How to reduce latency in Windows by disabling the Interrupt coalescing

Interrupt coalescing refers to the ability of the NIC to not interrupt the CPU immediately whenever a packet is received, but rather wait a little bit in the hope that more packets arrive. That way a single interrupt can be used to process multiple packets.  This decision represent a tradeoff between latency and throughput. Coalescing the interrupts amounts to a wait which will enhance throughput but degrade latency. Disabling the Interrupt Coalescing and thus forcing the NIC to interrupt the CPU for each packet will provide the minimal latency but lower throughput.

In order to disable interrupt coalescing in Windows:

  1. Go to Adapter Settings.
  2. Right click the adapter and select Properties.
  3. In the Networking tab, click Configure. You will find that button below your NIC description (for instance, Intel(R) 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection).
  4. In the Advanced tab, select Interrupt Moderation and choose Disabled.