Ok, I'll bite, incoming wall of text
Since we are comparing this to the cisco I think this is fair, but if people really care or want to run a full blown linux install and do iptables manually (have fun writing all those rules) then add $50+ for a new SATA drive with enough space.
uATX:
Microcenter
$35: Celeron G1610 2.6 Ghz Dual Ivy Core (next step is $65 G2030 3 Ghz, no extra features). This cpu will obliterate any embedded crap, you can consider doing more with your router like running IDS modules etc.
$90: Intel DH77EB uATX w/ onboard 82579V (pci-e 1x16 3.0, 3x1 2.0) There are $50-60 boards, but then all the onboard NICs are realcrap chipset and they just aren't in the same league as this: bad slot configuations, crappy rear ports, etc etc. Meanwhile the intel board even supports VT-d of all things (although cheap cpu doesn't).
Amazon
$50 Rosewill uATX low profile case w/ 300W PSU. I'm not really sold on it but its functional enough without being too large. Nice cases and PSUs just aren't cheap, I buy modular high efficiency from brands with 5+ yr warranties but I don't expect everyone else to have my disease
$10: your choice 16GB usb stick, no point going smaller at today's prices
$18 2GB DDR3, you won't notice a difference in actual use but my inner computer nerd will not allow me to recommend that. (inner nerd would buy $56 2x4GB even though this cpu caps at 1333, or go nuts and build xeon w/ecc)
So yeah holy crap ram prices have gone up! I bought three 2x8GB 1600mhz C11 kits for $60ea last year to bump my 2009 i7 x58 system to 48. Can you say artificial market manipulation so they can milk it until DDR4 goes mainstream? I can.
Fleabay - Going to ballpark prices but there are tons to choose from, and I have found cheaper plenty of times so this is not a cop-out
$30: Dual Intel 82571 pci-e x4
$15 x 3: Single port Intel 82571 pci-e x1 (lots of dell versions out there)
*Note: you could get 4 duals instead and cut the x1 slot ends with an exacto knife (its easy and painless, press it in the side and cut upwards not down) but this controller is only pci-e 1.0a even though the slots are 2.0 which means 2.5Gbps so it wouldn't saturate both ports at once.
So about $270 gives you 6 real ports with the best unix drivers and plenty of horsepower for routing. Not sure what the VPN throughput would be, but at least a couple times what any atom does.
It has a decent upgrade path, e.g. later on you could put a 10Gb nic in the x16 slot and/or upgrade the cpu to something with AES-NI. If you haven't figured it out yet, I love VPN acceleration. (I hate waiting for pfsense to put it in stable...)
ITX:
[still looking, this is hard]
-Motherboard that doesn't suck or cost half a leg is hard. My current "favorite", DQ77KB, is not cheap nor available in the channel at the moment. (those jerks want out of the mobo market since BGA is going to get shoved down our throats as they can't eat their own dogfood, so probably won't be a haswell version coming) Edit: I actually hate this ****ing motherboard after dealing with some insane quirks it has.
-Half height case with a slot is hard too. If you go full height, its practically the same volume as that uATX case. CM120 elite is pretty nice for the ~$40 though, I have two of them.
Cheap/Notsuck/Available: pick 2, if you are lucky...
I can see two pretty simple pfSense builds, will assume no proxy or massive logs so no spinning platters. There are other choices that run off small flash drives, but IMO this is the best distro with lots of use and support even though they love to be 3+ years behind on the core OS unless its security related.
Since we are comparing this to the cisco I think this is fair, but if people really care or want to run a full blown linux install and do iptables manually (have fun writing all those rules) then add $50+ for a new SATA drive with enough space.
uATX:
Microcenter
$35: Celeron G1610 2.6 Ghz Dual Ivy Core (next step is $65 G2030 3 Ghz, no extra features). This cpu will obliterate any embedded crap, you can consider doing more with your router like running IDS modules etc.
$90: Intel DH77EB uATX w/ onboard 82579V (pci-e 1x16 3.0, 3x1 2.0) There are $50-60 boards, but then all the onboard NICs are realcrap chipset and they just aren't in the same league as this: bad slot configuations, crappy rear ports, etc etc. Meanwhile the intel board even supports VT-d of all things (although cheap cpu doesn't).
Amazon
$50 Rosewill uATX low profile case w/ 300W PSU. I'm not really sold on it but its functional enough without being too large. Nice cases and PSUs just aren't cheap, I buy modular high efficiency from brands with 5+ yr warranties but I don't expect everyone else to have my disease
$10: your choice 16GB usb stick, no point going smaller at today's prices
$18 2GB DDR3, you won't notice a difference in actual use but my inner computer nerd will not allow me to recommend that. (inner nerd would buy $56 2x4GB even though this cpu caps at 1333, or go nuts and build xeon w/ecc)
So yeah holy crap ram prices have gone up! I bought three 2x8GB 1600mhz C11 kits for $60ea last year to bump my 2009 i7 x58 system to 48. Can you say artificial market manipulation so they can milk it until DDR4 goes mainstream? I can.
Fleabay - Going to ballpark prices but there are tons to choose from, and I have found cheaper plenty of times so this is not a cop-out
$30: Dual Intel 82571 pci-e x4
$15 x 3: Single port Intel 82571 pci-e x1 (lots of dell versions out there)
*Note: you could get 4 duals instead and cut the x1 slot ends with an exacto knife (its easy and painless, press it in the side and cut upwards not down) but this controller is only pci-e 1.0a even though the slots are 2.0 which means 2.5Gbps so it wouldn't saturate both ports at once.
So about $270 gives you 6 real ports with the best unix drivers and plenty of horsepower for routing. Not sure what the VPN throughput would be, but at least a couple times what any atom does.
It has a decent upgrade path, e.g. later on you could put a 10Gb nic in the x16 slot and/or upgrade the cpu to something with AES-NI. If you haven't figured it out yet, I love VPN acceleration. (I hate waiting for pfsense to put it in stable...)
ITX:
[still looking, this is hard]
-Motherboard that doesn't suck or cost half a leg is hard. My current "favorite", DQ77KB, is not cheap nor available in the channel at the moment. (those jerks want out of the mobo market since BGA is going to get shoved down our throats as they can't eat their own dogfood, so probably won't be a haswell version coming) Edit: I actually hate this ****ing motherboard after dealing with some insane quirks it has.
-Half height case with a slot is hard too. If you go full height, its practically the same volume as that uATX case. CM120 elite is pretty nice for the ~$40 though, I have two of them.
Cheap/Notsuck/Available: pick 2, if you are lucky...
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