Will a dual core Atom be sufficient to run a firewall at home?

[Jeff7181]

I wonder how much power that P3 uses. I did a simple cost analysis and it only takes about a year and a half to recover the $212 cost of the Atom rig I'm building. And power isn't that expensive in MI, works out to 14-15 cents per KWH after tax and all the other BS charges they add on to of the rate they advertise.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That P3 machine is probably not the most efficient. I have not checked it individually, but my server, my switches, wifi router and that firewall total to about 450w according to my UPS's display. (they're all plugged into the battery side).

I think those little 1U atoms use like 80w or something, maybe even less.

Though I find actual power usage is not what is expensive. It's the delivery charge and all the other BS charges they add on there. My electricity usage is like 30% of the actual bill.

 

[Jeff7181]

Well... power usage isn't what I had hoped for, but it's still relatively low... about 35 watts.

 

[pitz]

I wonder how much power that P3 uses. I did a simple cost analysis and it only takes about a year and a half to recover the $212 cost of the Atom rig I'm building. And power isn't that expensive in MI, works out to 14-15 cents per KWH after tax and all the other BS charges they add on to of the rate they advertise.

I wouldn't call those rates cheap. That's still well over $1/watt/year for stuff that runs continuously, 24/7.

Once you start adding things up, low power platforms can save a lot of money. Even with Sandy Bridge versus the AMD stuff, you're looking at 20-40W of idle power savings often, which can pay for the difference in up-front system costs over just a couple of years (not to mention Sandy Bridge probably has better performance to boot!).