From the linked paper:<p>The generally accepted rule of thumb is that 1bps of network
link requires 1Hz of CPU processing. Figures 11, 12
give a full story of this rule of thumb. (where Hz&#x2F;bps ratio
= %CPU utilization * processor speed &#x2F; bandwidth). It had
held up remarkably well over the years, albeit only for bulk
data transfer at large sizes. For smaller transfers, we found
the processing requirement to be 6-7 times as expected.
Moreover, the figures show that network processing is not
scaling with CPU speeds. The processing needs per byte
increase when going from 800MHz to 2.4GHz. This happens
because as CPU speed increases, the disparity between
memory and I&#x2F;O latencies versus CPU speeds intensifies.