Need advice on a pfsense box
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whatever works out for you :)
Personaly i rather stay away from AMD CPUs + you can get a i3+mobo for only a bit over £100 -
You can but not with AES support ;)
I do actually have an core i5 3.2ghz/AES and micro ATX already which would be good for a pfsense build but that cpu is 95watts.
Its that balance once again….
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One could look at this new haswell/dual nic/100% silent and 35watt build that came out today:
http://www.atlastsolutions.com/fanless-thin-mini-itx-pc-core-i7-haswell-8gb-128gb-ssd-asus-q87t/
But then who knows if pfsense will support those nics, most likely realtek anyhow so best to avoid.
One of those is an Intel i217 and the other is a Realtek 8111G. Neither are going to work with pfSense until it moves to FreeBSD 10.
Do yourself a favor and stick with Ivy Bridge. The slightly lower idle power consumption and slightly better performance per clock of Haswell isn't worth the hassle of compatibility problems.
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One could look at this new haswell/dual nic/100% silent and 35watt build that came out today:
http://www.atlastsolutions.com/fanless-thin-mini-itx-pc-core-i7-haswell-8gb-128gb-ssd-asus-q87t/
But then who knows if pfsense will support those nics, most likely realtek anyhow so best to avoid.
One of those is an Intel i217 and the other is a Realtek 8111G. Neither are going to work with pfSense until it moves to FreeBSD 10.
Do yourself a favor and stick with Ivy Bridge. The slightly lower idle power consumption and slightly better performance per clock of Haswell isn't worth the hassle of compatibility problems.
or you can just buy seperate nic cards and you don't have to use the onboard one, speaking of which will a pcie x1 nic work in a pcie x16 (graphics card) slot?
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yes it will work
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2218693
looking at some benchies the amd cpu I liked is pretty poor performer, so you were right to suggest intel cpus.
May just stick with my core i5 sandy set and transplant to a micro atx case after all :)
Good info on the ivy cpus was not aware of that….
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well i will go with the pentium, 1150, 8gig corsair 1333 and a ssd, it's more then enough for what i need :)
As for the i5, i don't think it uses a lot when it's not under load.
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yeah was concerned with the power, but they do not use that much thanks to the speed step and power efficiency :)
Pentium/1150/8gig and ssd sounds great.
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Sorry to resurrect an old thread but did you has well build work for you? I was looking at building something similar but with an i3 4330t because its 35w with aes-ni.
I'm afraid a haswell board is going to have problems working with pfsense 2.1. it looks like it may be a while before v2.2 comes out.
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Sorry to resurrect an old thread but did you has well build work for you? I was looking at building something similar but with an i3 4330t because its 35w with aes-ni.
I'm afraid a haswell board is going to have problems working with pfsense 2.1. it looks like it may be a while before v2.2 comes out.
The newer Intel NIC drivers that were included in 2.1.1 have been pulled because they were flaky as hell. I wouldn't buy a Haswell system at this point unless you intend to use only add-in NICs which use an older chip.
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I would be fine if the onboard NIC is not supported as long as a quad port NIC in a PCI slot would work fine?
As long as a Haswell CPU (preferrably the i3-4330t) would work, along with the board itself, im fine.
Am i wasting my time/looking in the wrong place going the Haswell/i3 4330T route if im not worried about the onboard NIC?
Thanks for your reply.
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I would be fine if the onboard NIC is not supported as long as a quad port NIC in a PCI slot would work fine?
As long as a Haswell CPU (preferrably the i3-4330t) would work, along with the board itself, im fine.
Am i wasting my time/looking in the wrong place going the Haswell/i3 4330T route if im not worried about the onboard NIC?
Thanks for your reply.
I've setup 2 sets on Haswell using pfSense 2.1. One using the Gigabyte H87M-D3H & one using the Asrock H87M-Pro4.
The Realtek NIC on the Gigabyte works fine in pfSense 2.1.
The latter does have some caveats:
1) Disable AHCI mode on the SATA port or GEOM won't find the disk (I didn't try playing with loading AHCI module).
2) The onboard NIC is an i210 which isn't supported in 2.1. -
That's good to know. Maybe its better to go with that Gigabyte board then.
