Recommend a router to work with NordVPN

zillah

zillah

zillah

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Joined
5 Dec 2005
Posts
135
Dear folk

I am based in New Zealand I have got ASUS RT-AC5300 with Merlin firmware v386.3.2 , before connecting to a recommended USA server (i.e recommended by NordVPN with its protocol) the speed is 740 Mbps

https://imgur.com/a/rXWWS8D

When I connect to a recommended USA server the speed is (53 Mbps) as per attached snapshot

https://imgur.com/a/121w1qa

Yes I am aware that VPN can drop the peed but to that extent ? from 740 to 53 ?

I remembered i had same issue when I was with Express VPN 3 years ago

If my router's hardware in not capable to handle the speed ? Any recommendation which router should I buy ?

Thx
 
What protocol are you using?

If I assume OpenVPN then you’ll need a router with an AESNI compatible CPU to achieve speeds as fast as Nord can handle.(Still might not be your line speed as it also depends on the server)

I don’t know your router but from reading on here I can think of two off the shelf semi-affordable routers that can do it. There is an ASUS model but I don’t recall the exact model. Maybe google or a search on here will help find it. The other(s) would be by mikrotik. Again, I can’t remember the models but it has definitely been mentioned on here before and maybe a passing expert will see this and mention it.

But if you need serious speeds and presumably advanced policy based routing (because all your traffic behind a VPN all the time can be a PITA) then most folks will roll their own, which is what I do. A low power small PC with an AESNI compatible CPU, a couple of NICs and your choice of pfSense, OPNSense or Untangle. This has the side effect of then needing to sort out WiFi separately with access points. An older SFF off eBay and a network expansion card is the cheap way to do it. Personally I spent a few hundred on a passively cooled USFF with 4x NICs that a million Chinese manufacturers produce clones of each other. Netgate do pfSense appliances if you want support and don’t fancy making one.
 
As BigT said, are they just capping your speed rather than it's a problem somewhere else? It might just be that that is as fast as they allow any traffic.

The most recent Which? test (www.which.co.uk) for VPNs showed NordVPN averaging around 235 mbps. The report said that was below average for VPN providers tested.

So on the one hand your 53mbps is probably a bit slow but on the other hand you probably won't be able to get your normal 740mbps.

Have you tried just turning on the VPN from your PC instead of the router to compare that?
 
Tart said:
Have you tried just turning on the VPN from your PC instead of the router to compare that?
Click to expand...

This is a good tip I always forget to tell people. Assuming you have a relatively powerful PC it will stop you wasting money if it reveals that you're not going to get any faster anyway from the provider, with the caveat that servers can be under different loads at different times, but still useful info.
 
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