Hardware accelerated techniques like RSS and aRFS are used to route and load balance incoming [[Network_packet|packets]] across the multiple cores' queues of a processor.<br>
Those hardware supported methods achieve extremely low latencies and reduce the load on the CPU, as compared to the software based ones. However they require a specialized hardware integrated within the [[Network_interface_controller|network interface controller]] (which could be for example ais usually available on more advanced cards, like the [[Data_processing_unit|SmartNIC]]).<ref name="RSS++" /><ref name="aRFS by redhat">{{Cite web|title=aRFS by redhat|url=https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/6/html/performance_tuning_guide/network-acc-rfs|access-date=2025-07-08|website=docs.redhat.com|publisher=Red Hat Documentation|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="aRFS by nvidea">{{Cite web|title=aRFS by nvidea|url=https://docs.nvidia.com/networking/display/mlnxofedv23070512/flow+steering#src-2396583156_safe-id-Rmxvd1N0ZWVyaW5nLUFjY2VsZXJhdGVkUmVjZWl2ZUZsb3dTdGVlcmluZyhhUkZTKQ|access-date=2025-07-08|website=docs.nvidia.com|publisher=NVIDIA Documentation Hub|language=en-US}}</ref>
