Gowin Solution R86S-P2 and R86S-B3 2.5G Mini-PC

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Disclosure: Gowin Solution sponsored the R86S-P2 and the R86S-B3 devices but opinions are my own
Table of Contents

In July 2022, I was contacted by Gowin Solution (also see their international website) to review their new mini-PC/firewall devices which have 2.5G Ethernet interfaces. Gowin is a newer Chinese company that is beginning to produce mini-PC/firewall appliances. The company seems interested in reaching out to bloggers like myself to generate interest in their products and to help provide guidance on software installation since their primary focus is on producing hardware.

Gowin has 3 main variations of the R86S: the “B”, “P”, and “G” series. Each variation has 3 configuration options B1-B3, P1-P3, and G1-G3. The “B” and “P” series have three 2.5G Ethernet interfaces while the “G” series has three 2.5G Ethernet interfaces and two 10G SFP+ interfaces. The P3 and G3 models come equipped with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth.

What peeked my interest the most was Gowin’s “G” series mini-PC model which contains both 2.5G Ethernet interfaces as well as 10G SFP+ interfaces. Personally, I think that is the perfect combination of interfaces for those of us home users who desire higher speed networks without using bulky, power hungry, loud enterprise gear or a custom built system.

I realize quieter, more energy efficient enterprise servers are available in a 1U half depth format, but I found those are typically newer generation options that can be pricier than older, used enterprise equipment.

I initially received the “B3” and “P2” models to review, but I plan to review a “G” series model at a later time once I receive it.

One thing to note is that both models that I received to review do not normally come with the WiFi module pre-installed. However, Gowin indicated that the WiFi module may be purchased separately if you decide later that you want to add it.

Unboxing

The Gowin R86S comes in a nice little black box which reminds me a little bit like packaging that Apple uses for their devices. There is a foam insert that holds the R86S and accessories in place for protection during shipping. The quality of the packaging is much higher than I expected it to be.

The contents include the R86S, the power brick, a screwdriver, and WiFi antennas if you purchase the models which come with WiFi.

Gowin R86S Unboxing

Note

The screws on the case are tiny hex sockets so if you plan to open it, be sure to keep the included screwdriver unless you have precision tools available.

Build Quality and Features

When I first saw images sent to me by Gowin, the chassis appeared to be a smooth dark gray color but the actual chassis is black and has a slight texture on the coating that you can mostly only see in the light as demonstrated in the photos below. My first thoughts after opening the box is that the build quality seems nicer in reality than in the first images I saw. The R86S is heavier than I expected for its size.

On the front of the R86S “B” and “P” series models, there are three 2.5G Ethernet ports. It is interesting that there are only 3 interfaces instead of 2, 4 or 6 like most other mini-PC/firewall appliances. One reason I suspect is that Gowin wanted to make the R86S as small as possible. The R86S is small enough to fit in your pocket.

There is also a USB 3.0 port as well as the DC power socket on the front of each device.

The “B” series model has a less powerful CPU and is fanless like most mini-PC firewall appliances as you can see in the photo below.

Gowin R86S-B3

However, since the “P” series model (and also the “G” series model which is not pictured below) has a faster CPU which consumes nearly double the wattage, it is not fanless. The box is virtually silent a short distance away but as you move your ear closer you will start to hear fan noise about a 1-2 feet away. The noise level is so low that you could have this device sitting on your desk and you would likely not hear it. If you want a completely silent/fanless device you may prefer the “B” series model rather than the “P” series.

As I mentioned earlier, the “P2” model does not normally come with WiFi, but my review unit came with that module so that I could try it out. I installed the antennas so you can see what they look like if you purchase a model with WiFi.

Gowin R86S Front

On the left side of the R86S, you will see another USB 3.0 port, a HDMI port, and a TF slot. A TF slot is basically another name for a microSD card slot. A microSD card reader may be convenient if you are using the R86S as a mini-PC since you could flash microSD cards to be used in Raspberry Pi’s or perhaps your phone/camera has data you wish to import on your PC.

The power button and power LED is also located on the left side of the R86S.

Gowin R86S Left

The right side of the R86S does not have any ports. If you are curious, neither does the back of the device (I did not take a picture since there is nothing of note other than the connections for the antennas which you can see in all of the pictures).

