iperf tests between Asus RT-AC68U and 1Gbps capable client ~615Mbps

[L&LD]

Hi all. Thanks for the feedback as I've been scratching my head on quite a number of things lately. To clarify, I ran the following tests:

TL;DR: the WAN port was not used in the tests and only the LAN ports of the router. And while the first three series were tests between two of the six computers in the LAN, the last/fourth series were tests between one of the computers and the Asus router itself.



series 1:

switch ports 1 &2
desktop1(iperf -c desktop2) <====Zyxel switch====> desktop2(iperf -s)
desktop1(iperf -s) <====Zyxel switch=====>desktop2(iperf -c desktop1)

series 2:
Asus LAN ports 1,2,3,4 in permutations(ports 1,2; ports 2,3; ports 3,4; etc) (no WAN ports used)
desktop1(iperf -c desktop2) <====Asus====>desktop2(iperf -s)
desktop1(iperf -s)<====Asus====>desktop2(iperf -c desktop1)

series 3:

using four of the eight ports on Zyxel switch and all four ports of Asus router
desktop1(iperf -c desktop2) <====Zyxel switch===Asus====>desktop2(iperf -s)
desktop1(iperf -s)<====Zyxel switch===Asus===>desktop2(iperf -c desktop1)

series 4:
desktop1(iperf -c 192.168.1.1) <====> Asus(iperf -s)
Asus(iperf -c desktop1)<====>desktop1(iperf -s)

While I'm sure there's more elegant way to put this together, as I didn't really do a good job in condensing my tests, I sort of unpacked it here for clarity. I can definitely unpack it a bit more but thought brevity is still wanted here. I'm still catching up so I'll be back with more if needed.

Then it seems RMerlin was right several posts up?

Connect two computers to the router instead and test between them. Not between the router and a computer. I think that is the issue right there (again, as RMerlin guessed already).

 

[cuekay]

I just got a new RT-AC68u to compare with and I ran both the iperf(2.0.9) and iperf3 tests and got a pretty consistent set of results as follows:

from one client to another between LAN ports in the router: 850Mbps - 1.05Gbps
from one client to the router: ~185 Mbs

while it was advised against testing between a client and a router, I just did it for the data points and reportage. But it looks like I either the other one was a lemon or after two years of use, it was beginning to give up the ghost...or something. I kind of breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that because while ~600Mbps isn't terrible, I still couldn't help but feel that something was amiss, even with all the other stuff that the rugged router has to handle.

Thanks again for the input and I figured it was at least worth bringing up.

 

[L&LD]

I just got a new RT-AC68u to compare with and I ran both the iperf(2.0.9) and iperf3 tests and got a pretty consistent set of results as follows:

from one client to another between LAN ports in the router: 850Mbps - 1.05Gbps
from one client to the router: ~185 Mbs

while it was advised against testing between a client and a router, I just did it for the data points and reportage. But it looks like I either the other one was a lemon or after two years of use, it was beginning to give up the ghost...or something. I kind of breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that because while ~600Mbps isn't terrible, I still couldn't help but feel that something was amiss, even with all the other stuff that the rugged router has to handle.

Thanks again for the input and I figured it was at least worth bringing up.

I don't understand this post. 185Mbps (if that is what you meant) is much worse than 615Mbps.

Why do you think the first 'AC68U has given up the ghost when the new one is more than 3x worse?

 

[cuekay]

I don't understand this post. 185Mbps (if that is what you meant) is much worse than 615Mbps.

Why do you think the first 'AC68U has given up the ghost when the new one is more than 3x worse?

So while it's puzzling and maybe even upsetting that the tests to the router came out to be as you said 3x worse, I thought that the results between the two clients moving up from the 615 Mbps to the 800-1.05Gbps range was more significant to me and relevant to my UX than the tests to the router were.

I only say this because the tests to the router were datapoints meant for clarity and while ultimately, I'm not taking away much from these tests asides from the probability that I am getting the rated bandwidth, I have no clue as to the real significance of these tests.

And that's pretty much why I posted here -- so that I can read informed analyses from people who actually know what they're talking about. And I can't express how appreciative and astounded I am by the quality and speed of the responses here since I'm still rolling the bits around hoping to make some sense of it. That's why tools like iperf make sense for me since I have the 1Gbps specs as a point of reference and I can compare the two. Simple. But I also came here with the understanding that I can be a bit reductive to a fault and came here to solicit opinions to add color to what I saw. Thanks again!