A Discounted Gem? FxTransit NOVA Hong Kong Premium Three-Network Routing | Second-Hand Price Stats | Evening Peak Speed Tests | International Connectivity Review

Contents

0. Preface
1. Configuration
2. Node Quality
3. itdog test
4. Evening peak speed test
5. International connectivity
6. Summary

0. Preface: Why call it a discounted gem?

FxTransit (domain registered on 2021-02-10) currently has Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore nodes and belongs to the so-called “YxVM group”; the NOVA product line focuses on premium routes.

I made an incomplete count of Nodeseek seller transaction posts whose titles contain "HK" and "NOVA", did some calculator work, and made a table using historical exchange rates from wise.com. Duplicate sellers are deduplicated, and the case of a 30% AFF refund is not considered.

As you can see, the seller asking price / remaining value ratio is getting lower and lower, with the most recent one down to 30%.

*For entries without an expiry date, assume the expiry date is 2026-06-09.

1. Configuration

🔗 Quick links

Note: annual product with no refund of any kind.

2. Node Quality

💻Basic information

At this price point, performance is fairly poor. It was probably placed on an oversold host node. When tested during this year's 618 sale, GB5 was still around 1000 points.

Basic System Information:
---------------------------------
Uptime     : 0 days, 19 hours, 0 minutes
Processor  : AMD EPYC 7K62 48-Core Processor
CPU cores  : 1 @ 2595.124 MHz
AES-NI     : ✔ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ✔ Enabled
RAM        : 967.7 MiB
Swap       : 533.0 MiB
Disk       : 20.0 GiB
Distro     : Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Kernel     : 6.16.12+deb13-cloud-amd64
VM Type    : STANDARD PC (I440FX + PIIX, 1996)
IPv4/IPv6  : ✔ Online / ❌ Offline

IPv4 Network Information:
---------------------------------
ISP        : Sakura Link Limited
ASN        : AS49304 SAKURA LINK LIMITED
Host       : Dom Tehniki Ltd
Location   : Hong Kong, Kowloon ()
Country    : Hong Kong

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50) (Partition -):
---------------------------------
Block Size | 4k            (IOPS) | 64k           (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 225.56 MB/s  (56.3k) | 986.62 MB/s  (15.4k)
Write      | 226.16 MB/s  (56.5k) | 991.81 MB/s  (15.4k)
Total      | 451.72 MB/s (112.9k) | 1.97 GB/s    (30.9k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512k          (IOPS) | 1m            (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 1.18 GB/s     (2.3k) | 1.17 GB/s     (1.1k)
Write      | 1.25 GB/s     (2.4k) | 1.24 GB/s     (1.2k)
Total      | 2.43 GB/s     (4.7k) | 2.42 GB/s     (2.3k)

Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
---------------------------------
Test            | Value                         
                |                               
Single Core     | 719                           
Multi Core      | 701                           
Full Test       | https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/23922326

 SysBench CPU Test (Fast Mode, 1-Pass @ 5sec)
---------------------------------
 1 Thread Test (Single Core) Score:          1548 Scores
 SysBench Memory Test (Fast Mode, 1-Pass @ 5sec)
---------------------------------
 Single-thread Read Test:          33711.56 MB/s
 Single-thread Write Test:          15665.98 MB/s

🎬IP quality

Inherited Russia IP, It probably needs to be replaced.

🌐Network quality

📍Return route

Premium return routes for all three networks

Probe packets for Unicom and Mobile outbound routes were dropped, so I can only confirm Telecom outbound is CN2 GIA; judging by latency, they should be routes of a similar tier.

3. three networks TCP Ping (itdog.cn，2025-11-24 23:00）

Outbound routes are all good, with little packet loss.

4. Evening peak proxy speed tests (2025-11-24 20:30-21:30)

Premium routes for all three networks solve the cross-network issue of three-network CN2. During evening peak, all three networks can basically peak above 500Mbps, which is still quite strong. Telecom latency is somewhat high, and it is a bit strange that Guangxi Telecom and Xi'an Telecom could not get going. I have run many rounds of tests before, and my impression of NOVA is that compared with competitors, its speed is not very stable. Overall, it is not the best, but better than cheaper options.

The speed-test records also include some popular models in the same region for reference.