Gowin R86S Right

On the bottom, there is a removable plate that exposes the NVMe interface and the WiFi interface (or the WiFi module if it is preinstalled).

Gowin R86S Bottom

A standard size NVMe drive can be installed as shown below:

Gowin R86S Bottom

Above the NVMe drive is several ribbon connectors (it appears below the NVMe drive in this photo because I have the R86S updside down for the picture). For models with fans, they will be connected as well. I find it interesting that the CMOS CR2032 battery is attached to the bottom portion of the case. This computer is so small that the CMOS battery would take up too much space on the motherboard!

Gowin R86S Inside

On the other side of the motherboard (which is the top of the R86S), you can see the CPU with the thermal paste applied. As expected the metal chassis is being used as the heatsink.

One important item of note is that the RAM is actually soldered on the motherboard to save space. I did not realize this until I saw the STH review of the R86S-G model since I had not fully disassembled the system. In the interest of having a thorough review, I took the device fully apart to take a look at it.

You may purchase the R86S with 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM, so I highly recommend you go with 16 GB since you cannot change unless you are on a tighter budget and you think 8 GB will be enough for the life of the device.

Gowin R86S Inside

The R86S is a very compact form factor – even much smaller than most other mini-PC firewall devices as can be seen in the picture below. From left to right: the Qotom Q350G4, the Protectli VP2410, and the Gowin R86S.

Gowin R86S Size Comparison

In fact, it is not much larger than the Raspberry Pi 4 Flirc case! (affiliate link)

Gowin R86S Size Comparison

Hardware Specifications

The primary differences between the “B” and the “P” series models is the CPU. The “B” series has the Intel Celeron N5100 CPU while the “P” series has the Intel Celeron N5105 CPU. The N5100 is more power efficient than the N5105, but it also runs at a lower base clock speed. The burst CPU core frequency is nearly the same for both CPUs so it is likely the performance will be fairly similar (the single thread performance is 6.6% different according to cpubenchmark.net) but the N5100 is able to idle at a lower CPU frequency allowing for increased power savings. If you are willing to sacrifice a small amount of performance to increase power efficiency, you may prefer the “B” series model.

You may get the R86S with 8 GB or 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. The P3 and G3 models come with WiFi/Bluetooth. You can save costs depending on the configuration you choose.

One notable feature for all of the R86S models is that you can add a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe drive. You may use the drive as your primary disk to greatly improve performance over the built-in eMMC storage. Not all mini-PCs support PCIe NMVe so this is a nice addition to this tiny but mighty device.

GW-R86S-B3

Hardware Option
CPU Intel Celeron N5100 @ 1.10GHz (4 cores, 4 threads)
Memory Micron 16 GB LPDDR4X
Storage 128 GB EMMC
Storage NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 (optional)
Storage TF card (microSD)
Network Intel i225v 2.5G
WiFi/BT none* (optional WiFi 6/Bluetooth module)

GW-R86S-P2

Hardware Option
CPU Intel Celeron N5105 @ 2.00GHz (4 cores, 4 threads)
Memory Micron 16 GB LPDDR4X
Storage 128 GB EMMC
Storage NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 (optional)
Storage TF card (microSD)
Network Intel i225v 2.5G
WiFi/BT none* (optional WiFi 6/Bluetooth module)

Performance

Performance is often top of mind when considering a hardware purchase. Since the R86S has 2.5G network interfaces, testing out the performance on those interfaces will be one of the most interesting aspects because I know many users are migrating to 2.5G and faster home networks. The price of 2.5G interfaces have dropped in recent years so adoption has been increasing.

In order to test the maximum throughput of the R86S, I will perform the testing on my internal network, which has 2 machines with 2.5G interfaces. Both systems are connected to their own interface on the R86S with the interfaces configured as separate networks on OPNsense so that network traffic has to be routed across the interfaces. This will allow IDS/IPS performance to be tested since all of the packets entering the interfaces will be processed by the IDS/IPS service(s).

I am going to use simple iperf3 tests to get a general idea of network performance and how it is impacted by the IDS/IPS service(s) you have enabled. This type of basic network testing may not push IDS/IPS to its limits like heavy real world traffic, but it should provide a baseline of firewall throughput.

