NordVPN Speed Test – A Truly Impressive Performance!

Speed is the question everyone asks about a VPN. Will it slow me down. Will gaming feel laggy. Will streaming start to buffer. I prefer to test rather than speculate, so I recorded a clean A to B comparison on a high capacity 900 Mbps home line. First I ran a full speed test with NordVPN switched on. Then I paused the VPN and repeated the test. What you are about to watch is exactly that back to back comparison, with live figures for latency, download, and upload so you can see the difference for yourself. ⚡

Watch the NordVPN speed test. First run with the VPN on, then paused. All numbers are from the same 900 Mbps connection.

Headline results from our 900 Mbps test

Here are the numbers that matter. With the VPN paused the line produced 4.78 ms latency, 904.12 Mbps download, and 943.38 Mbps upload. With NordVPN on using the NordLynx protocol the figures were 18.37 ms latency, 893.93 Mbps download, and 903.03 Mbps upload. The translation is simple. Latency rose, but it stayed in a range that still feels instant for everyday use. Download and upload dipped only slightly and remained far above the needs of even very demanding tasks.

What these numbers feel like in real life

People do not experience percentages, they experience whether a page loads, a film plays, or a file finishes downloading. A fall from 904.12 to 893.93 Mbps is roughly one percent. A ten gigabyte file finishes a handful of seconds later at most. A 4K stream plays without a stutter. Music streams are instantaneous. Cloud photo libraries sync as if nothing changed. That is why I say the overhead here is real but barely noticeable.

Latency and online gaming

Latency is the time it takes a packet to make the round trip to a server and back. Gamers call it ping. The move from 4.78 ms to 18.37 ms looks dramatic as a multiple, but in absolute terms it is still quick. Competitive shooters and racers remain responsive at 50 ms. Nvidea Geforce Now, a popular cloud gaming provider, requires a ping under 80ms, and recommends a ping under 40ms, so 18.37ms is still twice as fast as even the recommended speeds from Nvidea. In fact fast action games continue to feel tight at 60 ms. At 18 ms we are many times faster than what would be needed. Your inputs will register cleanly and you do not see rubber banding or delayed hit markers. I have played long sessions at this latency and would happily even compete with it. The benefit of the VPN here is that your real IP is hidden and so you gain a layer of protection against nuisance attacks which do happen in online matches. 🎮

Streaming films and downloading large files

Streaming quality depends mostly on sustained download capacity. Modern platforms need far less than 100 Mbps for 4K HDR. In this test the download figure with the VPN on sat around 894 Mbps which is several times more than required. Films and sport ramp up to full resolution quickly and stay there. For big downloads the difference between 904.12 and 893.93 Mbps is trivial. A 100 GB game download completes in about fifteen minutes either way, with the content server being the limiting factor long before the VPN.

Uploads, cloud backups, and video calls

Uploads dropped from 943.38 to 903.03 Mbps. This is still extremely fast. Cloud backups, drive syncs, and raw photo uploads hum along. On video calls the picture stays sharp and the audio clean, even with screen sharing and multiple participants. If you run a home office with big file transfers, these results mean you can keep NordVPN on all day without feeling slowed down.

Why NordVPN sustains high speeds

Speed is not an accident. NordVPN uses NordLynx, a WireGuard based protocol that reduces overhead while keeping strong encryption. The code path is lean which is good for both speed and reliability. The service also runs a large fleet of modern servers with significant bandwidth capacity including ten gigabit links in key locations. That capacity matters because it prevents congestion during busy hours. Automatic server selection connects you to a fast nearby option, and manual selection lets you pin a favourite when you find a route that works especially well.

Picking the fastest path

Three simple choices help anyone get repeatable fast results. First use NordLynx. It provides the best balance of speed and stability in my testing. Second choose a server close to you geographically. Distance adds travel time, and a nearer server will almost always reduce latency. Third let the app handle load balancing unless you have a specific reason to pick a specialty server. These small decisions make a noticeable difference on older hardware and on crowded evening networks.

What can slow you down that is not the VPN

It is easy to blame the tunnel when the culprit lives elsewhere. The most common bottlenecks are a weak home router, busy home Wi Fi channels, power saving on laptops that throttles the network card, and content servers with their own limits. I see people upgrade to a very fast broadband package, then connect over a congested two point four gigahertz Wi Fi band and wonder where the speed went. If you care about performance, use a wired link or a clean five gigahertz or six gigahertz band and keep the router firmware up to date.

How close to line speed can you go

On very fast lines your maximum speed becomes a handshake among three things. The raw capacity of your ISP, the bandwidth of the VPN server, and the speed limit of the site you are pulling from. NordVPN removes itself from the bottleneck most of the time by keeping server capacity high and by using efficient protocols. This is why our test stuck so close to the 900 Mbps ceiling. If your ISP provides one hundred or two hundred Mbps, expect the same pattern. The VPN will shave a small slice off the top but the experience remains smooth.

Edge cases and practical tips

Travel introduces extra distance which increases latency. In that case use the country picker to select the nearest city rather than defaulting to a faraway favourite. If a site behaves oddly behind a blocker, toggle Threat Protection for that site for the session. For constant large transfers, pin a server in the same region as the storage provider to avoid unnecessary hops. These are small tactics I use that keep performance steady while you stay protected.

Bottom line on NordVPN speed

Our measurements show a tiny drop in download and upload and a small rise in latency that stays well inside the comfort zone for gaming and video. That is with strong encryption, tracker blocking, and private DNS wrapped around your traffic. In everyday use the difference is so slight that most people will never notice it, which is exactly what a privacy tool should aim for. Set it once, keep it on, get on with your day. 🚀

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I notice a download speed drop when the VPN is on

No. In our tests we saw a drop of about one percent, which is effectively invisible for streaming and downloads. The experience feels the same.

Does the increased latency with a VPN hurt online gaming

Not in any meaningful way. We saw Eighteen milliseconds in testing , which is still excellent for competitive play. Inputs feel responsive and matches remain smooth.