CPU for Pfsense

[Archertwin]

I am looking at building myself like Pfsense box using the new STX mobos, Asus has one with dual gigabit LANs. 

I have yet to figure out what CPU that I want/need. I was thinking of using the Pentium G4560. When I compare it to the Pfsense/Netgear hardware, the G4560 seems to be a good choice as the Netgear uses Atom CPUs, even on their medium business grade products. 

 

As for add-ins, I want to use with Pfsense, I want to use my old SSD for caching and a VPN to protect my whole network, possibly some kind of network intrusion detection like Snort or Suricata. 

 

Will the G4560 be enough, or do I want to bump up to an I3 or even an I5?

[8-Bit Ninja]

Given the size of a typical home network, a g4560 will be pretty much overkill for a pfsense box, so yes it will be fine. 

[ARikozuM]

I'd go with an SoC server board within your price range. You'd want something that doesn't consume much electricity since it'll be powered 24/7.

 

If you do want to build yourself, get a G4560 and a server C-chipset board with ECC. No point in using an SSD cache since you can run off a USB.

[Archertwin]

Awesome.

 

Does Pfsense care about dual vs single channel ram? Or how much?

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Archertwin said:

Does Pfsense care about dual vs single channel ram? Or how much?

No. It doesn't. 

 

Getting ECC is more important. You don't need a lot either. 8GB is usually good.

[Archertwin]

Okay. 8GB or so of ram. 

 

What is is the danger of not using ECC ram? 

The stx boards out there at the moment don't work with it, as far as i can tell. 

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Archertwin said:

What is is the danger of not using ECC ram? 

It's a "good to have" in my book for 24/7 operation. You don't need it, but you'll want it since any bits being corrupted will start piling up if not corrected properly.