No IDS/IPS Enabled

With no IDS/IPS enabled, as you might expect, the throughput for the 2.5G interfaces on both the “B3” and “P2” models approach the theoretical maximum bandwidth. There is a little bit of overhead with the network interfaces so you will never see the full 2.5 Gbps being utilized, but it should be very close as you can see below.

The CPU utilization briefly spiked to 20-25% and would drop back down to a few percent. This would occur a few times during the iperf3 test. As you will see in subsequent tests below, the CPU overhead is much lower than using IDS/IPS, which is to be expected.

GW-R86S-B3

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0    918 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   1.32 MBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  2.63 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   2.12 MBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   2.12 MBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   2.12 MBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   2.12 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  15.8 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.04  sec  15.8 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec                  receiver
Performance No IDS

GW-R86S-P2

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0    717 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0    868 KBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0    868 KBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0    868 KBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0   1.26 MBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0   1.89 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  15.8 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.04  sec  15.8 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec                  receiver
Performance No IDS

Zenarmor Enabled

With no IDS/IPS the performance of the “B3” and “P2” models are practically identical. However, when Zenarmor is enabled, the story starts to change.

GW-R86S-B3

The “B3” starts off strong but tends to quickly drop in throughput unlike the “P2”. I noticed the temperatures reaching 65-67C so perhaps there is some thermal throttling occurring or it is just reaching the limits of the slower N5100 CPU. Some of my tests would reach only 1.7 Gbps so I do not think you are going to break past 2 Gbps with this model with Zenarmor.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.60 GBytes  2.23 Gbits/sec  138   1.34 MBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  2.57 GBytes  2.20 Gbits/sec    2   1.35 MBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  2.03 GBytes  1.74 Gbits/sec  196   1.29 MBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  2.16 GBytes  1.86 Gbits/sec   90   1.87 MBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  2.10 GBytes  1.81 Gbits/sec  456   1.36 MBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  2.16 GBytes  1.86 Gbits/sec   53   1.69 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  13.6 GBytes  1.95 Gbits/sec  935             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.05  sec  13.6 GBytes  1.95 Gbits/sec                  receiver
Performance with Zenarmor

GW-R86S-P2

You will notice below that there is a very slight dip in network performance when Zenarmor is enabled. The throughput graph is not quite as flat as when no IDS/IPS enabled, but you are unlikely to notice the real world difference in throughput. However, there is a hit to the CPU utilization. It hovered around 50% utilization so 2 CPU cores were fully utilized when running the iperf3 test.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0   2.73 MBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  2.61 GBytes  2.25 Gbits/sec   88   1.29 MBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  2.60 GBytes  2.24 Gbits/sec    0   1.43 MBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   2.02 MBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  2.63 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec  319   2.12 MBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  2.60 GBytes  2.23 Gbits/sec   86   1.29 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  15.7 GBytes  2.25 Gbits/sec  493             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.04  sec  15.7 GBytes  2.25 Gbits/sec                  receiver
Performance with Zenarmor

Suricata Enabled

To determine the worst case performance with Suricata, I enabled all of the rules for both LAN interfaces. Normally you would only enable rules which apply to the types of hardware, software, and network services you have running in your network.

GW-R86S-B3

There is a significant drop in performance when Suricata is enabled. You may be able to get higher performance by enabling less rules, but the CPU is likely too weak to handle Suricata with a high level of performance.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   513 MBytes   430 Mbits/sec   81    727 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec   521 MBytes   437 Mbits/sec   56    638 KBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec   508 MBytes   426 Mbits/sec   22    737 KBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec   432 MBytes   363 Mbits/sec    8    766 KBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec   440 MBytes   369 Mbits/sec   23    563 KBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec   440 MBytes   369 Mbits/sec   21    585 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  2.79 GBytes   399 Mbits/sec  211             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.06  sec  2.78 GBytes   398 Mbits/sec                  receiver
Performance with Suricata

