Minimal x86 box for 1Gbps WAN

[sunmast]

I've been using DELL Inspiron 3472 (Pentium Silver J5005 CPU) + Intel I340T2 to run my home firewall + router for a while. It works great so far (VPN, IDS, etc.). I think it's an overkill for my home network though (Comcast 300Mbps plan).

Today I tired to run it on Wyse 3040 (Atom x5-Z8350 CPU) + Realtek USB 3.0 LAN adapter instead. Surprisingly it works great too. NATing speed is 100% LAN speed (1Gbps). I didn't test VPN performance but the CPU supports AES-NI so it should work well too. Only problem is some settings in /boot/device.hints need to be changed otherwise the OS won't boot (FreeBSD bug).

[sunmast]

The Wyse 3040 didn't pass stress test (after running iperf for a few hours the USB NIC is down till a reboot)

[drew442]

Pretty sure my 3040 has the nic attached via pcie. the z8300 machines i have use the via USB, i through this besides a small difference in boost clock was the difference between them?

Or is the usb for a second nic? You can just use vlan interfaces instead...

[random1104]

Pretty sure my 3040 has the nic attached via pcie. the z8300 machines i have use the via USB, i through this besides a small difference in boost clock was the difference between them?

Or is the usb for a second nic? You can just use vlan interfaces instead...

Interested in this too. Would be a nice branch office gateway paired with a switch.