OpenVPN performance of the RT-AC86U

[demesmaeker]

Hi Merlin,

In the past I made two times a small donation because I am happy with your work. (I am that person that asked you for a easy way for my wife to start and shutdown the VPN client, but then you said there is no API that you could use)

My "old" wireless router (RT-AC56U) is still a great router because of your work, but now I got optical fiber and my VPN is too slow to enjoy my connection the way I should.

I looked around for a router that has great openvpn speeds (and I do not even need wireless functions at all), but I found nothing, until google guided me here.. And of course, I see your name here again Not suprised!

I will wait until you leave the alpha/beta stage and then I am going to buy a RT-AC86u.

Thanks again for your great work. I will make a donation again when I am running your firmware on my RT-AC86u

Greetings,
Demesmaeker

ps. I hope that Asus is supporting you as well. Without your work I would not even buy Asus! Keep up the good work!!!

 

[CaptainSTX]

Now that you have a high speed fiber connection test your VPN speed running the VPN app on your fastest most powerful PC connected directly to your OTN. What ever speed you get will probably be the maximum your VPN provider can or will be able to provide. If you can get 150 - 175 Mbps downloads your VPN provider is doing a good job. The speed that you will get while running a VPN on any SOHO router will be lower because it doesn't have an x86 processor. Not much Merlin or anyone else can do to overcome the lack of processing power.

 

[demesmaeker]

Hi CaptainSTX!
First of all, thanks for the fast reply.

Using Windscribe VPN I am getting around 20 megabit /sec using my asus wireless router.
Using another VPN service, I am getting also around 25 megabit / sec using my asus wireless router. Sometimes a bit more.
Using another VPN service on my PC (using OpenVPN GUI), I am getting around 100 megabit (full speed, since I have a 100 megabit service). The reason why this is so fast is because the provider has a deal with this VPN company (that is not really a company but a Foundation).

I do not want to run it on my pc, but on the router, that is why I am looking for another router that has more processor power to take care of the tunnel, and to ensure that my tv and computers, satellite receiver etc. all are using the VPN tunnel.

Since my "old" RT-AC56U maxes out on a fourth of the speed that I could theoritically download, I interpreted Merlins first post in this thread that I could get close to the max with the AC86U. Did I misinterpret it?

Have a nice day,
Demesmaeker

 

[CaptainSTX]

Hi CaptainSTX!
First of all, thanks for the fast reply.

Using Windscribe VPN I am getting around 20 megabit /sec using my asus wireless router.
Using another VPN service, I am getting also around 25 megabit / sec using my asus wireless router. Sometimes a bit more.
Using another VPN service on my PC (using OpenVPN GUI), I am getting around 100 megabit (full speed, since I have a 100 megabit service). The reason why this is so fast is because the provider has a deal with this VPN company (that is not really a company but a Foundation).

I do not want to run it on my pc, but on the router, that is why I am looking for another router that has more processor power to take care of the tunnel, and to ensure that my tv and computers, satellite receiver etc. all are using the VPN tunnel.

Since my "old" RT-AC56U maxes out on a fourth of the speed that I could theoritically download, I interpreted Merlins first post in this thread that I could get close to the max with the AC86U. Did I misinterpret it?

Have a nice day,
Demesmaeker

The reason I suggested you run it on a PC is just to find out what the realistic maximum speed that your VPN will deliver.

I run an open VPN client on an AC1900P which has dual core 1.4 Ghz processor and which I believe is the same processor as the AC86U. In my case I get 65 - 75 Mbps download speeds when using a VPN. My delivered speed from my ISP is 180/23.

Running the VPN on my VPN appliance with a I7 4500U processor that runs at 1.8 Ghz with turbo boost and AES-NI support gets me to 135- 145 Mbps. My speed is limited by the backbone and server hardware that the VPN provider has available. Also note VPN speeds vary greatly by time of day depending on the load on your VPN providers servers and backbone and the load they are experiencing.

 

[demesmaeker]

Thank you for explaining. My speeds will certainly improve a lot (the AC86U is a lot better then the AC56U).

The AC86U has a 1.8 Ghz dual core processor. Just looked it up since I was in doubt.
The AC56U has a 0.8 Ghz dual core processor.

When I have bought it, I will post the results here, so other people also know.
I will also post my openvpn configuration then as well, so that I am not giving "fake news"

Thanks for your time.

 

[joegreat]

The AC86U has a 1.8 Ghz dual core processor. Just looked it up since I was in doubt.
The AC56U has a 0.8 Ghz dual core processor.

Not only the clock rate increased also the overall performance of the CPU: The AC56U has a BCM4708A0 CPU from 2013 and the AC86U a BCM4906 from 2917 - according to DeviWiki there are 7 Generations of CPUs in between...

 

[RMerlin]

I posted actual throughput results at the beginning of the thread. The RT-AC86U can hit 200 Mbps of OpenVPN throughput.

The BCM4908 and BCM4906 have hardware-accelerated AES, hence the major performance boost on the RT-AC86U.

 

[CaptainSTX]

I posted actual throughput results at the beginning of the thread. The RT-AC86U can hit 200 Mbps of OpenVPN throughput.

The BCM4908 and BCM4906 have hardware-accelerated AES, hence the major performance boost on the RT-AC86U.

That is useful information as it gives you what the ceiling is for a particular hardware configuration in a lab. However what most people are doing is running a VPN client on their router and connecting to a commercial VPN providers server which may have as many as 126 users, more modest processors, and limited bandwidth to be shared by all users so they are never going to see speeds approaching their hardware's theoretical maximum.

 

[LouisvilleUK]

so they are never going to see speeds approaching their hardware's theoretical maximum.

This is incorrect. I'm getting full 200 down throughput with PrivateTunnel VPN using AES-128-GCM on the RT-AC86U.