I must point out a more accurate representation might be to only have Suricata enabled on 1 of the 2 LAN interfaces since Suricata is often used on the WAN interface and not on any internal interfaces. When I only enabled Suricata on 1 interface to simulate traffic over a WAN interface to a LAN interface, throughput more than doubled. It is still much less than the maximum 2.5 Gbps throughput.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.14 GBytes   976 Mbits/sec  131    697 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  1.13 GBytes   970 Mbits/sec   33    783 KBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  1.13 GBytes   973 Mbits/sec   67    648 KBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  1.08 GBytes   929 Mbits/sec   44    687 KBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  1024 MBytes   859 Mbits/sec   45    626 KBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  1.03 GBytes   881 Mbits/sec   44    602 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  6.50 GBytes   931 Mbits/sec  364             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.04  sec  6.50 GBytes   930 Mbits/sec                  receiver

GW-R86S-P2

Performance was better than I expected for the “P2” model. It is very possible that basic iperf3 tests do not strain the system like real world traffic. I did not notice a significant drop in throughput when running the test 2-3 times. However, I notice an interesting issue (see the warning below). I am not sure the root cause of this issue.

Warning

After running the test 2-3 times, the throughput would drop significantly. If I restarted the Suricata service, the throughput would go back to its max throughput for a few test runs. I do not know if this issue is related the fact the network interfaces are Intel i225v, which have been known to have lots of driver issues (or perhaps flaws in the actual hardware). I even tried running half as many rules and still encountered the same issue. I do not believe it is due to thermal throttling since the temperatures (especially on the “P2” model) look reasonable.

This issue does not seem to manifest with Zenarmor which you think might happen if is caused by issues with the i225v chipset. I wanted to mention this issue as a potential word of caution for anyone considering using Suricata on the “P” series models.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.27 Gbits/sec    0    962 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   1.00 MBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   1.00 MBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   1.00 MBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   1.00 MBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0   1.00 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  15.8 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.04  sec  15.8 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec                  receiver
Performance with Suricata

Below is what happens when Suricta is running on both LAN interfaces after running iperf3 several times:

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   517 MBytes   434 Mbits/sec   75    721 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec   545 MBytes   457 Mbits/sec   24    655 KBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec   545 MBytes   457 Mbits/sec   30    561 KBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec   545 MBytes   457 Mbits/sec   24    725 KBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec   542 MBytes   455 Mbits/sec   30    641 KBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec   545 MBytes   457 Mbits/sec   37    547 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  3.16 GBytes   453 Mbits/sec  220             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.06  sec  3.16 GBytes   452 Mbits/sec                  receiver

If I only run Suricata on 1 of the 2 interfaces instead of both (when throughput drops), just like with the “B3” model, performance would more than double. However, the performance is still below 1 Gbps.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.15 GBytes   989 Mbits/sec   90    701 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  1.15 GBytes   988 Mbits/sec   31    805 KBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  1.14 GBytes   979 Mbits/sec   58    665 KBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  1.15 GBytes   988 Mbits/sec   55    762 KBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  1.15 GBytes   984 Mbits/sec   56    615 KBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  1.15 GBytes   986 Mbits/sec   50    727 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  6.88 GBytes   985 Mbits/sec  340             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.04  sec  6.88 GBytes   984 Mbits/sec                  receiver

Zenarmor + Suricata Enabled

For this test, I enabled Zenarmor on one interface and Suricata on the other interface since they both cannot run on the same interface at the same time due to limitations with netmap. Typically you would run Suricata on the WAN and Zenarmor on the LAN.

One thing that is interesting about running both Zenarmor and Suricata is that the CPU stays pegged around 50% which indicates that both Zenarmor and Suricata are competing for the same 2 cores (the Zenarmor team has indicated to me that is likely what is happening based on what I am seeing). Because of this, throughput will take a hit when running both services. It is too bad that the services cannot be distributed better across the cores because it is possible much higher throughput could be available even for these lower power CPUs if the entire CPU was being fully utilized.

