NWA50AX Pro iperf3 speedtest

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Some of you have probably wondered if the 2.5GbE is worth it on the NWA50AX Pro,. Well, not really. While the connection to the ethernet interface is 2.5GbE, the wireless nic only seems to get less than a 100Mb/s boost from the connection.

root@NWA50AX_Pro:~# iperf3 -c 192.168.87.1
Connecting to host 192.168.87.1, port 5201
[  5] local 192.168.87.247 port 34802 connected to 192.168.87.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   281 MBytes  2.36 Gbits/sec    0   1.40 MBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   280 MBytes  2.34 Gbits/sec    0   1.55 MBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   279 MBytes  2.34 Gbits/sec    0   1.66 MBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   276 MBytes  2.31 Gbits/sec    0   1.75 MBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   283 MBytes  2.38 Gbits/sec    0   1.75 MBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec   279 MBytes  2.34 Gbits/sec    0   1.87 MBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   279 MBytes  2.34 Gbits/sec    0   1.98 MBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   280 MBytes  2.35 Gbits/sec    0   1.98 MBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   280 MBytes  2.35 Gbits/sec    0   1.98 MBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   280 MBytes  2.35 Gbits/sec    0   1.98 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.73 GBytes  2.35 Gbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec  2.73 GBytes  2.34 Gbits/sec                  receiver

But from my iphone 15 Pro:

IMG_5688.PNG
IMG_5688.PNG1179×2556 140 KB

And as a comparison, the base model NWA50AX:

IMG_5689.PNG
IMG_5689.PNG1179×2556 140 KB

The pro model also suffers from the fact that it has two slots in which you can flash firmware to and openwrt will only flash from the first slot which led to me bricking the device. You can read about that adventure here.

2

Don't run iperf on the router but on an upstream/ lan device - ideally desktop/laptop class (the newer the better) as it's quite taxing on the embedded cpu

3

Question, you are using 160MHz channel width?

4

Can you check in Network > Wireless for the Associated Station during a speedtest:

  • the MCS level (i.e HE-MCS 11)
  • the Signal- and Noise value
5

Sorry for the late reply,
24.0 Mbit/s, 20 MHz
1200.9 Mbit/s, 80 MHz, HE-MCS 11, HE-NSS 2

When this test was ran, I did get a max of 846Mbits/s with an average of 772Mbits/s on my iphone 15 pro.

I can't use 160MHz width because I'm in an active flight path and it knocks my wifi out almost immediately when it even gets close to a DFS channel.