Celeron N3150 or wait for Celeron 3955U

[Gray05]

I want to put together a pfsense system for my home router. However, I plan to run PIA VPN which places more demand on the cpu.

Because of the encryption demands that the VPN will place on it, I really want to go with something that has AES capability. That rules out easy choices like j1900.

So what I'm really looking for is some guidance since this is a less familiar part of the market for me. Is it likely that the new Celeron 3955U's will be available as retail or embedded mini boards? Is it worth waiting and possibly spending more money for this kind of application? Will the N3150 easily handle a residential application? I know that AMD has lots of chips that AES capability but, the performance/watt is not nearly as ideal as these low power intel solutions. Am I wrong about the AMDs?

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Definitely wait for the 3955U. That appears to be a cut-down Broadwell core (edit: nope, Skylake), while the N3150 is a bottom of the barrel Braswell (i.e., Atom) CPU. There won't be too much difference in power consumption and the 3955U will be much more powerful.

Seriously, Braswell is a bad joke. It's the Richland of Intel's CPUs and I am mystified why the forum hasn't been all over it like racism on white sheets.

 

[waltchan]

The Skylake Celeron is NOT a direct replacement to Braswell targeted at the low-end notebook market, and you won't find one. The notebook cores, since at least Ivy Bridge Celeron 1037u 2013 days, have been hard to find since, and 90% of Celerons are now powered by Bay Trail, Braswell, and upcoming Goldmont.

Even the embedded boards are switching to Celeron N3150 now to save on production costs, and moving on to Goldmont next.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

The Skylake Celeron is NOT a direct replacement to Braswell targeted at the low-end notebook market, and you won't find one. The notebook cores, since at least Ivy Bridge Celeron 1037u 2013 days, have been hard to find since, and 90% of Celerons are now powered by Bay Trail, Braswell, and upcoming Goldmont.

Even the embedded boards are switching to Celeron N3150 now to save on production costs, and moving on to Goldmont next.

...which would be fine and dandy if Braswell didn't suck so hard The 3955U is a 2c/2t 2 GHz Skylake part, meaning it will probably get 2-3x the performance of the N3150 for, at most, double the power usage. It will most certainly complete the "race to idle" faster, so it may use less than 2x the power over time simply because it spends much more time idling than working.

 

[Engineer]

I can't see a reason that the N3150 wouldn't work well for a pfsense system. Once AES-NI is incorporated into more packages and parts of pfsense, it will be even faster at encrypted traffic. Depending on board, drive, memory and NIC (built in or add on), the N3150 COMPLETE system should pull 15 watts or less at full load and 10 or less while IDLE. My N3700 system pulls 11 watts @ idle at the wall and I've never seen it go above 12 for any load. My 17Mbps down connection uses between 4-6% CPU of ONE core (no packages such as snort, squid, etc. installed on mine right now).

The 3955U is a better chip no doubt but if the OP wants a system that can run pfsense well and at lower power right now, the N3150 will be more than enough for that and should be better in the future as AES-NI support is added to more packages.

 

[frozentundra123456]

...which would be fine and dandy if Braswell didn't suck so hard The 3955U is a 2c/2t 2 GHz Skylake part, meaning it will probably get 2-3x the performance of the N3150 for, at most, double the power usage. It will most certainly complete the "race to idle" faster, so it may use less than 2x the power over time simply because it spends much more time idling than working.

I agree that I would prefer the skylake celeron, but i think you are over stating the performance difference by a lot. The braswell is 1.6 to 2 ghz and has 4 cores, so multithreaded could be quite close. Single thread will of course highly favor the skylake, but by maybe twice at most.

 

[Piano Man]

I want to put together a pfsense system for my home router. However, I plan to run PIA VPN which places more demand on the cpu.

Because of the encryption demands that the VPN will place on it, I really want to go with something that has AES capability. That rules out easy choices like j1900.