Telecom

[Telecom speed-test records]

Unicom

[Unicom speed-test records]

Mobile

[Mobile speed-test records]

5. International connectivity - iPerf3 TCP IPv4 Single-threadspeed test (10 seconds per run, 2025-11-24)

Local port capacity is still large. Misaka Taipei is impressive (actually the whole Y-series probably is), while Europe is poor.

[Test records]

Hong Kong-Japan routes

GSL both ways gives the lowest latency.

🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇯🇵 DMIT	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇯🇵 BAGE JPS	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇯🇵 BAGE JP	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇯🇵 FxTransit
Outbound	Outbound	Outbound	Outbound
Return	Return	Return	Return

Hong Kong-Singapore routes

Pulling Singapore CTC-series and GSL nodes is good.

🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇸🇬 BAGE SGS	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇸🇬 BAGE SG	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇸🇬 RFCHOST
Outbound	Outbound	Outbound
Return	Return	Return

Hong Kong-Europe routes

NOVA seems to have given up on Europe. Netcup and Bage use RETN as if they do not; all return routes detour via Singapore, giving very high latency. Misaka Moscow is not good either.

🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇩🇪 Netcup	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇩🇪 BAGE	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇬🇧 BAGE	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇷🇺 Misaka
Outbound	Outbound	Outbound	Outbound
Return	Return	Return	Return

Hong Kong-US routes

Outbound uses RETN to Seattle and return uses GSL, so latency is a little higher than GSL both ways (DMIT HKG<->SEA: 127-128ms).

🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇺🇸 BAGE LA1	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇺🇸 BAGE LA2	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇺🇸 Misaka SEA	🇭🇰 NOVA <-> 🇺🇸 Alpha SEA
Outbound	Outbound	Outbound	Outbound
Return	Return	Return	Return

6. Summary

(1) Direct connection and value: all three networks can currently produce very impressive speeds, with peaks above 500Mbps. However, value has become quite average in front of competitors' new products, and it is even far behind FxTransit's own Trafficx2 VIA-618 (12 USD/month, 144 USD/year, 500Mbps, 2TB bidirectional, premium three-network routing). It only had a timing advantage because Hong Kong premium three-network products launched earlier than competing products in the same location such as ISIF COM/COP.

(2) International connectivity: NOVA relies on CTC and is okay to Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is currently poor to Europe and may need provider tuning. NOVA's international connectivity is very likely worse than FxTransit's cheaper Tier1 line (for example, to Hawaii, NOVA latency is 20ms higher than Tier1).

(3) Performance: NOVA's performance is not what this price should have. The provider oversells other models heavily, which has affected NOVA. GB5 dropped from 1000 points on June 18 to 700 points (YABS results are even a bit lower).

My personal lesson: for expensive VPS plans, pay monthly whenever possible. If you must buy annually, choose a product that allows at least a 7-day proportional refund. For reference, NOVA discounts may start appearing after about seven days. I also suggest buyers wait a while when seeing a new route or product line, if you are not in a hurry, to see whether competitors later follow with similar products.

Conversely, if you can buy a yearly throwaway plan at a discount, the value is still very high.

7. About the tests

The machines tested in this article, including all machines used for iPerf3 speed tests, were purchased at my own expense. Results may be time-sensitive.
Kernel parameters of the tested machines (/etc/sysctl.conf) are as follows

fs.file-max = 6815744
net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save=1
net.ipv4.tcp_ecn=0
net.ipv4.tcp_frto=0
net.ipv4.tcp_mtu_probing=0
net.ipv4.tcp_rfc1337=0
net.ipv4.tcp_sack=1
net.ipv4.tcp_fack=1
net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling=1
net.ipv4.tcp_adv_win_scale=1
net.ipv4.tcp_moderate_rcvbuf=1
net.core.rmem_max=33554432
net.core.wmem_max=33554432
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem=4096 87380 33554432
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem=4096 16384 33554432
net.ipv4.udp_rmem_min=8192
net.ipv4.udp_wmem_min=8192
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
net.ipv4.conf.all.route_localnet=1
net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1
net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1
net.core.default_qdisc=fq
net.ipv4.tcp_congestion_control=bbr
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1
net.ipv6.conf.default.forwarding=1

8. Acknowledgements

Thanks to “Impart Speed Test“(@Kyoma) for providing public-interest speed-test service.