Now, the N100 and friends can't really be found at a good price, and I was having trouble finding any mini PC deals on all major shopping platforms I knew off that weren't a ripoff. Not to mention that the longevity of Chinese mini PCs are known to be a bit of a coin toss. But, I think I can make a Asrock J4125M build at a reasonable price.
I thought that this would be a decent choice since it hits the official hardware recommendation of a 1.5 GHz multi-core CPU. To be clear, I only want basic routing capable of 2.5G throughput, with Unbound and its built-in DNS blocking, as well as to play with VLANs (just a couple, not more than 5). I don't need IDP/IDS/DPI or WireGuard (which appears to be quite resource intensive).
However, some people suggest that the J4125 is pretty underpowered. For instance, 1. https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=35702.msg173622#msg173622 2. https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=38058.msg186487#msg186487 (I know, this is about routing with WireGuard, which I won't) Can I check whether my use case allows me to have 2.5Gbps of routing throughput with the J4125? I doubt my network will actually hit 2.5Gbps much, but I would like the assurance of this setup being good to go for at least a couple years.
Also, importantly, can Intel I226 NICs work on PCIe 2.0 x1 even though they were designed for PCIe 3.0 x1? I just want to make sure of it before committing financially.
Your advice is appreciated!
*I tried posting in the OPNsense Forum, but I got Forbidden You don't have permission to access this resource.
Source: r/opnsense · by /u/Ok-Lifeguard-939