Two interesting J4125 SoC boards for home-made firewall appliances

Hardware
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ASRock J4125B-ITX
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J4125B-ITX/

Pros:

  • +Bigger heatsink than the Biostar board
  • +Cheaper

Cons:

  • -No M.2 slots
  • -Needs S0-DIMM (laptop format), a bit more expensive, less models available
  • -No TPM header

Biostar J4125NHU

Pros:

  • +Full-size DDR4 slots, better availability, better timings
  • +Supports 2x M-2 Slots (1x M-Key 2242/2260/2280 PCIe 2.0 x2 & 1x E-Key 2230 x1)

Cons:

  • -Smaller heatsink, needs better case cooling
  • -The PCIe 2.0 slot is only x1
  • -Probable less durable than ASRock boards
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Only 1 ethernet interface?

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You have to add an PCIe extension card of course, e.g. this:

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IMVHO… both “meh”. But anyway, somethin gotta give for a reduced price.

Edit: According with Microsoft…

J4125 is Windows 11 supported. Maybe it’s already TPM 2.0 compliant?

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the extension card looks very interesting. Do you know if it works well with the Linux kernel?

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At work I use the Supermicro version (AOC-SGP-i4) in an OPNsense appliance. So at least it works fine under BSD. :slightly_smiling_face:

The two port version is actually listed in the IPFire compatibility list.

According to the ASRock manual it supports Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT), a TPM running in the Intel Management Engine, so it should actually work without a TPM header.

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