 

[SeaConn]

I'm getting full 200 down

Same here using PIA's VPN service. I've been running VPN clients for about seven years now. Speeds and offerings have increased considerably over the past three or four years.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Same here using PIA's VPN service. I've been running VPN clients for about seven years now. Speeds and offerings have increased considerably over the past three or four years.

That's great.

I have heard many good things about PIA. I don't get those speeds with either Astrill or StrongVPN. The next time one of my VPN services is up for renewal I will give them a try.

With information about what speed is possible under lab conditions you are in a much better position to evaluate a VPN provider's speed and how much they are slowing down your connection.

 

[doczenith1]

I can also vouch for good speeds on PIA. I'm seeing 250 Mbps down and 450 Mbps using their windows client on an old i5-2500K. AES-128-CBC & SHA1

 

[CaptainSTX]

I can also vouch for good speeds on PIA. I'm seeing 250 Mbps down and 450 Mbps using their windows client on an old i5-2500K. AES-128-CBC & SHA1

I glad you can get those speeds. Based on everyone's raves about their speeds on PIA I bit and signed up for a month.

Running speed tests this morning to my ISP without a VPN client running on my PC (I7-7500U ) I was consistently getting download speeds of 175-190 Mbps.

I then tested PIA and the highest speed I could get testing to multiple servers both near and far was 120 Mbps and often the speeds were less than 100 Mbps and that was with AES-128 encryption. Running Strong VPN with AES-256 I was consitently getting 130- 140 Mbps. I also ran a few tests with Astrill and the speeds around 100 Mbps.

For all tests only the speed test was the only application running. Before changing VPN desktop apps I restarted the PC.

I will experiment with PIA but so far it hasn't blown me away. Unless I can get the speeds consistently higher I won't bother to renew my one month subscription of load it onto a router to run it as a VPN client.

P.S.

I have revised my opinion of PIA. While their VPN application running under W10 seems to be slower or at least no faster than StrongVPN, when I run PIA as a client on my VPN appliance which uses OpenWRT I can consistently get 160 - 165 Mbps connecting to PIA's NYC server. Given the additional latency from connecting to a distant server this is probably maxing out my Comcast connection.

 

[SeaConn]

connecting to PIA's NYC server.

You might want to go here and hit the "run test" button for servers that are close to your area. As you pointed out earlier, some servers have less bandwidth/users than others.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/network/

 

[doczenith1]

I ran some new tests today on PIA to see how the speeds compared to the results I got at the beginning of the year. Test were run on a 32 bit Win 7 i5-2500K using the Chrome browser and the DSLReports HTML5 speed test with PIA client software version 72. Nice thing about the DSLReports test is that it pings servers across the entire USA and picks the best 3 or 4 of them to run the test on. Handy when you don't know where the PIA server is located.

I ran 3 tests on each server unless one of the results looked off and then I ran an extra test. Results are an average of the 3 tests.

Data encryption: AES-128-CBC
Data authentication: SHA1
Connection type: UDP

Chicago - 241 down 474 up
Midwest - 239 down 427 up (I believe this server is located in the western Chicago suburbs)
NYC - 230 down 468 up
East - 228 down 237 up

The single best test was from Chicago at 243 down and 550 up.

I ran some test with encryption and auth both off and got an average of 257 down and 313 up on the Chicago server. Not what I expected.

I'd be happy to run some tests over my gigabit connection for anyone else. Just let me know which provider and as long as the vpn provider offers a free trial that's not a PITA to setup I'll give it a run.

 

[demesmaeker]

I saw that Merlins beta1 is out now. Thank you Merlin!
Just ordered the ac86u. Lots of money, but my whole house will have faster internet. It is worth it...

 

[Henrik Troudi]

First of all....THANK YOU MERLIN!!! Internet would be a worse place without your work and effort.

Now to My question. When you say 200 MB/s are we talking about "OpenVPN Client mode" ?
If yes I'm buying this router ASAP

 

[RMerlin]

First of all....THANK YOU MERLIN!!! Internet would be a worse place without your work and effort.

Now to My question. When you say 200 MB/s are we talking about "OpenVPN Client mode" ?
If yes I'm buying this router ASAP

I tried with the router running as a server, but I'd expect client performance to be close to that as well.

 

[Henrik Troudi]

Hi Merlin. Thank you for a quick answer. Any change that you can try Open VPN Client. That would be more then a deal breaker to hear the download values and CPU values with Client connected and running.

I really want to get My while house protected by hooking up this routers Open VPN Client to my VPN-Company.

I have fiber 250/100. I'm not into building my own router with pfsense.
I really waited a long time for the CPU's in commercial routers to deliver speed enough.

Thank you so much for your work/time/effort.

As soon as I (hopefully, depending on Speed of course) buying this router I will give you a donation. You're certainly worth that

 

[CaptainSTX]

No one is going to be able to give you a definite answer to your question.

The speed you will get running a VPN client on your hardware depends not only on the hardware but also the VPN provider and their hardware, how many customers per server, the VPN provider's bandwidth, the distance you are from the server, time of day etc.

I would suggest that you run a VPN on your most powerful PC and see what speeds you can obtain from various servers at various times of day. You may need to try several providers to maximize speed. This will be the upper limit of what you might expect using a router. Without building a custom box with x86 processor your speeds on a store bought SOHO box will probably be some percentage less than this upper limit unless your VPN provider can't provide 100 Mbps throughput on VPN connections in which case your router will have no problem keeping up.

Once you pick a VPN provider you still need to check frequently to see if they still can deliver the speed you want. As more people are moving to VPNs it seems some VPN providers can't keep up. Last year I could get 170 Mbps downloads using Astrill. Currently I'm lucky if is over 100 Mbps.