RT-N66U; VPN Speeds

[peterg21]

Hi, I am in a bit of a quandary here. I have an N66U and am using Merlin's excellent 374.35_4-sdk5. I have an account with ExpressVPN and have configured my router to handle everything (OpenVPN) as opposed to using the client. This client too uses OpenVPN. I have a fast Windows 7 box and a connection of 30/10 Mbps through Videotron.

Using the router, I have found that their New York/Jersey and Chicago servers are the fastest for me. Generally I get 9 Mb/s down on average via testing through speedtest.net to appropriately close New York etc test sites. I do - say 1 out of 5 times - get a speed of 18 Mb/s but the norm is 9 (same test site).

I decided to see how the speeds were with the client which from the log does also use OpenVPN. I am fully aware that the N66U is cpu bound and can theoretically only obtain a maximum of 20 Mb/s down. Testing to chicago servers with the client I was able to connect at close to the maximum of 30 Mbps (eg 28 Mb/s) and this was highly repeatable (none of this "1 out of 5" as in the above.

The configuration of my router is as per that shown on Express VPN for tomato routers here: https://www.express-vpn.com/tutorials/tomato_router_openvpn with the following:
tun-mtu 1500
fragment 1300
mssfix 1450

What I am getting at essentially is why are my speeds through the router some 1/3 of that using the client? I would be happy if I could get 18 Mb/s (close to the theoretical maximum with the cpu of the N66U) but less than half?

Any ideas most appreciated.

 

[admiral2145]

new router

get either a ac68u or ac56u... people using strong vpn are getting 50+ mbit... Not sure but, I know that the cpu can be oced on those also to get even higher speed...

 

[peterg21]

Thanks admiral2145, While composing a reply to my own message (tacky I know I saw that you had replied to it. I had found the following thread *again*, I did see it about a couple of weeks ago but forgot about it.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12315

From that thread, the AC56U did not appear to get such a great improvement but I believe the maximum non-vpn speed was the great limiting factor in terms of percentage of the vpn speed to non-vpn.

This is what I had composed prior to your reply:

So from experiences there, it does appear that I really don't have much hope of consistently getting anywhere near 20 Mb/sec, even if I am able to connect reliably without a VPN at 30 Mb/sec and almost at that speed with just using the client of my VPN provider. It appears that 10 Mb/sec or thereabouts is what I can expect at best.

I did some testing to UK and European servers and it seems even worse. I can get close to my maximum speed of 30 Mb/sec in some tests to them (generally better than 27 Mb/sec) without a VPN and with the client over 20 Mb/sec and even over 25 Mb/sec. Via the N66U I am lucky to get 5 Mb/sec.

I will probably use the client for the most part and then use the router when I want to access eg Netflix via my Panasonic TV. Problem is connecting to Netflix servers in the UK I find frames being dropped etc which is irritating.

As regards buying another router, I will probably wait until late 2014 for an AC68U successor with even more horsepower.