this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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I just recently got a new ISP and new internet speed 1200/600, my current firewall with opnsense can not handle the speed (AMD GX-412TC SOC), I have been looking for a new firewall (opnsense + 2.5 Ethernet) and found several with the Intel N100 CPU (2023).

I was wondering if this CPU is good enough to handle the Internet speed and if there is overhead?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The problem is Opnsense, as the BSD kernel used is doing single thread network routing. So the APU can saturate 1gbit with multiple connections/threads or if you switch to a firewall with a Linux kernel like OpenWRT.

That said, a N100 probably does have enough single thread performance to do 1.2 Gbit. Not sure about the full 2.5gbit though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Thank you for the answers. I enjoy opnsense, it's easier to use then openwrt for me personally.

I was thinking to do some testing of the new device before I replace the old one. But I wanted to hear if anyone has experiences.

I looked at CPU benchmark net, and saw that N100 is about 8 times faster then the AMD SOC. I'm not sure if this is linear with performance increase. Currently max download is about 600-700 while upload is 300-400.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

How are you measuring your speeds? I think cloudflare speed tests were more accurate for me then ookla, but in the end downloading a large file over usenet gives me the best picture

Edit- and that made me realise my ssd was a bottleneck, replacing that helped me go from 500-600 to about 900-950 on my gigabit connection

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Which is why tests like these should be done in ram.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I tested with seedtest-cli, libre speed test and downloading a big file (with a combination of different devices). The CPU immediately goes to 100%

When I use the ISP box directly I get full speed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm using a virtualized opnsense on an n100 and it handles my 1.5gb line fine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

That you very much for the answer.

Can I ask why you are doing your firewall virtualized? I never understood why people do it, for me using bare metal has more advanced.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Honestly I'm a big fan of openWRT as it can give very good performance on cheap and used hardware.

I've never used it on amd64 but it may be worth a shot.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is there a good gui suggestion?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It comes with a fairly extensive GUI

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Last time I used Luci gui was like 12 years ago. How has it improved since?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I haven't been using it for 12 years but right now the Luci GUI is the most extensive router GUI I've used.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I used devices from gl iNet, the devices are good, but I find the UI of opnsense way better (compared to advance ui of openWRT) and updates are directly from opnsense.

I still have them for smaller network tests but for some reason I never got close to it. Probably another reason is that my brother uses opnsense too, if we have any issues we can ask each other for help.