This page compares the performance impact of changing the default buffer size for pipes

Pipe Buffer Sizes (MB/sec)

CPU Freq Cache 64 KB 256 KB 1 MB 4 MB 8 MB
Core2Quad Q9650 (4 Cores) 3.00 GHz 2×6 MB 4581 6161 6224 2175 1726
i5 2540m (2 Cores + HT) 2.60 GHz 3 MB 6538 7096 7722 4549 4776
i5 3320m Power Save 1.20 GHz 3 MB 3358 4119 4501 3199 3192
i5 3320m (2 Cores + HT) 2.60 GHz 3 MB 7231 8919 9789 5922 5991
i5 3320m Turbo 3.30 GHz 3 MB 8590 11058 11702 7008 6522
i7 4770 (4 Cores + HT) 3.40 GHz 8 MB 9827 12929 14104 13027 8576
E5-1650 v3 (6 Cores + HT) 3.50 GHz 15 MB 8251 10098 9970 10058 7319
E5-1650 v3 Turbo 3.80 GHz 15 MB 9651 12292 12848 13178 8393
E5-2650 v0 (8 Cores + HT) 2.00 GHz 20 MB 5580 6384 6538 6984 6653
E5-2650 v0 Turbo 2.80 GHz 20 MB 6701 7496 7882 7607 7852
E5-2670 v0 (8 Cores + HT) 2.60 GHz 20 MB 7101 8006 8278 7716 8919
E5-2670 v0 Turbo 3.30 GHz 20 MB 7431 8896 9799 9385 9275

{{pipebuffersize/pipe_bandwidth_2017-06-01.png?1000}}

Linux pipe(7) – Linux increased the default from 64 KB to 1 MB in kernel 4.9