Tested: Multi-gig fiber internet is too fast for your PC

If you’re about to chunk the bullet on a blazing-fast multi-gig web deal, you may simply need to improve your PC’s storage drive and CPU too.

I do know this as a result of in addition to having to improve my networking {hardware}, which was too gradual for my new Sonic 10Gb web, I found that components of my PC have been additionally too gradual to maintain up with the firehose of knowledge. And yours most likely can be too—even in case you have a fairly highly effective gaming rig with an SSD and a stable 6- or 8-core processor.

[ Further reading: The hidden costs of multi-gigabit fiber Internet: A cautionary tale ]

How it began

It all began when a good friend, who was himself considering an improve to 10Gb web, and the potentially costly upgrade of his networking gear, requested me to run a take a look at alone multi-gig community.

“Do me a favor,” Greg Vederman requested one morning. “Download a 20GB Steam game—something large enough that there’s enough time to ramp up to the max speed, and then tell me what you actually max out at, and whether it’s just a spike or if it’s sustained. I think that’ll be the deciding factor on whether or not I deal with this upgrade to multi-gigabit internet right now.”

While working these checks for “The Vede” I spotted that though I knew downloading a sport might simply outstrip the uncooked write efficiency of a SATA SSD’s theoretical 6Gbps write speeds, I didn’t understand how a lot of an influence it might have in apply.

The checks

To quantify that, I sat down and measured obtain instances utilizing 4 completely different targets: a 480GB NVMe Optane drive, which Crystal Disk Mark measured at about 2.7GBps sequential write speeds; a really previous NVMe PCIe SSD with a write velocity within the 1GBps vary; an older Sandisk SATA SSD, which had a measured write velocity of 450MBps; and eventually, as a reference, a 10TB Seagate laborious drive with a measured sequential write velocity of 171MBps. The laborious drive ought to be of specific curiosity to the various avid gamers who proceed to retailer their sport libraries on laborious drives because of their price-to-capacity benefits.

During testing, I switched off real-time antivirus protection to stop that from being a possible bottleneck. Because downloading from a reside server throughout the open web may be unpredictable—much like judging how briskly a automobile can go throughout rush hour site visitors—I made a decision to attempt to scale back site visitors interference by merely doing all of my testing between midnight and 3 a.m. Pacific Time when most individuals are asleep.

One closing component that could possibly be an element is the community adapter within the machine. In this case, it’s a 10Gtek PCIe SFP+ network card utilizing an Intel 82599EN controller chip with the default adapter settings.

Steam’s servers often topped out at 2Gbps to 2.7Gbps for me, which is under the theoretical write velocity of most SATA SSDs. However, Steam truly appears to be sending compressed sport belongings to you to scale back bandwidth masses as a result of, regardless of Steam reporting a most of round 260MBps throughout downloads, the precise writes to the drive have been round 800MBps to 1.1GBps in keeping with the OS. That’s seemingly why we’re seeing such a pronounced distinction between the SATA SSD versus the 2 NVMe SSDs regardless of 260MBps being inside SATA’s speeds.

Besides downloading a sport utilizing the Steam shopper, I additionally downloaded the 5GB Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft’s servers, which concurred {that a} laborious drive is just too gradual for ultra-fast web. But the distinction between the SATA SSD and NVMe SSDs was pretty small. I must also point out that 5GB over a 10Gbps connection is ridiculously small, and the margins of error and variability may be huge. Still, the upshot is that whether or not it’s a big file switch or a sustained sport obtain, a tough drive is basically the bottleneck while you’re working a multi-gig connection.

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If you’re questioning why this doesn’t match the outcomes you’re getting in your 10Gb or 5Gb connection within the velocity checks (the place your machine may push 8Gbps downloads, because the within the picture under), that’s as a result of these checks are deliberately very small and designed to check your potential obtain (and add) speeds, not take a look at the potential bottlenecks that exist elsewhere in your system. In reality, the consequence under is from utilizing the Windows Store shopper of Ookla’s well-liked Speedtest, which aggregates information from 4 completely different Ookla servers to measure the obtain efficiency. The browser model, for instance, would put the efficiency nearer to 2Gbps because it depends solely on one server.

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Your CPU is likely to be too gradual, too

In addition to your drive being a possible bottleneck, your PC’s CPU could possibly be a limiting issue. While that wasn’t the case within the machine I used for write-speed testing, not everybody has an 18-core CPU on board. So to check completely different eventualities, I stored all the {hardware} the identical and manually disabled CPU cores within the BIOS for an older and slower Core i9-7980XE to simulate the influence of utilizing a 2-core, 4-core, 6-core, 8-core, 12-core, and 16-core CPU whereas downloading the identical 23GB Steam sport. For the goal drive, I used the fastest SSD for all the checks and, once more, switched off real-time third-party AV monitoring.

So is a 2-core, 4-core, and even 6-core CPU too gradual for multi-gig web? The reply, surprisingly, is sure to all three.

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You can see the outcomes above. The blue traces signify the overall time it took to obtain the 23GB Steam sport, whereas the pink line represents Steam’s reported peak obtain bandwidth. Surprisingly I noticed efficiency scaling at 8-cores and up, with the very best peaks utilizing all 16-cores. If you have a look at the precise time it takes although, it’s actually no large deal. At instances, I’d see the 16-core configuration taking extra time than the 12-core, which I’d chalk as much as what occurs while you’re utilizing a community you don’t have any management over. It may be Steam’s servers frowning at me for downloading half a terabyte of the identical sport over and time and again. Valve, in any case, does need to pay the invoice for the quantity of bandwidth its customers use on downloads.

What I can say definitely is that for those who’re going to enroll in a shiny-new 10G or 5G plan, your 10-year previous dual-core or quad-core is unlikely to essentially push it for real-world downloads. Yes, it is likely to be tremendous for a brief velocity take a look at, however in actuality that CPU is a critical bottleneck.

Perhaps the very best information about utilizing an older dual-core or quad-core machine to obtain recordsdata over a 10G web connection is that it means the velocity of the goal drive simply gained’t matter as a lot both. In reality, an older dual-core or quad-core with a SATA SSD is okay—till you understand you mainly aren’t exceeding the speeds of even a gigabit connection.

Don’t overreact

Still, this shouldn’t trigger you to overreact and shrink back from multi-gig web. First, this example applies to a single wired desktop trying to find absolutely the quickest downloads speeds and related to the router utilizing a 10Gbps connection. Yes, that lets me obtain a 100GB sport in just some minutes, however for most individuals, shifting to a multi-gig setup will show you how to it doesn’t matter what, even when each PC can’t take full benefit of it.

For instance, with a multi-gig web connection to your router (assuming it could possibly not less than hit 2.5Gbps via its WAN port), wired shoppers comparable to gaming desktops can obtain at as much as gigabit speeds, whereas wi-fi shoppers comparable to laptops, tablets, and media streaming nonetheless have loads of bandwidth left over for them.

So if you may get multi-gig web for a similar worth, or not far more, it’s properly price it. Just know that for those who aren’t getting the speeds you anticipated, you’ll be able to’t simply blame your router. It is likely to be the comparatively gradual CPU and gradual storage you’re utilizing. If so, our guides to the best CPUs and best SSDs for any finances may also help.