So what I'm really looking for is some guidance since this is a less familiar part of the market for me. Is it likely that the new Celeron 3955U's will be available as retail or embedded mini boards? Is it worth waiting and possibly spending more money for this kind of application? Will the N3150 easily handle a residential application? I know that AMD has lots of chips that AES capability but, the performance/watt is not nearly as ideal as these low power intel solutions. Am I wrong about the AMDs?

As someone with a a Celeron 1007U (no AES) pfsense router that has uses PIA, I can tell you that at one point in time it was able to handle 200Mbit/s of OpenVPN while load was around 50%. I say one point, because you will never see those speeds from PIA anymore as their service has tanked in the last 6 months. The best I have seen since is maybe 70Mbit/s.

While I agree that built in AES encryption is nice, I doubt you will find a provider that will get anywhere close to maxing out a J1900 via VPN encryption.

 

[Gray05]

-I'm really disappointed to hear that those skylake u parts won't be available to regular folks.

-I'm glad it seems people think a N3150 will/does handle this task well. It and the j1900 are the most easily available mini itx board products I can find.

-N3700?! I would like to use that chip as well. Where/How did you get a N3700 solution to run your router? I've had trouble finding anything.

-I'm especially glad to hear that even a 1007u with no AES support is able to perform so well. I will say that I'm new to the paid VPN world. PIA is my first try and I'll be evaluating the need or opportunity to switch if I see a better service.

 

[Raftina]

-N3700?! I would like to use that chip as well. Where/How did you get a N3700 solution to run your router? I've had trouble finding anything.

If you are in the US, here is one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157626

 

[Gray05]

If you are in the US, here is one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157626

Yes. I was just looking at that one. I'm trying to figure out how I could have dual Intel nic on it.

I don't know how I missed it at first.... But I'm getting better at finding these boards.

 

[Raftina]

A NIC in the PCIe slot would give you mean GbE slots, though if you need more than 1 NIC, you might have to go to mATX.

The Intel NICs are expensive enough that you might be better off with a more expensive server mobo to begin with, e.g. http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/X11/X11SBA-LN4F.cfm

 

[Gray05]

A NIC in the PCIe slot would give you mean GbE slots, though if you need more than 1 NIC, you might have to go to mATX.

The Intel NICs are expensive enough that you might be better off with a more expensive server mobo to begin with, e.g. http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/X11/X11SBA-LN4F.cfm

I appreciate the help, folks.

I'm thinking I may bite the bullet and go in the direction of a Rangeley system.

http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemNumber=N82E16813182855

From what I can gather, this set up is designed for doing excetly this kind of thing. It's extremely powerful considering my demands, efficient, and still relatively inexpensive.

My biggest concern at this point with any of these platforms (excluding the 3700) is age. I don't understand the replacement cadence for these non consumer oriented chips.

 

[Engineer]

A NIC in the PCIe slot would give you mean GbE slots, though if you need more than 1 NIC, you might have to go to mATX.

The Intel NICs are expensive enough that you might be better off with a more expensive server mobo to begin with, e.g. http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/X11/X11SBA-LN4F.cfm

This is the board I'm using and it is finally running great......but....not sure I would recommend it just yet. This board has 4 Ethernet ports. Port 1 would run fine either as a WAN port or LAN port. However, Ports 2, 3 and 4 would randomly lock up and go down (on FreeBSD, Ubuntu Linux, etc). After going back and forth with SuperMicro for some time, I RMA'ed the board. Using my testing method, they worked on the board for about 3 weeks and came back that they had 'modified the hardware' on the board. After getting it back, it's been rock solid. However, I don't know if the issue still exists in current boards or if it was just something wrong with my board. SuperMicro won't tell me anything other than 'modified the hardware' (whatever that means).

I love the board (even if expensive at $216 shipped), especially the IPMI port for remoting in and changing / installing stuff (no need to drag out the unit for a keyboard / mouse / CD-ROM - do it all remotely over Ethernet is VERY nice).

