@hnyman What are the rules around upgrading the CT firmware in core OpenWRT? I see there's version 022 available and OpenWRT seems to still use 019
https://www.candelatech.com/downloads/ath10k-9984-10-4b/?C=N;O=D
Somebody needs to author a PR/patch to get the new version into the main source package definition. There is already a patch proposal, but so far it has not got committed.
You are free to download that firmware blob and replace the current one in your router.
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I upgraded it to 022 in my own master-r15254-1302bee12a-20201222 build.
(I have not seen any practical difference in the last two days that I have ran it myself)
Which "flavor" of 022 are you running? There are 4 of them, not sure the differences. The qcache one seems to be new.
The "normal" one (as can been seen from the manifest file included in my build's download directory).
not specific to your build but i think sysupgrade is broken on master. i built one about 12 hours ago and could not downgrade from it, had to resort to tftp. neither Web UI or CLI worked.
How did it fail?
Old firmware still there after sysupgrade? Or a bricked router?
old firmware still there after sysupgrade. on the CLI it hits the step immediately after it saves the config (something to do with closing all sessions), then it reboots.
if may help, I just tested this version
R7800-master-r15254-1302bee12a-20201222-1824-factory.img
on my "dev" r7800 (yeah, I have one for this, payed 70 buks... thx ebay 
!) with wireguard used as a client and connect to a my vps very cheap (1vCore, 512 ram, centoOs8).
I reached the speed of 200Mbps (I have a gigabit line).
For the record:
- without wireguard, I reach 600Mbps
- using i5 5200u notebook with AES-NI, I reach more or less 300Mbps, with Mullvad VPN
- using i5 5200u notebook with AES-NI, I reach more or less 200Mbps, with my VPS
- using r7800 i reach more or less 200Mbps, as said above, with my VPS, so maybe this is the max speed reachable via my VPS. I'm evaluating to try a beefy one.
You seem to be right. And sysupgrade is not the only thing broken in R7800:
When I tried to debug sysupgrade, I noticed that also the serial console is broken (works in u-bott pahse, silent once Linux kernel kicks in) 
I suspect this commit. Read my comment at the bottom of that commit:
Details in bug that I filed:
https://bugs.openwrt.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=3540
Reverting CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE=y fixed things:
--- a/target/linux/ipq806x/config-5.4
+++ b/target/linux/ipq806x/config-5.4
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ CONFIG_CC_HAS_KASAN_GENERIC=y
CONFIG_CLKDEV_LOOKUP=y
CONFIG_CLKSRC_QCOM=y
CONFIG_CLONE_BACKWARDS=y
-CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE=y
+# CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE is not set
CONFIG_COMMON_CLK=y
CONFIG_COMMON_CLK_QCOM=y
CONFIG_COMPAT_32BIT_TIME=y
See: Ipq806x NSS build (Netgear R7800 / TP-Link C2600 / Linksys EA8500)
Obviously you guys did not follow this thread:-)
Yeah, I noticed your discussion and even mentioned that in the bug report (but it is hard to separate NSS issues from the generic stuff in that thread).
Feel free to add your confirmation about EA8500 to the bug report I filed.
Not sure why such a commit went through without questions, changing anything related to cmdline is a major thing and asks for trouble.
master-r15359-2160a9d597-20201228 has a temprorary fix for that serial console & sysupgrade problem discussed above. (CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE is disabled)
Hopefully the culprit commit gets reverted soon.
EDIT:
The CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE=y setting has been reverted in master.
Btw, also the ath10k-ct driver has been updated today, so master-r15362-e1938d3397-20201228 has also an updated wifi driver.
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Hi hnyman, just a question: may you activate the two NSS cores as ACWifidude have done in his built? If no, is it because of kernel compatibility or something like that? Sorry for my curiosity and request!
I haven't tried to enable the NSS cores as I try to keep my build near the "official OpenWrt baseline". I may try the NSS stuff at some point, as it seems to slowly mature.
My hope is that @ACwifidude, @Ansuel and others gets thing stabilised so that something could be upstreamed to OpenWrt itself. The NSS stuff has been under development for over two years and I have lost track what exactly is ready and works and what doesn't...
The NSS develpoment seems to get interleaved with semi-unrelated DTS changes to some extent, which complicated things a bit. Right now the ACwifidude's repo seems to have 66 NSS related commits, some of which re-touch the things changed by earlier commits. The NSS thing needs some cleanup, git squash & rebase.
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Thanks a lot! Hope all of these great developments may merge at some points!
Actually I have two r7800s, one for testing: I'm finishing to set up the production one evaluating what fit better my needs, but feel free to ask me to flash this or that, trying this or that... on the other one.
Stability is looking good the last couple months and is comparable to master. 
Currently trying to get all supported device .dts files corrected. NSS hardware offloading support in total is probably 20-30 total commits when consolidated / organized.
NSS has the opportunity to go mainstream. Once some of the bugs get worked out like getting all the ipq806x devices working, NSS SQM working nice with /etc/config, and Wifi offloading (partially working due to the ath10-ct driver update from 5.4 => 5.8) - it will be some major changes but should be attractive enough to work it in to master for ipq806x devices.
I know enough coding to do the simple stuff but need assistance with the more major changes. Hope it goes mainstream so that everyone can enjoy it in hynman’s builds.
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I just fear that goals like "get all ipq806x devices working" will postpone the upstreaming quite a lot. In my opinion, it would be great to add the common core first, and then gradually enable NSS in DTS device by device. During the last 2-3 years it has looked like the development is mix of core NSS, NSS crypto, NSS wifi, NSS SQM, NSS whatever, L2 cache, generic DTS improvements etc... It easily gets to be such a behemoth that it never gets ready
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Agreed. At a minimum NSS NAT should be mainstream for what we have working so far (R7800, EA8500, C2600, and Zyxel). I’ll need some developer help but it seems doable.