RussellInCincinnati
Senior Member
Am having so much fun installing $33 dollar per year
nordvpn.com/special/deal
VPN software onto ALL the Merlin routers that am coming in contact with. Merlin and NordVPN's single web page help sheet makes it easy for people like me to install a whole house/site on a VPN, even with my near-zero VPN tech knowledge:
https://nordvpn.com/tutorials/asustwrt-merlin/openvpn/
Thus have started telling all my folks "why are you not using a VPN that works behind the scenes/automagically with every computer/tablet/phone, that uses your router for internet access, at your house or workplace?" It saves a bit of time showing people this article:
https://www.pcmag.com/article/352757/you-need-a-vpn-and-heres-why
Hint: go to the NordVPN server-recommendation site before you do the NordVPN install to get their server recommendation for the country and VPN-usage you're interested in, and note the server number that you will be browsing for (with an additional "1194" number in the browsed server config filename) a couple of minutes later during the VPN configuring:
https://nordvpn.com/servers/
The topic of OpenVPN speeds (NordVPN servers work with Merlin OpenVPN) with the mighty RT-AC86u router is dealt with well on this forum at
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/openvpn-performance-of-the-rt-ac86u.41217/
Here am hoping to gather what we can expect from all the Merlin routers, in terms of typical commercial VPN throughput after an unsophisticated default VPN installation. Merlin has noted over-200-megabits-per-second OpenVPN throughput on the RT-AC86u with 384.x software, which has some high-speed AES-NI encryption speedup instructions in its router multi-core CPUs.
My observations so far are 18 megabits per second NordVPN U.S. server max throughput on a Merlin v384.3 RT-AC68a (a slightly up-clocked RT-AC68u dual-core CPU without AES hardware encryption instructions), and 8 megabits per second max on a "classic" RT-AC66u (single CPU core router running Merlin v369).
Anybody else have some commercial VPN Merlin throughput numbers to contribute?
Also note that am not recommending NordVPN as being a superior VPN service in any way. It's just the service that am using because of its $2.75 dollars/month pricing for up to 6 computers (each of which can be a phone or tablet or desktop etc, with a router-for-the-whole-network only counting as one computer) and so-easy Merlin router installation. NordVPN may be the worst VPN service in the world for all I know, it's just an easy reference point for comparing the throughput variation due to the different Asus router CPUs.
nordvpn.com/special/deal
VPN software onto ALL the Merlin routers that am coming in contact with. Merlin and NordVPN's single web page help sheet makes it easy for people like me to install a whole house/site on a VPN, even with my near-zero VPN tech knowledge:
https://nordvpn.com/tutorials/asustwrt-merlin/openvpn/
Thus have started telling all my folks "why are you not using a VPN that works behind the scenes/automagically with every computer/tablet/phone, that uses your router for internet access, at your house or workplace?" It saves a bit of time showing people this article:
https://www.pcmag.com/article/352757/you-need-a-vpn-and-heres-why
Hint: go to the NordVPN server-recommendation site before you do the NordVPN install to get their server recommendation for the country and VPN-usage you're interested in, and note the server number that you will be browsing for (with an additional "1194" number in the browsed server config filename) a couple of minutes later during the VPN configuring:
https://nordvpn.com/servers/
The topic of OpenVPN speeds (NordVPN servers work with Merlin OpenVPN) with the mighty RT-AC86u router is dealt with well on this forum at
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/openvpn-performance-of-the-rt-ac86u.41217/
Here am hoping to gather what we can expect from all the Merlin routers, in terms of typical commercial VPN throughput after an unsophisticated default VPN installation. Merlin has noted over-200-megabits-per-second OpenVPN throughput on the RT-AC86u with 384.x software, which has some high-speed AES-NI encryption speedup instructions in its router multi-core CPUs.
My observations so far are 18 megabits per second NordVPN U.S. server max throughput on a Merlin v384.3 RT-AC68a (a slightly up-clocked RT-AC68u dual-core CPU without AES hardware encryption instructions), and 8 megabits per second max on a "classic" RT-AC66u (single CPU core router running Merlin v369).
Anybody else have some commercial VPN Merlin throughput numbers to contribute?
Also note that am not recommending NordVPN as being a superior VPN service in any way. It's just the service that am using because of its $2.75 dollars/month pricing for up to 6 computers (each of which can be a phone or tablet or desktop etc, with a router-for-the-whole-network only counting as one computer) and so-easy Merlin router installation. NordVPN may be the worst VPN service in the world for all I know, it's just an easy reference point for comparing the throughput variation due to the different Asus router CPUs.
- So, OpenVPN on RT-AC86u: 200+ megabits per second (as little as $200 dollars, also called the AC2900)
- RT-AC68A on U.S. NordVPN: 18 Mbps (AC68u now called the AC1900, $150 dollars, or maybe $80 if you know how to up-flash the Tmobile AC1900 version of this router)
- RT-AC66u original version on U.S. NordVPN: 8 Mpbs (AC66u now called the AC1750 or AC66u version B1, around $100 U.S. dollars).