OpenVPN slow lately

[Teng Teng Toa 2]

I've been using AirVPN with OpenVPN for years and switched to WireGuard for a while now.
Recently I needed to have my connection over OpenVPN and noticed a "delay" in the connection.
After testing I noticed my OpenVPN connection did not go much higher than 110-120mbit while WireGuard saturates my connection easily (getting 490 from my 500mbit connection).
This is done on the same server. Of course tried other servers as well. I think I tried everything I can think of.

Running pfSense CE 2.7 here on a Intel J4125 box with Intel I226 network ports.
Of course this box support AES-NI, activated in the options and in my OpenVPN config I have enabled hardware crypto "Intel RDRAND engine - RAND".
I've followed the guide here: https://nguvu.org/pfsense/pfsense-baseline-setup/

Here are the details of the config I'm using:
UDP port 443
Data encryption: AES-256-GCM
Fallback D E:  AES-256-CBC
Auth digest: SHA256
UDP Fast IO: enabled
Send/receive bugger: 512KiB
Custom options: client; persist-key; persist-tun; remote-cert-tls server; prng sha256 64; mlock; auth-nocache; pull-filter ignore "ifconfig-ipv6"; pull-filter ignore "route-ipv6";

I have tried and tested the following:
Changing UDP port to 80, 1194 and others
Changed data encryption to: chacha, AES-256-CBC (instead of fallback)
Auth Digest change to 384 and 512
Send and receive buffer to 256KiB, 1 and 2MiB
Custom option prng sha512 64
Changed MTU to 1478 on the OpenVPN interface

Nothing seems to help significantly and it seems to be stuck around 120mbit max, sometimes a little higher but never hittings about 160.
Where WireGuard hits the ceiling constantly.

In the past, when I used OpenVPN exclusively, I hit speeds around 350 - 400.

Is there something more I can check to have better speeds for OpenVPN?
 

[Air4141841 23]

I'm running a opnsense appliance dec670 

AMD GX-416RA SOC (4 cores, 4 threads)

factory out of box.  no changes.
using airvpn.   I have never gotten above the numbers you have listed 120Mb on my 500Mb Symmetrical fiber line. 

here is my config using entry point 3 or 4 :  us4.vpn.airdns.org. I've tried cha cha and Aes 256
pull-filter ignore "ifconfig-ipv6 ";
pull-filter ignore "route-ipv6 ";
remote-cert-tls server;
sndbuf 524288;
rcvbuf 524288;
allow-compression asym;  
 compression per a last ticket to support is set ti legacy comp Lzo NO 

would love to hear suggestions as I have no interesting to try wireguard. 
 

[Air4141841 23]

I am guessing this may be worth trying for you. openvpn it sounds like is forcing chacha data channel 

open advanced configuration.   try another one.  :

data-ciphers AES-128-GCM.   
data-ciphers AES-256-GCM

for example.     after changing data cipher to NONE.   and adding the above, I am getting consistency higher speeds.    and I now see in verb3 logs its connecting at what I am choosing before it ONLY used chacha no matter what I chose       let me know if this helps.   

[Teng Teng Toa 2]

@Air4141841

Thanks for the reply and help!
Unfortunately it does not change anything for me.

Still same results...

[Air4141841 23]

if 128 gcm isn't any faster. I would be looking at replacing the router 

[Teng Teng Toa 2]

128 GCM is indeed the same.
Router is brand new. It's a J4125 with 2.5GB/s Intel i226 network ports.
I don't think the problem is the machine.

[Air4141841 23]

apologies, I thought this was the TP link router thread.
my speeds have increased to 140Mb to 150Mb maybe once since I made my change to 128GCM>
using a 512kb snd and rcv buffer 
hopefully someone else will have better ideas for us.