Any Asus router that will handle QOS on Gigabit?

[Alex3838]

Hi All,
Not a Merlin specific question, but I figure you guys are the experts on Asus routers
I recently got a 1000/100 fiber connection, and my 87U running Merlin can't quite keep up.
To clarify, I have: Fiber connection -> TP link media converter -> 87U lan port. So the router is handling the PPPOE connection.
Without QOS enabled, I can pull around 850 down, at which point the CPU maxes out.
With QOS enabled, the cpu maxes out around 500 mbps.
Could the new 86U with the 1.8 ghz CPU handle Gigabit with QOS enabled? Or is this just not realistic with a consumer router?
Or am I doing something wrong here that's chocking the router? I do have NAT / CTF set to auto... That's the only thing I could think of. No VPN running, most other things are default on the router. Tried 1492 / 1500 MTU, doesn't really make a difference.
The router provided by my ISP can handle gigabit fine (no qos) with almost no CPU load. Seems odd the Asus can't handle it.
Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

With that much bandwidth, what kind of load are you running that needs QoS to manage it?

 

[Alex3838]

I torrent a lot, and upload to GDrive a lot, and sometimes have 2-3 people simultaneously using my Plex server.
With my previous 300/100 connection, with QOS enabled, I set file transfer at lowest priority. This let me torrent, upload to GDrive, and have people on Plex with no hiccups.
With the Gigabit connection, without QOS enabled, Plex sometimes chokes and buffers. If I enable QOS again, it never stutters.
Also, I have an VPN server setup on the router for when I'm out of the country. I haven't been out of the country since having it, but I'm guessing this might take a hit as well without QOS enabled.
I currently have QOS enabled because 500 mbps down is actually fine, I haven't found a situation where I can even really use the full Gigabit. However, I have it, and since I'm a geek would like to have it available. Also, of course I can manually limit upload speeds for GDrive and such, but I kinda like the idea of the nothing being throttled and QOS taking care of everything.
I guess I feel like if I can sell my 87U and upgrade to something for say an extra hundred bucks that can handle the full gigabit with QOS enabled, I'd do it just for the peace of mind.

 

[thiggins]

I can't speak for how well the AC86U's adapter QoS works. But when I enabled it in my tests, I saw no throughput reduction. This is reflected in its 99% CTF score.

 

[RMerlin]

Adaptive QoS keeps CTF enabled. Only Traditional QoS will force it disabled.

In the RT-AC86U case, there's no CTF. The new hardware acceleration engines are Packet Runner and Flow Accelerator. Adaptive QoS will cause Runner to be disabled but Flow Accelerator remains enabled.

Not sure which of these features replaces CTF's layer 3 acceleration. More Broadcom blackboxes...

 

[RMerlin]

Back in the day, the RT-AC56U was giving me around 650 Mbps of throughput with Adaptive QoS enabled. I would expect the RT-AC88U and RT-AC86U to be able to hit near gigabit performance with Adaptive QoS enabled. However this will always depend on your specific workload. Broadcom's NAT acceleration for instance doesn't get applied to inbound traffic that goes through a forwarded port, so your inbound torrent traffic might not be able to reach anywhere close to 1 Gbps of throughput. You would have to test it.

 

[Alex3838]

Back in the day, the RT-AC56U was giving me around 650 Mbps of throughput with Adaptive QoS enabled. I would expect the RT-AC88U and RT-AC86U to be able to hit near gigabit performance with Adaptive QoS enabled. However this will always depend on your specific workload. Broadcom's NAT acceleration for instance doesn't get applied to inbound traffic that goes through a forwarded port, so your inbound torrent traffic might not be able to reach anywhere close to 1 Gbps of throughput. You would have to test it.

Thank you for this Mr Merlin!
That would explain some things... Whether or not QOS is enabled or not, I can't crack more than around 300-400 mbps via torrents, no matter how well seeded, no matter what settings I use. A speed test can easily hit 900 mbps consistently. I assumed it was some limitation of the torrents / my setup, I guess this explains it.