Which mITX board out of these two?
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So after lurking around on here and working my google abilities over time I narrows down the motherboard choice for my home router project to either a
Gigabyte J1900N-D3V
or a
MITAC PD12TI Mini-ITX D2500CCEThe J1900 is a newer (2013) CPU, but with 2 onboard Realtek NICs and costs AU$119
The D2500 is a older (2011) CPU with 2 onboard Intel 82574L NICs and costs AU$155Both have similar power draws and the J1900 is clearly a 'better' CPU (higher GHz, more L2 cache, more cores) but all my reading on here and else where leads me to believe that the Intel 82574L NICs are far better then the Realtek NICs
So the question I have, which I hope someone can help answer, is which is the better choice? Will the faster CPU off set the poorer/slower NICs, or will more efficient/powerful NICs make up for a slower CPU?
As far as usage goes, I'm planning on using it as a home router on an Australian ADSL2 line (so stunningly slow speeds of 20Mbps down and 1Mps up, although that MIGHT increase to 100Mbps in 2-3 years time, maybe…). Usage through the router would be fairly typical, on the network there is a PC a laptop, a Kodi mediaplayer, couple of mobile devices and a NAS box, none of which really strain the connection too much. Torrent duties are fairly light to non existent.
I ultimately would want to run Squid, SquidGuard, Snort, HAVP maybe. I have no plans to run any VPNs. Basically I want to provide a firewall and proxy for all the devices in my house, rather then just the PC and laptop that run a software firewall.
So which one would you recommend? the J1900 or the D2500?
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Because your internet access is currently relatively slow, either is fine. The D2500 won't be able to keep up with 100/100 with those packages though, so that may give you your answer.
Before you buy, read this thread. Adventures with that board have not been trouble-free…
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=73518.0
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So if I understand you correctly, for future proofing the J1900 is a better option even though the NICs are rather crappy (that said, I understand that 'future proofing' is a often laughable term with computer tech).
The BIOS issues with the J1900 are a bit off putting (thanks for the link by the way) but not insurmountable (try installing Openeelc on a Celeron NUC and playing monitor lottery… ugh).
Plus its cheaper, so that's a plus.
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I'm using that same J1900 board with no problems. I've been running pfSense 2.2 since I got it, dev, alpha, and beta snapshots included. I realize now that the Realtek NICs are less than stellar compared to some Intel NICs, but for the purposes of a home router, they should be more than sufficient. Speed tests show the proper download and upload speeds (rated at 105/10, reality more like 120/12), and I've easily gotten sustained max download speeds on large downloads.
Only having two NICs is kind-of a bummer, but I figure I can just VLAN another network if I ever need one, since I have a "smart" switch connected to the LAN port.
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Thanks virgiliomi,
I'm fairly sure that I am not going to need more then 2 NICs for my home setup, I'm only going to have a HP Procurve 8 port Gb dumb switch hanging off the LAN port with a wireless router hanging off that for the mobile devices.
Looks like the J1900 is the way to go then.
Out of curiosity, is there much beneift in maxing out the RAM to 8Gb over 2 or even 4Gb, keeping in mind I want to run Snort, Squid etc.
I'm also assuming that a small 60Gb SSD is more then sufficient, correct?Next step, wife approval ;D