Are there any currently supported devices fast enough for gigabit?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

I recently switched to openwrt after dealing with the native firmware on my r7800 being frankly awful. The only downside to using openwrt is that I can only get around 480-500~ mbps when I could get a solid 900 with the native firmware. This is with the experimental hardware nat on, idk if it even works.

Is there a device that's going to eventually replace the r7800 as the most modern, well-supported device for openwrt (as far as I know)? There's the R9000 with its possibly much faster Annapurna Labs CPU or the many 802.11ax models that have come out. Is it known whether any of these will actually be fast enough for full gigabit software nat at all? I don't really see any standardized benchmarks of router CPUs so I guess it's unknown unless somebody tests it.

2

Hi

check flow offload feature for gigabit NAT speeds

3

With hwnat the Edgerouter X will do near Gbps despite its modest MT7621 hardware (dual core 880 MHz MIPS), and OpenWrt supports hwnat for this device. If you're looking for Gbps with VPN or anything that breaks hwnat (e.g., SQM) though, then you probably need to be looking at something with a desktop CPU in it.

4

https://i.vgy.me/CHzDDv.png It was enabled. I remember that the speeds I was getting with dd-wrt (which doesn't support hardware NAT at all) were similar or better. Which is why I said that I didn't know if it was working.

5

flow offload has been broken for several months and it's been fixed just recently (read here Flow_offloading=1 is broken on latest snapshot (4.19 issue)) so you might need to checkout latest code revision. also untick HW nat in settings page as it won't do anything

6

I guess I was confusing hw nat and flow offload. The nat offloading line has no checkbox in the first place.

7

I'm fine with hwnat, but it obviously isn't well-supported yet and I'd like the flexibility. If this five year old router can handle around 500mbps with no hardware offloading, it's not a stretch to say that gigabit speeds should be doable with newer hardware. I don't know if Qualcomm and the like are trying to improve actual compute speeds with this sort of hardware though.

8

Maybe I could use something like an Edgerouter. The higher-end edgerouters and USG don't seem to be supported though. The Edgerouter 12P seems perfect for my use case but at the same time overkill for a home application (and it's too expensive). Oh well.

9

At least in the testing I've done, it depends on what you mean by "fast enough for gigabit".

I need to caveat the below as I have not personally tested an "mvebu" device, though hope to have one with a Marvell Armada 88F3720, Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A53 @1.0GHz in the coming weeks. It has been reported that the mvebu-based routers perform well.

"Gigabit" means gigabit downstream and no SQM and no VPN

Yes, there are likely moderate-priced, all-in-one devices that can perform the NAT at these rates with software flow offloading. OEM firmware may provide these rates, but has significant drawbacks in lack of SQM, VPN support, along with security and privacy that should be questioned.

"Gigabit" means gigabit symmetric and active at those rates and no SQM and no VPN

It seems unlikely to me that all-in-one devices can handle these rates with open-source firmware. From what I've seen, x86_64/AMD64 is required (recall that I haven't tested mvebu-based devices yet).

"Gigabit" means gigabit downstream and SQM (or other processes that require packet inspection)

From what I've seen, x86_64/AMD64 is required

"Gigabit" means gigabit WireGuard rates.

You're squarely in the realm of mid-range x86_64/AMD64 here, or an off-router device that can handle those rates.

"Gigabit" means gigabit OpenVPN rates.

Even an upper-range, consumer-targeted x86_64/AMD64 doesn't easily achieve these rates (if at all) with OpenVPN.

3 Likes
10

Blockquote
"Gigabit" means gigabit symmetric and active at those rates and no SQM and no VPN

Yes, I meant this.

11

Do not buy an other router! The only reason you are having slow speeds on the R7800 is due to the fact that the CPU is stuck in powersaving mode, if you look at some of the R7800 threads you will find a fix e.g R7800 performance

2 Likes