Firewall dedicated hardware - request for comments

[btoplak]

Hi all,

I am new here and relatively new to pfSense in general. I plan to make a bigger investment in a firewall appliance configuration, and I'd like to hear advanced users comments and opinions.

Purpose of the device:

• filtering the traffic (mostly to drop packets comming from unwanted ranges) for up to 1Gbit

• some basic, rudimental DoS protection / filtering - as much as possible by HW

• no VPN needed

Behind this firewall would sit several webservers.

Upstream connection intended to protection: 1Gbps

What I am looking at is the following barebone firewall appliance :
CPU: i5-3570 (Quad Core 4x 3.40GHz,6MB,77W,S1155)  - supports: Sandybridge/IvyBridge LGA1155 (Celeron/Pentium/i3/i5/i7）
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1333
Chipset: Intel B75
Graphics: onboard PowerVR SGX545
LAN:
2x Intel i350 (SPF)
6x Intel 82583 1000M
Storage: 60GB SSD
Storage Interface: 3SATAⅡ  1SATAⅢ
1RJ45 to COM + COM pin
Expansion Slots: 2MINI-PCIE (for M-SATA/WIFI), 1SIM, 1CF
USB:  6x USB 2.0  (4 onboard)

Approximated purchasing price of all parts needed would be around US$ 800

What do you guys think about it, will it align with my goals?

How does full blown i5-3570 in terms of performace for filtering purpose compare to Avoton C2758 in official pfSense appliance?

Thanks in advance for your comments

[stephenw10]

Should be fine with that.
The i5 doesn't have quick assist which means in the long term the C2758 will likely be faster for encrypted traffic.

Steve

[btoplak]

Hi stephenw10,

thank you very much for your comment!

Since I'm not interested for any VPN tunnels or similar, I think I won't miss this functionality, but thanks for pointing that out.  ;)