Hi guys! This is my 1st post on this forum. I just finished reading all 58 pages of this thread. Man you guys are deep into this stuff. I think my goal in constructing a box is probably closest to @
destrekor.
My #1 goal is to construct a NGFW with Pfsense that can handle a
1Gbps internet connection without slowdown, IPS, IDS, etc. Everything I read elsewhere doesn't take this into account and simply rates the hardware on a firewall alone.
I started out looking at the C2758 but then stumbled on this Xeon D thread. I was torn between the C2758 and the 1521 for awhile since the C2758 still seems to be faster by CPU, has more cores, and quickassist but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how much quickassist impacts this application. I even passed up on the n3700.
The 1541 is nice but too expensive and the 1531 seems ideal but I don't know if it will ever come out or if it would have support issues with Pfsense.
Lastly the 10G LAN seems like a nice future proofing option but I wasn't sure if the copper version could step down to gigabit if I bought a board that only has 10G and no 1G and I know Pfsense loves Intel controllers but it seems the 10G only boards don't have Intel SoC's.
Any help/thoughts are greatly appreciated. I'm willing to wait for the right board, cool, small and quiet are preferred and I don't have a rack, this will be for home use. If 1521 isn't a handicap then so be it, I can't decipher the right path.
Thanks!