[pnako]

Well, to start with you can actually compute the optimal number of packets per second, if you know the bit rate and the packet size.

https://packet.company/ethernet-statistics

So the theoretical optimum is 14.88 Mpps (millions of packets per second). That's with the smallest possible payload. You need to divide that by two because the test involves both a request and a response, which gives you 7.44 million requests per second as the theoretical maximum.

The best tests max out around 7 M rps. This gives an implied overhead of about 6%, which corresponds to the HTTP overhead.

[Hikikomori]

Why would you divide by two? Tx/Rx are separate.

[pnako]

You're right. But I assume the benchmark basically implements a ping-pong game instead of DoSing the server to see how many requests actually survive (I could be wrong).