On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 06:12:41PM +0200, Christian Weisgerber wrote: > I bought a PC Engines APU2 this week and thought I'd write up my > impressions. > > TL;DR: Recommended. > > The obvious point of reference is the Soekris net6501. Now, that > comparison isn't really fair since the net6501 is several years old > and the APU2 is a new design. Then again, Soekris canceled their > successor model (after stringing along potential customers for a > year), so they're without a competitive product now. Tough for them. > > http://pcengines.ch/apu2c4.htm > https://soekris.com/products/net6501-1.html > > Here's what the APU2 lacks: It has only three Ethernet ports instead > of four, no front-side Ethernet LEDs, no PCI-Express expansion slot, > no LOM. On the plus side, it has two USB 3.0 ports instead of a > single USB 2.0 one. > > Performance: Single-core speed of the APU2 seems to be comparable > to the net6501-70 (the fast model), but the APU2 has four cores > instead of two and it has AES-NI, which provides a big boost for > many crypto applications. A "make -j4 build" took exactly 120 > minutes. > > Heat: The APUs have an innovative design where the CPU heat sink > is coupled to the case. Since this is typically assembled by the > customer, a lot of attention is drawn to it and people obsess over > the CPU temperature. It's a nonissue. Case temperature is about > the same as for the net6501, where people are far less concerned, > even a "make -j4 build" didn't raise the CPU temperature much (57C > to 64.5C), and the design ensures good heat flow. Ask me again in > six months how it did in a 33C summer environment, but I expect no > problems whatsoever. > > The firmware is still being worked on; it's cobbled together from > coreboot, a MemTest86 module (takes about 1h45 for one pass on the > apu2c4), and iPXE. It works. I've booted via PXE, from an external > USB key, and from mSATA. > > Miscellaneous: The case is really compact. The order of the Ethernet > ports is reversed when compared to the Soekris and not marked on > the case. > > And yes, the APU2 is fully supported by OpenBSD 5.9. > > Overall, I like it a lot. Compared to the net6501, the APU2 is > much cheaper and more powerful. Compared to Intel Rangeley devices, > it is readily available in small quantities (like, one) and, to > pick the one that you can easily buy, again much cheaper than the > RCC-VE 2440. > > My APU2 is serving as my home gateway now, replacing a net6501. > It feels good to be running an AMD CPU again. :-) > > > PS: I bought mine from NRG Systems GmbH, Augsburg, Germany, who > sell convenient board/case/PSU/SSD kits. Board and case were > already assembled. > -- > Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
A dmesg! My kingdom for a dmesg! ;-) -otto