-So as long as the Haswell motherboard works (like the Gigabyte H87M-D3H ), I should be able to use any LGA 1150 CPU with it (preferrably the i3-4330T)
-Do you think there would be any performance reduction by not being able to run in AHCI mode on the Asrock motherboard. Maybe not so much since it might only be affecting something like the HDD/SSD.
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I was looking at your asrock and gigabyte boards and they are both MicroATX. Is there anyways I will know if a mini-itx board will work?
I am just paranoid that ill get a motherboard and it will not work with pfsense 2.1
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I was looking at your asrock and gigabyte boards and they are both MicroATX. Is there anyways I will know if a mini-itx board will work?
I am just paranoid that ill get a motherboard and it will not work with pfsense 2.1
If the onboard NIC is not a concern, just get any of the 8X series ITX boards with a PCIe x16 slot. Throw in a PCIe Intel dual (or quad) port NIC like the PT Dual port and use it instead. The 8X chipsets will handle the NIC in the PCIe slot just fine concurrently with the IGP.
I'm running the NanoBSD VGA build (embedded) so I can't comment on any loss of performance in terms of SSD/ HDD. My Kingspec SSD is a real slow poke though so I doubt I can get anything out of it. As I mentioned, I've not gotten down to testing out whether the manual loading of AHCI module will actually allow the AHCI mode on the controller but it is certainly possible.
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Thank you for your help. I am just worried I will buy the wrong hardware. Intel 8 series chipset looks like I can us a z87 board then.
If that's the case I can get a z87 mini itx board and the i3-4330t for low wattage and aes-ni.
Outside of that I'll have to find a case ;)
I think I am definitely going to go with an intel NIC. A dual or quad port NIC. Intel PT or ET is what I'd go with. I350 looks like the best of the three. But I'm a bit worried about power consumption since this box will be on 24/7- and I heard the PT uses more power. But I havent checked out how many watts it uses yet.
Thanks again for your help!
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I think I am definitely going to go with an intel NIC. A dual or quad port NIC. Intel PT or ET is what I'd go with. I350 looks like the best of the three. But I'm a bit worried about power consumption since this box will be on 24/7- and I heard the PT uses more power. But I havent checked out how many watts it uses yet.
From the intel Ark - i350-T4 uses 5w, the PT (quad) uses 12W, realistically we're talking about a 7w difference.
Considering pricing is astronomically more for the i350 ($250-350 on ebay) vs the pt which is $75, I think it'd be a very very long payoff for the difference.
The only reason I could think of to run the i350 for what you're suggesting is if you are running solar, where 7W more worth of panel might be more expensive than the difference.
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Awesome!
For a 7watt difference…I'd definitely rather go with the Intel PT.
Is it true pfsense 2.1 will work with Intel 8 series chipsets like the z87? I just want to make sure I can pick any z87 motherboard I want. Probably a supermicro or gigabyte.
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Why would you bother with a z series?
H or B series chips would be sufficient and will work.
Also, there is very little difference in power consumption between the normal intel processors and the t series if you are not running them at full load, which I doubt you would be.
Do you really need AES-NI? are you doing VPN work (and what speed are we talking?)
Pentium G3420 chips are about half the price of the i3, and not that much slower..
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I probably would not need a z series motherboard. You are right, the H or B series will probably work.
the 4330 uses 54TDP and the 4330T uses 35W, but the 4330 has a 3.5GHz clock speed as opposed to the 4330t's 3.0 HGz clock speed.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/493/Intel_Core_i3_i3-4330_vs_Intel_Core_i3_i3-4330T.htmlAs far as AES-NI goes, I have never used it, but it sounds like it can help out with VPN encryption/decryption. I will have a 100Mbps ISP connection and I should be the only one connecting to my firewall via VPN at the moment.
The Pentiums do look like they are about half the price. My main concern is power consumption and performance since this is the gateway to my network and would be the first bottleneck- so I want to make sure this rig is setup the best I can for all my future endeavors. I plan on doing a few projects that I will run from this network.
But as far as a motherboard goes, is it true that any Intel 8 series motherboard will work? I have heard that USB 3.0 has some problems, but that is okay. I'll just make sure the motherboard has some USB 2.0 ports.
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I repeat, unless you are running you processor full out, it will not consume anywhere near its max tdp. For the difference in price you would be better of spending money on memory and having that extra power on tap.
Remember you can usually undervolt processors also, which will significantly drop consumption