GW-R86S-B3

The performance of the “B3” is only slightly lower than when I tried running Suricata on only 1 of the 2 LAN interfaces. Zenarmor does not seem to impact performance as much as Suricata does.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.00 GBytes   860 Mbits/sec   93    776 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  1.02 GBytes   879 Mbits/sec   27    732 KBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec   882 MBytes   740 Mbits/sec   33    747 KBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec   875 MBytes   734 Mbits/sec   20    771 KBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec   871 MBytes   731 Mbits/sec   23    792 KBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec   794 MBytes   666 Mbits/sec   69    775 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  5.37 GBytes   768 Mbits/sec  265             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.05  sec  5.36 GBytes   767 Mbits/sec                  receiver
Performance with Suricata

GW-R86S-P2

Although the “P2” model seems to handle Suricata and Zenarmor well by itself, when both are running performance starts to drop below 2 Gbps. However, the performance is pretty respectable since the overall throughput is still slightly more than double a 1 Gbps interface.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.54 GBytes  1.32 Gbits/sec  954   1.81 MBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec  2.07 GBytes  1.78 Gbits/sec    1   1.41 KBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec  2.18 GBytes  1.87 Gbits/sec  1269   2.17 MBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec  2.53 GBytes  2.17 Gbits/sec    0   2.65 MBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec  2.64 GBytes  2.26 Gbits/sec  170   2.34 MBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec  2.62 GBytes  2.25 Gbits/sec   21   2.09 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  13.6 GBytes  1.94 Gbits/sec  2415             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.04  sec  13.6 GBytes  1.94 Gbits/sec                  receiver
Performance with Suricata

Just like with Suricata enabled by itself, after running a few tests, the throughput would drop significantly on a consistent basis (something with Suricata is causing this issue).

Wireless

In OPNsense, the wireless on the R86S was not recognized so if you plan to use the built-in wireless for OPNsense, you should not purchase the WiFi model unless you think you may use the R86S later for other purposes.

To test WiFi performance, I installed Ubuntu which recognizes the wireless hardware and connected to my wireless network. Then I performed the same iperf3 test as I did for the wired interfaces. With iperf3, I got around 421 Mbps on average, but I have seen it fluctuate lower or higher than that. Wireless performance is not as consistent as wired performance.

The R86S supports WiFi 6, but I currently only have WiFi 5 at home so I am not able to test how much greater WiFi 6 speeds are compared to WiFi 5.

The performance on your network may be better or worse depending on the wireless devices you are connecting to and the environment where you live since you may receive more or less interference from your neighbors than I do.

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   489 MBytes   410 Mbits/sec   99   2.07 MBytes       
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec   504 MBytes   423 Mbits/sec    0   2.31 MBytes       
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec   499 MBytes   418 Mbits/sec  143   1.64 MBytes       
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec   518 MBytes   434 Mbits/sec    0   2.04 MBytes       
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec   492 MBytes   413 Mbits/sec  295   1.69 MBytes       
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec   511 MBytes   429 Mbits/sec    0   1.83 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec  2.94 GBytes   421 Mbits/sec  537             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.05  sec  2.94 GBytes   421 Mbits/sec                  receiver

Storage

The R86S comes equipped with eMMC storage which is faster and more reliable than microSD storage used by the Raspberry Pi and other devices, but eMMC is not quite as performant as a standard SSD as you can see in the benchmark below. SSDs can reach peak read speeds of approximately 550 MB/s. The eMMC reached a peak around 320 MB/s for reading and 255 MB/s for writing so it is slightly less than 2 times slower than a standard SSD.

Storage Performance of eMMC

However, the eMMC storage is still quite a bit faster than typical microSD storage as you can see below. The microSD card barely reads and writes above 20 MB/s. There may be microSD cards which are faster or slower than the card that I used so your results may vary.

Storage Performance of microSD

The R86S supports PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe storage so I added a NVMe drive to see how much faster it is compared to the eMMC. Of course, NVMe should be much faster, but I wanted to find out if the full PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth can be utilized. I tested the same Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe drive (affiliate link) on my Proxmox server, and it was able to reach the advertised speeds for reading (~3,500 MB/s) and nearly the advertised speeds for writing (~3,100 MB/s).

In the screenshot below, you can see it does indeed utilize essentially the same amount of PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth as a desktop PC, which is a huge performance boost for your storage. I would recommend taking advantage of this additional performance especially when 500 GB NVMe drives can be relatively inexpensive.

Storage Performance of NVMe

Power Consumption

For basic power consumption, I used an energy monitoring smart plug which I have connected to Home Assistant so I could monitor the power usage over time in a nice graph. Depending on the accuracy of the energy monitoring circuitry, this may not necessarily be the best way to test power consumption. However, the values I saw seemed very reasonable considering the TDP of both the Intel N5100 and N5105 are 6W and 10W respectively.