The biggest issue with the N3150 / N3700 seems to be the fact that the SoC only includes 4 PCIe lanes, which is why the slots on the motherboards are only x1. It's also the reason, IMO, that my LAN ports 2, 3 and 4 were problematic as there is a PCIe switching chip that connects the three Intel I210AT LAN chips to the N3700 chip. LAN port 1 is tied directly to the chp.

 

[Gray05]

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRM-2758F.cfm

Ended up finding a deal on this c2758 board. Way more horsepower than I need, efficient, and known to be used as a pfsense platform.

Thanks for the guidance, guys/gals.

 

[Engineer]

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRM-2758F.cfm

Ended up finding a deal on this c2758 board. Way more horsepower than I need, efficient, and known to be used as a pfsense platform.

Thanks for the guidance, guys/gals.

That processor should be an EXCELLENT choice for both now and future expansion, especially with AES-NI AND QuickAssist functionality. I would prefer an ITX board but it's all good!

 

[Gray05]

That processor should be an EXCELLENT choice for both now and future expansion, especially with AES-NI AND QuickAssist functionality. I would prefer an ITX board but it's all good!

ITX would be better if I had a good case for this. I'm just throwing it in a desktop case I already have. So the size is whatever.

 

[Engineer]

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRM-2758F.cfm

Ended up finding a deal on this c2758 board. Way more horsepower than I need, efficient, and known to be used as a pfsense platform.

Thanks for the guidance, guys/gals.

Here's an idea of what the 2758 will do on throughput:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/3xqhqo/thinking_of_switching_to_pfsense/cy7evhu

The OpenVPN should improve greatly once AES-NI (and/or QuickAssist) are incorporated. 1.3Gbps with IPSEC is really impressive for 20W. I'm assuming they are using 10Gbps Ethernet cards to test these.

Also notice the last one on the list - Xeon D-1540. Built in dual 10Gbit Ethernet. Massive bump in speed. The Xeon D series units should be great for this type of thing (although expensive). Hope Intel starts looking at adding a few of the features like 10Gbit Ethernet, etc. to a Pentium / Celeron SoC at lower power.

 

[Rngwn]

The N3150 is pretty anemic, even N2930 can be faster in some machines.

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Acer-Aspire-ES1-331-C5KL-Notebook.150693.0.html

 

[Engineer]

The N3150 is pretty anemic, even N2930 can be faster in some machines.

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Acer-Aspire-ES1-331-C5KL-Notebook.150693.0.html

With AES-NI support being added to pfsense / OpenVPN, the N3150 will smoke the N2930 in encryption in the near future. N3150 is the better choice for pfsense.

 

[Gray05]

With AES-NI support being added to pfsense / OpenVPN, the N3150 will smoke the N2930 in encryption in the near future. N3150 is the better choice for pfsense.

Assuming your pfsense machine has an encryption load. Like if you're running a VPN.

 

[Engineer]

Assuming your pfsense machine has an encryption load. Like if you're running a VPN.

True but I suspect as traffic speeds increase, many more types of encryption could benefit. Not sure if it will benefit in the future on HTTPS, etc. or not. I seem to recall AES-NI speeding up SSL (OpenSSL, etc) but I'm not knowledgeable enough about this to know if that helps the every day user on secure pages or not.

Edit: After reading around, there are benchmarks that show up to an 8X speed in OpenSSL with AES-NI enabled vs AES-NI disabled. Based on that alone, HTTPS should get a boost, correct?

 

[TeknoBug]

If you are in the US, here is one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157626

jeez for $99? I'd buy one instantly, would make a great guest computer or just some HTPC which would fare better than one of those PC sticks with the Z3735F.

 

[virtuality]

Please help me with this, as I'm not really an expert on how Intel and PC manufacturer life cycles work: the Celeron 3855U and 3955U came out in December 2015. That was quite a while. So why I can hardly see them around? I would like a barebone/mini PC with Celeron 3855U or 3955U. According to Geekbench, they're much faster than then previous generation.