Purchasing RT-AX86U AX5700 Router would help to increase VPN speed ?

[zillah]

Hi

Before purchasing I want to confirm

ASUS RT-AC5300 with latest Merlin firmware Router is configured to use NordVPN-UDP protocol

I used a same desktop (core i7, 7th generation 64 bit) to do all 3 tests :

1- Internet speed via WAN traffic is 740 Mbps

https://imgur.com/a/YdR6BV3

2-When I configured the router to force desktop traffic to go via VPN tunnel speed was 53 Mbps

https://imgur.com/a/DfaNSnw

3-Then removed the desktop from the router VPN tunnel means its internet traffic is going via WAN ,,,,I installed VPN software on the desktop and I used the same config file that I had used for the router and did a speed test again it was 445 Mbps increased 8 times

Yes desktop has more powerful hardware that ASUS router

https://imgur.com/a/7vDZnwr

Now question if I purchase a new RT-AX86U AX5700 ,,,,by how much I can improve the VPN speed ?

Thx

 

[agbommarito]

I have an RT-AX86U and I also use NordVPN over UDP. On a 500/500 Mbps WAN connection, I get a little more than 300 Mbps download over VPN, with a little less on the upload side.

The router is running Merlin 386.3_2.

I think the RT-AX86U would greatly improve your connection speeds, though it won't reach the speed you get with your Core i7 PC.

 

[L&LD]

Up to 250Mbps. At best.

 

[zillah]

Noted thanks for sharing the experience

Any other recommendation for more powerful router ? up to $800 ,,,,,then I can make the choice

 

[L&LD]

There is nothing (consumer) that is currently significantly better.

Unless you want to build it yourself (pfSense, etc.) and have your Wi-Fi handled by AP's.

 

[zillah]

Thx L&LD for your advice

 

[CaptainSTX]

Noted thanks for sharing the experience

Any other recommendation for more powerful router ? up to $800 ,,,,,then I can make the choice

You will either have to as suggested build your own Router/VPN appliance using at a minimum an I5 processor. Since you have the budget allocated to this project you also could look at purchasing a VPN accelerator from Sabai Technology. Their VPN accelerator in addition to OpenVPN will also handle WireGuard so if you choose a VPN provider that has WireGuard servers you might see download speeds approaching 800 Mbps.

 

[Keenan]

Up to 250Mbps. At best.

Is that for that specific model router, or because of the connection bandwidth capability? Your comment sounds like a blanket statement and that's why I'm asking. Thanks.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Is that for that specific model router, or because of the connection bandwidth capability? Your comment sounds like a blanket statement and that's why I'm asking. Thanks.

It's the limit of the RT-AX86U (I have one and NordVPN). The OpenVPN client is single-threaded and with one core at 100% 250Mbps is the maximum download speed.

N.B The speed shown in post #2 is slightly higher because it's measuring WAN-to-router rather than WAN-to-LAN.

 

[Keenan]

Thanks, and if I've paid attention correctly over the past several years, the 86U is the most robust router with regards to VPN speeds?

 

[CaptainSTX]

Is that for that specific model router, or because of the connection bandwidth capability? Your comment sounds like a blanket statement and that's why I'm asking. Thanks.

I have an AC86 that I run two clients on. Using either PIA or Strong my speeds are typically in the 140 - 180 Mbps range. With earlier versions of Merlin's firmware I used to see speeds in excess of 200 Mbps while using PIA.

Most of the limitation is from the fact that the processor in a consumer router is limited. Bandwidth constraints from your VPN provider can result from how many connections to each server, the processing power of each server as well as how big of a pipe to the WWW the provider has. Distance from the server also impacts speeds.

 

[eibgrad]

FWIW, for those interested in the PC approach, you don't necessarily *have* to turn the PC into your primary router (e.g., pfSense) to take advantage of a PC as your OpenVPN client. You can just turn it into a secondary gateway. For those devices you want routed over the VPN, you simply change their default gateway from the primary router to the secondary router, either manually or via DHCP. You could experiment w/ a Windows laptop using ICS to see the dramatic increase in performance and work out the details. If the solution suits you, THEN consider a dedicated PC, perhaps some small form-factor SOC device (I made mine out of spare parts).

 

[Tech9]

With earlier versions of Merlin's firmware I used to see speeds in excess of 200 Mbps while using PIA.

Same observations here, AC86U. With 384 firmware I could see 250-270Mbps, with 386 firmware it tops at around 180Mbps. AC86U has the same CPU cores as AX86U.

 

[L&LD]

Is that for that specific model router, or because of the connection bandwidth capability? Your comment sounds like a blanket statement and that's why I'm asking. Thanks.

Not a blanket statement (see thread title).

RT-AC86U, RT-AX88U, and RT-AX86U should have identical VPN performance (same AES-NI acceleration and CPU arch).

 

[Keenan]

FWIW, for those interested in the PC approach, you don't necessarily *have* to turn the PC into your primary router (e.g., pfSense) to take advantage of a PC as your OpenVPN client. You can just turn it into a secondary gateway. For those devices you want routed over the VPN, you simply change their default gateway from the primary router to the secondary router, either manually or via DHCP. You could experiment w/ a Windows laptop using ICS to see the dramatic increase in performance and work out the details. If the solution suits you, THEN consider a dedicated PC, perhaps some small form-factor SOC device (I made mine out of spare parts).

ICS?

 

[eibgrad]

ICS?

Internet Connection Sharing in Windows 10

How am i can share my internet to another computer or laptop i had connected from wifi first device second device how am i share internet ***Subject edited for clarity by the moderator.***

answers.microsoft.com

 

[eibgrad]

P.S. Now that I think about it, you probably don't really need ICS. You can just enable IP routing directly on the Windows machine.

Easy Ways to Enable IP Routing on Windows 10: 5 Steps

Quick and easy guide to allow IP routing for connecting two devices on different networks Are you looking to enable IP routing on your Windows 10 machine? IP routing, sometimes also known as forwarding, is disabled by default. This wikiHow...

www.wikihow.com

 

[Keenan]

^Thanks!

 

[zillah]

RT-AC86U, RT-AX88U, and RT-AX86U

L&LD if you were me which one would you choose ?

 

[Odkrys]

wireguard vpn provider or openvpn + ovpn-dco module.

Cheap Raspberry Pi4 can achieve 800Mbps+ with wireguard.

Wireguard throughput on Raspberry Pi 4 : WireGuard (reddit.com)

If you must use openvpn, it is recommended to test the x86 aes-ni openwrt system and the ovpn-dco module.

GitHub - OpenVPN/ovpn-dco: OpenVPN Data Channel Offload in the linux kernel
[Openvpn-devel] OpenVPN 2 support data channel offloading (ovpn-dco) alpha release (mail-archive.com)

- openvpn without dco 0.5 GBit/s
- client dco, server no dco 1.8 GBit/s

If you don't like it, you have no choice but to use a vpn on the client.