CPU recommendations for gigabit WAN

[jim1985]

Hi all,


I have recently upgraded my PPPoE FTTP to 1000 / 110


Previously I was on a 550 / 50 connection.

I am using an old HP T730 thin client with an AMD RX-427BB CPU & an Intel I350-T4 NIC. This handled my previous connection speed quite fine, but I think the CPU is struggling to keep up with my new gigabit downstream bandwidth.
Speed tests vary between ~700Mbps down & 850Mbps down, but more often than not are on the lower end of that range.

I am also running Zenarmor. I don't currently have any VLANs set up.
One of the 4 NIC ports is the PPPoE WAN input, the others are bridged for my LAN.


Am I right in thinking that the AMD RX-427BB is now the bottleneck in my setup & if so, what CPU should I be looking to upgrade to?

I've been looking at changing to a Lenovo m720q or possibly the 920q, but I see that they are available with intel i3, i5 & i7 processor options.
Any advice on what I should go for would be greatly appreciated, thanks.


I'm based in the UK, just in case that has a bearing on any recommendations

[Stormscape]

For what it's worth, the i5-8500 in my Optiplex 3060 I use for OPNsense easily handles my 2100/200 connection. I usually peak at around 2.40 for CPU usage when downloading. Now granted I'm not doing any sort of IDS, but hopefully that should give you a good idea of what to pick.

[jim1985]

For what it's worth, the i5-8500 in my Optiplex 3060 I use for OPNsense easily handles my 2100/200 connection. I usually peak at around 2.40 for CPU usage when downloading. Now granted I'm not doing any sort of IDS, but hopefully that should give you a good idea of what to pick.

Thanks for your reply. I take it that your connection is PPPoE as well?
From what I understand, it is PPPoE that can be the problem & it requires a pretty decent single core clock speed as the PPPoE implementation in FreeBSD is not multithreaded yet

[Greg_E]

You could step up to an HP T740, or move over to an n150 or n305 based system. I'm not sure the T740 with Zenarmor will handle a full gigabit, I haven't tested it. My similar performance Intel E series Xeon does not give me full gigabit with Zenarmor, but the clock speed is also lower than the AMD v1756b that's in the T740.

Note that if you go with a T740 or T755 there is something you must change or it will not boot. I have a thread on the changes you need to make in here somewhere.
Kind of a long read https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=38921.msg190577#msg190577 with most of the info at the bottom of the first page and into the second page (I think).

[jim1985]

I had considered a T740 but couldn't find any available to buy.
Thank you for highlighting what I would need to change if I do end up going down the T740 route, that might end up being useful information for me

[nero355]

From what I understand, it is PPPoE that can be the problem & it requires a pretty decent single core clock speed as the PPPoE implementation in FreeBSD is not multithreaded yet.

It is multi-threaded just not multi-core capable as in 'Use the processing power of more than 1 CPU Core' ;)

So it will never go further than 4 x 25% of each Core at best in case of my N5150 for example !!



Anyways...



Just get a nice N100 "NUC" with Intel NICs and be happy! :)

[audit13]

I have a Topton n100 running bare metal 26.1 with FTTH PPPoE 1.5 down and 1.0 up.

Without making any changes to the bios and only running Adguard Home,  the n100 can get maximum download and upload speed.