GW-R86S-B3

The TDP of the R86S-B3 is 6W, but interestingly, I noticed when compared to the R86S-P2 that the power consumption is not much lower. When I booted up the R86S-B3, the wattage peaked around 12W. The idle wattage seemed to be around 9-10W which is actually very similar to the R86S-P2, and I even added NVMe storage which adds a small amount of additional power consumption. While using the box to open applications, run WiFi performance tests, etc., I did not see the wattage exceed 16 watts. If any extra peripherals are used, energy usage will increase.

GW-R86S-P2

The power consumption on the R86S-P2 seems to be around 9-10W when idling and when testing throughput with IPS/IDS enabled it jumped to 12W with 50% CPU utilization. When I booted it up, the wattage peaked around 14-16W. While using the box to open applications, run WiFi performance tests, etc., I did not see the wattage exceed 16 watts. If any extra peripherals are used, energy usage will increase.

While the energy usage of both models is not as low as the Raspberry Pi, the performance is still very impressive for the amount of power being utilized. The R86S (like other mini-PC firewall systems) is energy efficient enough to be used as a 24/7 home router. If you are using this device as a low end PC, you will save a lot of energy compared to a standard desktop PC.

Temperature

On the OPNsense “Dashboard”, I added the thermal sensors widget so that I can view what the onboard temperatures are reporting (I had to set the thermal sensor hardware to “Intel Core CPU on-die thermal sensor” on the “System > Settings > Miscellaneous” page to see the CPU temperatures). I do not currently have a heat gun to measure the outside temperature of each model.

GW-R86S-B3

During testing, I saw temperatures between 49-67C with the average idle temperature around 50-52C. Since the “B3” model is fanless, the temperatures are higher than the “P2” model. The “B3” model was reasonably hot when I touched it after performing CPU intensive tasks. However, it is not so hot that you could actually burn your hand. The case is acting like a heatsink and drawing a lot of the heat to the outside of the system.

I did notice that the temperature does spike a lot more than the “P2” model which has a fan. Although the normal running temperature is in the low 50s, I would see it peak to 65-67C when running a heavy load on the system. If you plan to have heavier workloads, you may wish to get the models with the fan to ensure the system stays cooler (and you will also have a faster CPU as well).

GW-R86S-P2

For the “P2” model, I noticed the temperature range was between 41-52C. On average, the temperature stayed between 42-43C when mostly idle, which is not too bad. The fan on the “P2” model definitely helps keep it cooler than the “B3” model even though the N5105 CPU of the “P2” model has a higher TDP of 10W vs 6W for the N5100 CPU.

When I physically touch the “P2” model, it does feel slightly warm but not nearly as warm as the fanless “B3” model. Both models are noticeably warmer to the touch than the Protectli VP2410 that I previously reviewed even though the CPU temperature of the Protectli is about the same or slightly higher than the R86S. I credit the difference to the heatsink design of the Protectli which makes the outside of the box feel a lot cooler even though it does not have a fan. There is a tradeoff between a compact form factor and cooling.

I do not foresee any issues with overheating with either model unless perhaps you locate it in a more confined space such as a structured media enclosure found in many homes (some do not have holes to allow airflow into the enclosure). However, the “B” series model may have the greatest risk for overheating since it does not have a fan and generally runs hotter than the “P” series. There is a lot of power packed into a small form factor so the addition of the fan in the “P” series models is very beneficial for keeping the temperature at a more reasonable level.

Where to Purchase?

Gowin does not currently have the devices for sale on their international website at the time of this writing. The boxes are actually available for purchase on AliExpress (affiliate link) , but Gowin expressed that those are from resellers without authorization to sell their products (at the time of this writing).

Whenever Gowin officially sells their products on their website, I will update this page with the relevant information. I plan to include affiliate links so I will be able to earn commissions for any purchases made by my readers, which would help me fund future projects and reviews! All support by my readers is always greatly appreciated!

Also, if you do purchase a R86S through AliExpress or through official channels, be sure to check out my OPNsense installation guide tailored specifically for the R86S (“B” and “P” series models).

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