Can i use my old Prescott for a firewall? PFsense

[sbaksh]

Hi Guys,
I have an old P4 Prescott, when i build the thing i hardly used it. I used it only for a month, then i moved and it got parked all these years.
I donated the hard drives but i am having a hard time dumping it.
Can i use it for a firewall?
The thing runs hotter that a regular P4 and it has a higher wattage.
Is it worth it to burn energy to use it or should i buy a firewall device?

I was thinking of getting a Cisco firewall for my home.

Anyways your feed back are greatly appreciated.

 

[Blain]

Are you running a router?

 

[hawk82]

Either get a firewall appliance of some type (cisco, sonicwall, watchguard, etc) or go with a low power CPU like a VIA, Intel Atom, or AMD low end processor/ITX mobo combo. It's not worth burning the extra power for a Prescott that won't really get used much as a firewall in a home environment.

 

[sbaksh]

Yes Blain

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Either get a firewall appliance of some type (cisco, sonicwall, watchguard, etc) or go with a low power CPU like a VIA, Intel Atom, or AMD low end processor/ITX mobo combo. It's not worth burning the extra power for a Prescott that won't really get used much as a firewall in a home environment.

+1

 

[mfenn]

Can you? Yes. Should you? No, because it is much hotter and louder than you need. An Atom board is more than enough horsepower. I used an older version of this board with an add-in PCIe NIC as a PFsense box for a few years.