My Linksys WRT54G2 has been acting flaky lately so I'm looking to replace it. This will delay my HTPC project for a while, but I need a reliable router! One of my co-workers was telling me about his recent router replacement so I'm stealing his idea. Basically a mini pc with PFSense running the firewall software.

PFSense is a bsd based software firewall that has tons of features:
http://www.pfsense.org/

Here is what I'm thinking for the hardware:

Biostar Mini Daemon Intel Atom 330 on board Intel 945GC Intel GMA 950 Barebone
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... i%20daemon

Mushkin Select 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820226148

OCZ Onyx OCZSSD2-1ONX32G 2.5" 32GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227510

What do you guys think? Is a quad core firewall overkill?

It's overkill to me, I run Tomato firmware on my Linksys WRT54G and couldn't be much happier.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2008/10 ... 4g-router/

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Alex Kuretz
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I agree with Alex. A decent regular router has a lot of options that can be tweaked to secure the system. Win7 is also much better protected than Win XP is/was. Me, I love my D-link DGL- 4100 Gamer lounge router (Dang, this dude is 4 years old- that is 80 years old in internet dog years) as it really does seem to speed up my online gaming. I have latched down some extra ports and done some tweaking to secure it better but still, no intrusions that I have ever noticed, even with a teenager in the house....

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John E Pombrio
Do not meddle in the affair of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.