100/50 Mbit ISP overkill for OpenVPN Asus AC66U Router?

[sambosoul]

Greetings,

I recently upgraded my 50/50 Mbit ISP connection to 100/50 Mbit connection, hoping that my Asus AC66U router would allow for greater bandwidth when being connected to an OpenVPN server in nearby Singapore (I live in Bangkok, Thailand). My VPN provider is NordVPN.

However, after the upgrade I only manage to get 25-30Mbit downstream when being connected to the Singapore OpenVPN server. This is not noticeably faster than before when I had my 50/50 Mbit line. I kind of regret the upgrade now as the added value is negligible.

I am new to VPN routers but I was wondering what you experts here would suggest me to do now? Am I right in guessing that I have the following options in order to "get more speed for my money"..

1. buy a very powerful (and veeery) expensive "off-the-shelf" router which comes with greater CPU processing power, or
2. fall back to client VPN on my devices (iMac, iPhone, iPad...) as their CPUs can actually achieve higher throughput.

Alternatively, would a change from OpenVPN to L2TP make a noticeable difference?

Your guidance and feedback is appreciated.

With thanks,
SamboSoul.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Greetings,

I recently upgraded my 50/50 Mbit ISP connection to 100/50 Mbit connection, hoping that my Asus AC66U router would allow for greater bandwidth when being connected to an OpenVPN server in nearby Singapore (I live in Bangkok, Thailand). My VPN provider is NordVPN.

However, after the upgrade I only manage to get 25-30Mbit downstream when being connected to the Singapore OpenVPN server. This is not noticeably faster than before when I had my 50/50 Mbit line. I kind of regret the upgrade now as the added value is negligible.

I am new to VPN routers but I was wondering what you experts here would suggest me to do now? Am I right in guessing that I have the following options in order to "get more speed for my money"..

1. buy a very powerful (and veeery) expensive "off-the-shelf" router which comes with greater CPU processing power, or
2. fall back to client VPN on my devices (iMac, iPhone, iPad...) as their CPUs can actually achieve higher throughput.

Alternatively, would a change from OpenVPN to L2TP make a noticeable difference?

Your guidance and feedback is appreciated.

With thanks,
SamboSoul.

No off the shelf SOHO router is going to be able to give you close to 100 Mbps down.

To get those speeds you will need a router with probably a 2.4Ghz processor. The means building a Pfsense box with that type of processor.

Your thought on how to mazimize throughput runnng the VPN on fast devices themself is probably a good approach.

I have an ISP connection that gives me 180/25. I run a VPN app on my most powerful PC which then gets 170/22. I also run a VPN client on my AC1900P which gives me 65/22 VPN connection. I connect smartphones and tablets to the VPN client on the router because it avoids constantly having to restart the VPN app on them and in most cases the mobile devices can't beat the speed I get on my AC1900P.

 

[sfx2000]

Just consider that from a processing perspective, the AC66U has less horsepower that a low-end smartphone or a Raspberry Pi 3 - so one is only going to get so much from it.

In lieu of replacing the router, just set up a VPN server inside your LAN, and then point the clients at it - dual core Intel Baytrail boxes are pretty cheap these days, and more than enough horsepower to do the OpenVPN stuff... just point the gateway to the VPN server instead of the router itself for the OpenVPN clients.

To the AC66U then, since it's relieved of the OpenVPN server duty itself, it sees the packet stream from the VPN server described above as just packets...

 

[sambosoul]

Hello both,

Thank you very much for your feedback, I appreciate it.

Meanwhile, I have come across the (relatively) new APU2 board from PCEngines:

• CPU: AMD Embedded G series GX-412TC, 1 GHz quad Jaguar core with 64 bit and AES-NI support, 32K data + 32K instruction cache per core, shared 2MB L2 cache.
• DRAM: 2 or 4 GB DDR3-1333 DRAM
• Storage: Boot from m-SATA SSD, SD card (internal sdhci controller), or external USB. 1 SATA + power connector.
• 12V DC, about 6 to 12W depending on CPU load. Jack = 2.5 mm, center positive
• Connectivity: 2 or 3 Gigabit Ethernet channels (Intel i211AT on apu2b2, i210AT on apu2b4)
• I/O: DB9 serial port, 2 USB 3.0 external + + 2 USB 2.0 internal, three front panel LEDs, pushbutton
• Expansion: 2 miniPCI express (one with SIM socket), LPC bus, GPIO header, I2C bus, COM2 (3.3V RXD / TXD)
• Board size: 6 x 6" (152.4 x 152.4 mm) - same as apu1d, alix2d13 and wrap1e.
• Firmware: coreboot (please contact support@pcengines.ch for source code if desired).
• Cooling: Conductive cooling from the CPU to the enclosure using a 3 mm alu heat spreader (included).

I am wondering how many MBit I would be able to reach with this configuration through an OpenVPN AES256 encryption tunnel, just a rough estimate...?

With Regards,
SamboSoul

 

[CaptainSTX]

Without someone setting up a lab network to test VPN speeds under controlled lab conditions I'm not sure there is a definitive answer to your question. Testing VPNs in the wild make it difficut to isolate just how much the impact of the processor's speed has on throughput vs all the other variables.

Based on my experience I would not think the processor listed above would get you more the 50 - 60 Mbps. The basis for my conclusion is that when running a VPN client on my AC1900P with a 1.4 Ghz processor I can get around 55Mbps. With a VPN appliance running a 1.86 GHz Atom chip I could get 75 - 65 Mbps. The VPN speed decreased as my ISP speed doubled.
boost.

Currenty I am running a VPN appliance with an I7 processor thats base speed is 1.7Ghz and with on demand Turbo Boost to 3.5 Ghz. With that setup I get VPN download speeds of 140- 160 Mbps.

IMHO if you are goind to spend the money for a mini PC buy one with a faster processor. Does it have to be an I7? Without have a LAB setup to benchmark performance I can't tell you. I spent the extra $25 for an I7 so if my setup didn't work out I could use the PC as a general purpose desktop machine.

 

[XeoNoX]

its not your ISP, your its most likely your VPN that is slowing you down from achieving full speeds. this can be anything from your provider being just slower to the host device running the vpn not being fast enough to encrypt/decrypt the encryption being used for the vpn. you would have to run a test bed to find out, but my educated guess would be that its your vpn provider, dont expect to max out a 100Mbit connection on a very popular VPN provider, remember they have many many other customers to service.

 

[XeoNoX]

Currenty I am running a VPN appliance with an I7 processor thats base speed is 1.7Ghz and with on demand Turbo Boost to 3.5 Ghz. With that setup I get VPN download speeds of 140- 160 Mbps.

CaptainSTX what VPN provider are you using? those are impressive speeds

 

[CaptainSTX]

CaptainSTX what VPN provider are you using? those are impressive speeds

I am running StrongVPN, Miami Server which is about 250 miles from my actual physical location, Encryption AES 256 CBC, all other settings default. Adjusting buffer sizes both at my end at at Strong's server didn't seem to have any effect that I could document at the 95% confidence level. Biggest impact on download speeds seems to be time of day and I attribute that to load at VPN server as speed from my local ISP seems to always be in the mid 170s download even during peak evening streaming hours.

Even with encryption disabled speeds seemed to be only slightly better and I haven't tried to separate encryption from time of day variability.