Wi-Fi Performance Issues on Radxa Zero 3W Compared to Raspberry Pi Zero 2W

ROCK 3 Series ZERO 3W/3E
1

Hi,

I’m currently testing a Radxa Zero 3W and comparing its Wi-Fi performance to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W (which supports only 2.4GHz). I’ve run multiple tests comparing signal strength using Network Manager while ensuring the most similar testing environments by reducing variables. I’ve tried the two scenarios:

  • Both devices were tested using the same 2.4GHz network.
  • Radxa on 5GHz with Pi on 2.4GHz.

In both scenarios, the Radxa consistently performs slightly worse or sometimes significantly worse than the Pi in terms of Wi-Fi signal strength.

I tested both the Debian B6 CLI (minimal) and Debian B6 XFCE (desktop) images from your official releases.

I would expect the Radxa to outperform the Pi in these scenarios. Are there known Wi-Fi performance issues or tuning recommendations for the Zero 3W? Could this be a firmware or driver issue?

Thanks for the help in advance!

2

Wifi performance depends on many factors, and an interesting read: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/5246-wifi-performance-benchmark-test/

For example, my (wifi) 3W outperforms my 5C-lite, different kernel, same AP.

cpu governor: ondemand, 2.4 GHz

rock@rock5c-lite:~$ iperf3/src/iperf3 -c 192.168.254.253
Connecting to host 192.168.254.253, port 5201
[  5] local 192.168.254.10 port 51904 connected to 192.168.254.253 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  2.25 MBytes  18.9 Mbits/sec    0    123 KBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  4.12 MBytes  34.6 Mbits/sec    0    280 KBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  4.38 MBytes  36.7 Mbits/sec    0    438 KBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  7.12 MBytes  59.8 Mbits/sec    0    557 KBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  5.88 MBytes  49.3 Mbits/sec    0    598 KBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  5.88 MBytes  49.3 Mbits/sec    0    598 KBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  6.00 MBytes  50.3 Mbits/sec    0    598 KBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  5.88 MBytes  49.3 Mbits/sec    0    598 KBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  6.00 MBytes  50.3 Mbits/sec    0    598 KBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.01  sec  5.88 MBytes  49.1 Mbits/sec    0    598 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec  53.4 MBytes  44.7 Mbits/sec    0            sender
[  5]   0.00-10.04  sec  50.5 MBytes  42.2 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.


rock@rzero-3w:~$ iperf3/src/iperf3 -c 192.168.254.253
Connecting to host 192.168.254.253, port 5201
[  5] local 192.168.254.232 port 60510 connected to 192.168.254.253 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  8.38 MBytes  70.2 Mbits/sec    0    423 KBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  6.25 MBytes  52.4 Mbits/sec    0    547 KBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  4.50 MBytes  37.7 Mbits/sec    0    576 KBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  4.62 MBytes  38.8 Mbits/sec    0    576 KBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  5.62 MBytes  47.2 Mbits/sec    0    604 KBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  6.12 MBytes  51.4 Mbits/sec    0    604 KBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  6.50 MBytes  54.6 Mbits/sec    0    652 KBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  6.62 MBytes  55.5 Mbits/sec    0    652 KBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  5.38 MBytes  45.1 Mbits/sec    0    652 KBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.01  sec  6.62 MBytes  55.1 Mbits/sec    0    686 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec  60.6 MBytes  50.8 Mbits/sec    0            sender
[  5]   0.00-10.02  sec  57.0 MBytes  47.7 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.