-
Might be suitable then. Just have to wait and see.
Steve
-
This is fantastic news. I love the ALIX, but had to stop using it as it's 100mbps ports wouldn't do my 120mbps internet justice.
What I'm even more excited about is while the first of the new ones use T40N/E Bobcat APU's, PCEngines did mention on that APU page they will move to Jaguar cores in upcoming revisions. The big difference between those two vis a vis pfSense users is the latter has AES-NI support. That said there is some movement on making an engine for OpenSSL making use of OpenCL and the Bobcat does have a Radeon 6250 with 80 shaders in it…
Then with the 2-3 mini-PCIe slots, hopefully these new ALIX's will be able to fulfil a serious hub role. Full-speed OpenVPN, Wifi and routing performance with little to no compromise. Then it'll just depend on FreeBSD's and pfSense's hardware support to keep up with the Jones' on the wireless chipset support and the only thing you'll need to upgrade as the wireless pace moves on should be the wlan card in the box.
-
Full-speed OpenVPN, Wifi and routing performance with little to no compromise.
If you want "full-speed Wifi performance (…) with little to no compromise", you are simply not getting it with pfSense('s built-in support) today - and you're not going to get it anytime soon.
Then it'll just depend on FreeBSD's and pfSense's hardware support to keep up with the Jones' on the wireless chipset support
And that's the problem: pfSense's development currently seems to be trailing FreeBSD by about 18 months. FreeBSD's wireless support in turn is probably lagging behind Linux' even further. And it is literally years behind proprietary solutions. For example, early (draft) 802.11n routers were released to market about 7 years ago - yet 802.11n is still not fully supported in FreeBSD today, let alone in pfSense. 802.11ac adoption is currently picking up, yet quasi nonexistent in FreeBSD.
Having said that, I personally have no need for cutting-edge wireless support or speed. I would probably go for the convenience of having router/firewall & wireless access point in a single box. However, if you do need/want "full speed" wireless throughput, I think you should rather look at external solutions and deploy a dedicated access point.
Returning back to topic, I cannot wait for a an Temash-/Kabini-based Alix successor. mSATA and SD card support is much welcome.
That said there is some movement on making an engine for OpenSSL making use of OpenCL and the Bobcat does have a Radeon 6250 with 80 shaders in it…
We’ll see how that plays out. AES-NI support is becoming quite so common in CPUs lately (even latest Intel Atom) that it seems to render (AES) acceleration on GPU somewhat pointless.
Also, in the special case of this PC Engines board, I wonder whether GPU usage won’t be pushing the thermal envelope and cooling solution? It seems designed for non-GPU usage. I recall a post from Mr. Dornier himself on the support forum which pretty much ruled out video output due to this.
