More powerful devices for OpenWrt

[Owengerig]

I really want to upgrade my router to add as much power as i can get.
I started looking at the R6S but don't like the security risk regarding friendly elec kernel choice.
Today I found a post talking about "N5105" chipset

are these N5105 devices officially supported? Where is the hardware page?
is there are a newer or more powerful device for adding desktop specs to the router?

side question
i realize this forum isnt for these devices, but does anyone know where the antenna are on these devices? i see 2 tabs that look like antennae ports; but I've never seen a port like that.

[mk24]

The N5105 is an Intel x86-64 processor. The x86-64 build supports all recent mini-PC boxes such as the one you posted.

WiFi in these is done with an M2 card and antenna kit, it is not high performance. Building a gigabit ready setup should use dedicated separate APs.

[NC1]

@Owengerig

I really want to upgrade my router to add as much power as i can get.

No problem, as long as you have the budget for it. Buy a commercial x86 router or an industrial PC with an appropriate NIC and install OpenWrt on it. There are desktop models that go up to Intel Core i7 (the photo below shows Protectli Vault FW6E). If you need something rack-mountable, you can go pretty far into the Xeon territory.

Alternatively, you absolutely can build your own. Go to YouTube and search for "Level1 forbidden router".

[dl12345]

@Owengerig

I really want to upgrade my router to add as much power as i can get.

Build a router based on this board and your wishes will come true. It's a mini-ITX form factor. 8-core x86_64 and 25W TDP. There are quite a few commercial firewall appliances targeted at SMEs that are based on this board or one of its variants. It will consume less power than a core i3 / i5 / i7, which for a device on 24/7 is an important factor.

My OpenWRT router is based on this board and looking at its performance on a 1Gbe link, I'd theorize this board could easily handle a multi-Gbe link, since it caps out at about 25% CPU usage on all cores when maxing out my connection with a 1 Gbps download with SQM on ingress.

[slh]

@Owengerig

i realize this forum isnt for these devices, but does anyone know where the antenna are on these devices? i see 2 tabs that look like antennae ports; but I've never seen a port like that.

Look at the second picture, the one with the power button, in the lower right corner of that panel are two holes capped with a plastic lid (RP-SMA antenna connectors/ pigtails not installed in the pictured device - just two capped holes ready for further extension).

[fakemanhk]

It has QAT support, can give OpenVPN a strong boost (much better than AES-NI)

[fakemanhk]

Here is one of the most powerful and small form factor you can get.

404.55€ 35% OFF|Amdソフトルータryzen 7 5825U 5800U 4xインテルi226 V...

I believe you can get 2.5G full speed with cake SQM and lots of applications on it.

[dl12345]

@fakemanhk

It has QAT support, can give OpenVPN a strong boost (much better than AES-NI)

This is unfortunately not correct: Which WiFi routers have hardware AES encryption support? - #18 by dl12345

It bears noting that there is no QAT support in OpenWrt although I have made a full port of QAT to OpenWRT which is on my github. It's pointless implementing it though, unless you have a very specific use-case and then you'd probably be better off hosting on a full distro anyway.