I have been contemplating on pfSense hardware as there has been a large shortage on that market especially for having more than 2 ports (similar to for instance Mikrotik PoE router unavailability).
There was another catch with VMware ESXi 8.0. While VMware now supports the Intel i225 out-of-the-box, it no longer supports the NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-3. Given how much power the ConnectX-3 uses and the capability it provides, it is a shame that VMware dropped support for ConnectX-3. We understand that VMware is pushing new hardware and so it sunset the popular ConnectX-3 support, but the downside is that VMware’s poor HCL strikes again.
There is a bit of fan noise, although it is not bad (you can hear in the video.) The memory is fixed. ConnectX-3 uses a lot of power, albeit with 10GbE capabilities. Still, having one of these boxes my thought was constantly that it was cool. Every time I used it, I thought it was cool and wanted to add another node or two.
GoWin R86s Internal Three Components
For the firewall folks, perhaps the biggest drawback is the fans. There are two small fans, and this is not a passively cooled box. It also uses a lot of power if you do not need the 10GbE capabilities. This is also running near the limit of what an Intel N6005 platform provides.
Ultimately, this is an awesome little box. In a footprint only slightly larger than a Raspberry Pi 4B, one gets so much more. Twice the RAM, 27.5Gbps of wired networking plus WiFi, onboard eMMC with M.2 expansion. A diminutive form factor should not lead you to underestimate the power of this machine.
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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