OPNsense Hardware Related

[pbesp]

Some time ago I was looking around for a software firewall/router and downloaded opnsense and decided to give it a try mainly as a firewall but also testing other features.

I used a spare PC(old) I had been using as a server for a time, spec are:

AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 620 Processor (4 cores)
4GB RAM
1TB Sata HD
2 RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
1 RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter

So far I have had a smooth experience with this setup.

Now I want start adding some production load to it and eventually use it as my main router/firewall.

If all goes well I will want to upgrade the hardware to some new stuff. So far I have seen APU boards are the trend, bonus points being its low cost/performance ratio, reliability, low energy consumption, small form factor, tried hardware compatibility... well there a lot of advantages compared to traditional PC boards I guess.

However what if I want to stick with standard PCs architecture? What are the recommended network cards/chipsets ? What are the advantages/disadvantages besides the ones I mentioned?

Also how flexible is configuration restore? What will happen when I restore my old setup config into the new hardware in terms of physical interface assignments? I will have several vlans defined on the current physical network interfaces, how does it get remapped to the new interfaces on the new hardware?

Thanks in advance for your comments