I have a 10Gbps internet connection. On a system with a 10Gbps Ethernet card, I can get ~8Gbps down and ~6Gbps up:
I'd expect this to easily max out a 2.5Gbps network connection. However, while the upload is maxed (or close to it), I can only ever get ~1.0 to 1.5Gbps down:
Both tests were performed on the same system. The only difference is that the first one uses a TRENDnet 10Gbps PCIe network card (which uses an Aquantia AQC107 chipset) whereas the second one uses the onboard NIC on my motherboard (Intel I225-V chipset).
This is consistent across two devices that have 10Gbps ports and two devices that have 2.5Gbps ports.
I'm using an AdTran 622v ONT provided by my internet provider, a TP-Link ER8411 router, and a MikroTik CRS312-4C+8XG-RM switch. I'm using CAT6 cabling, except for the connection between the router and the switch which uses an SFP+ DAC cable.
I haven't been able to figure it out. The 'slower' speeds are still great, I just don't understand why it can't achieve more than 1.5Gbps down over a 2.5Gbps network connection.
Any ideas?
Something to keep in mind when testing upload and download speeds is your drive and memory read/write speed. Your true throughput is not just a test of NIC and network but also the rest of your PC
The PC can definitely handle it since both tests were done on the same PC, just a different NIC.
Ookla's speed test doesn't write to or read from disk, so disk performance doesn't impact it :)