Apple's "networkQuality" tool (or the open source alternative that you can run in other operating systems: https://github.com/network-quality/goresponsiveness) is very useful to understand how your connection behaves under extreme conditions, but extreme conditions is not something home connections see regularly, so make sure to use a combination of tools if you want to understand how your home connection behaves under expected use.
It's more of an art than a science, really, and your ISP may be optimizing for more average use cases.
Personally, I like to start with a regular web-based speed test (I'm biased towards https://speed.cloudflare.com, but any test that shows latency under load is OK, like https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat or https://fast.com [1]) and then combine it with "networkQuality" running concurrently (if possible, from a different host) and see how it impacts the numbers.
Of course, this only makes sense if you have your own router running (for example) OpenWRT where you can enable active queue management (SQM/AQM) and actually do something to improve the results [2].
[1] In more recent times I'm finding fast.com to be a bit unreliable, as some ISPs may treat Netflix traffic specially (like allowing for longer bursts over contracted speeds, etc. — net neutrality notwithstanding).
Too weak for a full symmetric 1Gb fibre connection, yes. But ARM-based routers with twice the clock speed of those MIPS cores and significantly better performance per clock and much bigger caches have been around for years, and are pretty good at handling SQM for the DOCSIS-based connections that need it most.
I benchmarked my cheap ($50) Walmart OpenWRT router that has a MediaTek MT7622 (dual-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor clocked at 1.35GHz); SQM is totally usable below 600Mbps or so.
Last i know was that rpi‘s can barely handle one gig but not the effectively two for duplex. Not to mention that the ethernet port (singular) runs over usb
On the last pi, the eth port is on a pci express bus. For routing usage, you will need to either have to add a usb3-eth adapter or run "router-on-stick" with a single eth port and VLAN.
Or, you could also look at the NanoPi R4S or upper model with multiple eth and 1 Gbit capable SQM.
That's not true, fortunately. You do need a router with a beefy CPU, though.
With SQM (CAKE) enabled, my WRT1900acs router (1.6GHz dual-core) can handle my 500/100 Mbps FTTH connection just fine, with plenty of CPU to spare. From my calculations it probably doesn't quite have enough CPU to sustain 1 Gbps, should I ever upgrade to that. But the router itself is a few years old now, so that's not really surprising.
It's more of an art than a science, really, and your ISP may be optimizing for more average use cases.
Personally, I like to start with a regular web-based speed test (I'm biased towards https://speed.cloudflare.com, but any test that shows latency under load is OK, like https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat or https://fast.com [1]) and then combine it with "networkQuality" running concurrently (if possible, from a different host) and see how it impacts the numbers.
Of course, this only makes sense if you have your own router running (for example) OpenWRT where you can enable active queue management (SQM/AQM) and actually do something to improve the results [2].
[1] In more recent times I'm finding fast.com to be a bit unreliable, as some ISPs may treat Netflix traffic specially (like allowing for longer bursts over contracted speeds, etc. — net neutrality notwithstanding).
[2] I highly recommend this last option if you can. In my case, it allows me to be able to run "networkQuality" during a video call (over WiFi even) without any visible degradation. See: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/...