The actual packet per second transmitted goes down as the packet size increases.
At 86 byte packet you can get the expected speed.
At the 1500 byte packet size a 10 Gb/s operates as a 1 Gb/s
1 Gb/s operates as a 100 Mb/s
100 Mb/s as a 10 Mb/s
10 Mb/s as a 1 Mb/s
What is line rate ?
The interfaces of a network device are said to operate at line rate when the device is capable of forwarding packets, regardless of size.
Ref: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/security/intelligence/network_performance_metrics.html
