Hardware/performance questions

Hardware
1

I am running Core-Update 175 on a i3-2120 with 6gb of ram, a small SSD and have 8 NICs -one Realtek RTL8125 4port 2.5GbE card and one Realtek RTL8111 4port 1GbE card. My ISP is “gig” cable and the modem has a a 2.5GbE interface. I am typically able to pull around 1150Mbps down and about 45 up when running speed tests via my hardwired devices and 600-800 down over wifi. Also I am using 2 EERO pro6E’s for wifi, but they are only used in bridge/access point mode with no routing.

My system is only at home use, with about 6 computers, 5phones/ tablets, a media server (Plex) and a few fire sticks and AppleTVs home devices, a couple of wifi cameras and about 25 various smart plugs. I really only connect from the outside to my plex server with at most 2 connections-(my wife’s and my phones for streaming.

I feel like I am barely pushing my firewall if at all, as everything seems to work just fine with very few hiccups if ever. I restart the network about once a month just for the heck of it.

So my questions are-

  1. Am I using under powered hardware for my firewall given my use case?

I feel like the SMT vulnerability may be keeping my network from running at full potential. But again it is just for home use. Obviously, I just used an available CPU/MB combo I had laying around collecting dust.

  1. Should I buy a new CPU/MB and if so go with AMD? Does the AMD cpu suffer the same CMT vulnerability?

I don’t really WANT to buy new stuff, but if I would see a dramatic increase in overall network speed I would certainly consider it. If I am unlikely to see much difference than I will justice with what I have for now.

2

This seems to be pretty decent hardware, do you use OVPN or IPS?’
what do you hardware graph’s look like?

3

I do run AMD hardware for my IPFire and leave SMT setting at automatic. It defaults to ENABLED.

System → Hardware Vulnerabilities does report SMT making it vulnerable (and not migitated) to RETBLEED. That is somewhat confusing, because the CPU is not SMT capable anyway. OTOH, the APU is 2014 vintage and newer models are likely to have a different profile.

My laptop, that has a Ryzen 3 series APU, does SMT and is running openSUSE, which does not report on RETBLEED.

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4

As of right this second, NO. but I plan on implementing IPS very soon.

5

I think your setup will be just fine. especially for home use.

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