NAT Acceleration and LAN speeds?

[Sptz]

This is something that I haven't quite found a full clarification on. Regarding NAT Acceleration > LAN speeds. My ISP provides 60/20 so, in theory, I don't quite need NAT acceleration but does this also affect LAN throughput between clients? (video streaming, file transferring, etc)

Thanks!

 

[L&LD]

That would be easy to test, no?

With NAT acceleration on, transfer a large file between two wired devices.

Turn off NAT acceleration, reboot, wait 10 minutes to allow all services to engage and settle down, then re-run the same test above (try to use a different large file though, if you haven't also rebooted the client devices used to do this test with).

 

[Sptz]

That would be easy to test, no?

With NAT acceleration on, transfer a large file between two wired devices.

Turn off NAT acceleration, reboot, wait 10 minutes to allow all services to engage and settle down, then re-run the same test above (try to use a different large file though).

Unfortunately I don't have 2 wired devices, just one, my TV. So there's no way I can genuinely test this. My question was because, using Transmission in my AC86U brings the CPU usage to 90-100% at all times, so my query was if NAT Accel would help with LAN throughput not taking a CPU toll as without NAT Accel is fully relying on the CPU. So that, in theory, it'd be agnostic to how much the CPU is being used or not at the current time.

All I read online states ( https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-nat-acceleration-495 ) NAT accel and internet throughput, that it's only useful for >150/200 internet.

 

[L&LD]

@Sptz thinking about this more, NAT acceleration on or off shouldn't make a difference between two wired devices?

Because the 'traffic' isn't routed, it is simply going through a simple switch instead.

 

[ColinTaylor]

NAT acceleration only applies to WAN to LAN (and vice versa) traffic. It has no effect on LAN to LAN traffic.

I don't know whether the RT-AC86U is different but on my RT-AC68U wired (Ethernet to Ethernet) traffic stays on the switch chip and therefore doesn't consume any of the router's CPU. However, wired to wireless (and vice versa) traffic is bridged on the router and therefore does consume CPU. In my case quite significant amounts (~40% when using my laptop's 5GHz to do a file transfer).