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Help Choosing Low Power Motherboard & CPU For ITX pfSense Router Box Build (1U Rackmount)

So I have decided it's about time to rebuild my trusty but bulky pfSense box (pictured at the bottom of this post) and I need some help on picking and finding new parts, I'm looking to go as low power consumption as possible and for it to run reasonably cool as this thing is going to live in my bedroom along side lots of other networking equipment and a server or two that runs 24/7.

 

I want to build it into a 1U rackmount case that will use a ITX motherboard, I have already seen the case I would like to use HERE from X-Case UK and I came across THIS cheap intel dual port gigabit PCI-E 4x server NIC on ebay to use in the build.

xcase-itx-19-02-1u.jpgintel-dualport-gigabit-nic.jpg

 

 

My main problem right now is finding a motherboard / CPU to use, I am looking for something ITX that will fit in the case, Probably something with a Atom processor built onto the board and that has a PCI-E 4x slot so I can use my PCI-E dual port network card, It needs to have two onboard ethernet ports as well really so I can have my total of 4 ethernet ports.

 

My configuration is going to be two WAN connections (that will sometimes become three!), With one LAN connection.

 

 

Currently my WAN connections are made up from 2x BT ADSL2+ connections at about 10Mbps download 1Mbps upload each (Soon going to become dual BT Infinity FTTC / VDSL2 connections at 80Mbps down 20Mbps up each when it is available here) And the third WAN is only online sometimes as that is my mobile phone 4G data via tethering (I have an unlimited data plan including tethering with Three UK, My 4G gets about 50Mbps download 10Mbps upload so it really speeds up those big steam game downloads and youtube video uploads!)

 

 

As long as the system can handle about 300Mbps throughput it should be fine for now and foreseeable future use. According to the pfsense hardware page for 101-500 Mbps throughput it needs 'newer desktop hardware and no less than a modern Intel or AMD CPU clocked at 2.0 GHz'. So I would have thought most dual core Intel Atom CPU's could handle this fairly well as my current old core 2 duo box never goes over 10% CPU load.

 

 

 

 

PACKAGES: I run Squid, pfBlocker, HAVP Antivirus and a OpenVPN Server at current.

BUDGET: I don't really have a set price, Under £100 ideally but I could spend more if something came up that was perfect.

 

I did see THIS MOTHERBOARD on ebay that has 4x onboard gigabit ethernet ports and a Atom D525 1.8Ghz dual core hyper threading CPU that looks interesting but I have never had any experience with the 'Jetway' brand before and do not know if the onboard ethernet ports are any good / Will work with pfsense.

 

 

 

Here is my old / current pfSense box made from random hardware, Its current specs are:

Old, Battered & Broken Dell Inspiron 530 Case

Crappy Random 'ARIANET' 460W Power Supply

Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 2.14Ghz Processor

Dell / Foxconn G33M02 Motherboard

2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 Random Memory

Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drive (Super overkill - Hardly anything on it)

 

Expansion cards, Top to bottom:

10/100/1000Mb HP PCI-E 1x Server Ethernet Card

10/100Mb Unknown Random PCI-E 1x Ethernet Card

10/100Mb Sweex PCI Ethernet Card

10/100Mb Sweex PCI Ethernet Card

 

old-pfsense-box-1.jpg

old-pfsense-box-2.jpg

 

Any help, Suggestions, Recommendations or ideas are much appreciated! Thanks for reading :)

Known As BlackOpsKillerCams / nphxboxlive - I Make Random Gaming YouTube Videos & LiveStream To My Twitch Channel For Fun.


I'm Not A "Xbox Fanboy", Just Couldn't Think Of A Gamertag When I Made This One Up (It's My Initials + XBL) :P PC Gaming FTW :D

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That is exactly the kind of thing I am looking for, Two on board ethernet ports and a low power draw CPU. The thing I am struggling to find is one like that with either a PCI-E 4x slot so I can use my dual port Intel gigabit nic or something with four on board ethernet ports that will work with pfsense as I need four ethernet ports for my three WAN connections and one LAN.

Thanks for the response!

EDIT: A PCI-E 4x, 8x or 16x slot, Since you can run a 4x card in all those slots, A lot of these little boards seem to have normal 'old school' PCI slots on them.

Edited by nphxboxlive

Known As BlackOpsKillerCams / nphxboxlive - I Make Random Gaming YouTube Videos & LiveStream To My Twitch Channel For Fun.


I'm Not A "Xbox Fanboy", Just Couldn't Think Of A Gamertag When I Made This One Up (It's My Initials + XBL) :P PC Gaming FTW :D

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That is exactly the kind of thing I am looking for, Two on board ethernet ports and a low power draw CPU. The thing I am struggling to find is one like that with either a PCI-E 4x slot so I can use my dual port Intel gigabit nic or something with four on board ethernet ports that will work with pfsense as I need four ethernet ports for my three WAN connections and one LAN.

Thanks for the response!

EDIT: A PCI-E 4x, 8x or 16x slot, Since you can run a 4x card in all those slots, A lot of these little boards seem to have normal 'old school' PCI slots on them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157518

This only has one built in Ethernet port but it has a PCIe 16x slot

01010010 01101111 01100010  01001101 01100001 01100011 01010010 01100001 01100101

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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157518

This only has one built in Ethernet port but it has a PCIe 16x slot

 

 

I had a re-think and it may work better in the long run & also work out cheaper if I build using a motherboard with a socket on it, Separate CPU, etc.

This is the build I put together last night, Just using a cheap celeron CPU in it for now and I could always upgrade it to a i3/5/7 in the future if I choose to use the box for something else other than pfSense.

The total for the parts comes to about £215, What do you guys think of the build?

For storage I'm going to throw a 2.5" 80GB HDD I have spare in there, 2GB RAM should be more than enough & I can always upgrade it to more in the future.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Celeron G465 1.9GHz Dual-Core Processor (£40.49 @ Amazon UK)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B75N Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard (£61.81 @ Amazon UK)

Memory: Kingston 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£15.55 @ Amazon UK)

CPU Cooler: X-Case 1u Active blower/Cooler for socket 1150/1155/1156 (£16.80 @ XCASE UK)

Case: X-Case ITX 19-02- 1u Rackmount Short 10" Deep (£35.94 @ XCASE UK)

NIC Card: Intel Dual Port Server Gigabit Network Card - D33682 (Purchased For £11.99 @ Ebay UK)

Power Supply: Seasonic 250SU -250 Watt 80+ Low Noise Power Supply (£39.00 @ XCASE UK)

PCI Riser: PCI-E Riser 16X to 16X Flex Ribbon Extension Card Cable (£3.49 @ Ebay UK)

Total (Not Yet Purchased): £213.08 / Total: £225.07

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-03 08:37 GMT+0000

 

Thanks for the replies! :)

Known As BlackOpsKillerCams / nphxboxlive - I Make Random Gaming YouTube Videos & LiveStream To My Twitch Channel For Fun.


I'm Not A "Xbox Fanboy", Just Couldn't Think Of A Gamertag When I Made This One Up (It's My Initials + XBL) :P PC Gaming FTW :D

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  • 1 month later...

I'm looking to build a low-power silent rig to use as an Active Directory server for at home.

 

Pretty sweet parts list there, I might try and do something very similar! :)

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