Watchguard XTM - Still worth hardware upgrade for running pf/opnSense?

[soliton]

First post here. Was over on reddit but finally decided that I was crazy not to join STH.

I have an XTM 520 laying around from back when I first put my lab together. At the time, used it with watchguard firmware and it was...fine. I have since moved on to other hardware, but starting think about whether I should sell it or upgrade it and use it.. I've researched the upgrade path quite a bit and it seems that with a good Core 2 quad and extra memory, it performs nicely according to some opinions.

Anyone running an upgraded XTM? Any reasons for/against repurposing as an IDS/IPS box? Ubiquiti's threat management is....trash, so I am looking at alternatives. Any gotchas that make the hassle not worth it?

TIA.

 

[BlueFox]

Power savings for something that isn't 15 years old will pay for itself fairly quickly. A 95W CPU (and another 25W for the chipset) that idles very high is a hard sell when something modern with a 6W TDP will outperform it. That would be one of the more compelling reasons to upgrade.

 

[soliton]

Power savings for something that isn't 15 years old will pay for itself fairly quickly. A 95W CPU (and another 25W for the chipset) that idles very high is a hard sell when something modern with a 6W TDP will outperform it. That would be one of the more compelling reasons to upgrade.

Thanks for the insight. You're right, no point in trying to make something that is still on LGA 775 better. I'm just going to toss it on ebay for someone who wants it cheap for whatever reason. With the new gen hardware in play now, I can easily build something with enough oomph for little money.