I’m from western Europe and use the NordVPN US server for netflix.
Will this impact my gaming experience/speed when playing on european gaming (LoL, CSGO, …) servers?
I have generally different experience with NordVPN. Sometimes it’s slow sometimes it’s fast.
But generally I wouldn’t recommend NordVPN for gaming.
There are VPN’s like ExpressVPN that are very fast and if the VPN server is located in the same city as the game server, you will have no real latency difference.
It can even improve your ping, here is a good explantation https://windowsreport.com/can-vpn-improve-ping/ . Read it, but ignore their VPN recommendations.There are better VPN’s provider, like ExpressVPN, I got very good experience with it, but it`s not cheap.
Yes. How much will depend on the server you pick, the performance of the server plus your ISP. I’ve had cases where I’ve had faster speeds with VPN because my ISP wasn’t delivering on what they were supposed to regardless of time it was. Other times I did get full speeds (100mbps down, 10mbps up) and had uploads throttled to 1.5mbps or videos play at 360p or lower. Didn’t happen once I connected with VPN. I haven’t tried gaming on a VPN, so I couldn’t tell you how serious it’ll be effected since there can be many factors going on.
Yes, it will. Using a VPN (any VPN, it’s not just a NordVPN issue) results in much higher latency and slower speeds (both upload and download). The higher latency is the primary issue for most online games, such as CS:GO that you mentioned, as there will be a noticeable delay from your input to when the server recognizes it. Obviously, the farther the VPN server is from you and the game’s server, the higher the latency.
Of course it will, all VPNs will impact your gaming experience latency wise.
Don’t listen to a lot of these commenters, they have no idea what they are talking about. It will affect ping, but only slightly as long as you choose a local server. I live in the UK and chose a UK server and only gained 2ms ping which is nothing. The route NordVPN picks is usually the same or better than what your ISP picks so ping to the rest of the world won’t be much different or it might be better. Speeds will be exactly the same. I get my full throughput every time with Nord.
i realize this is an old post… but just started using nord and i can say its not good for gaming. it blocks everything and allowing stuff through it isn’t just a simple add this program to the exceptions list. its annoying.
i like the kill switch option and all but it needs to be a lot more user friendly. i think next ill try expressvpn lots of people say that’s pretty decent for gaming.
also anyone looking for the info should know that having a vpn open for an online game really isn’t necessary and will always increase your latency as your adding another server hop in your connection, possibly 2 or 3 more. even with fast internet that can be 10-100ms + depending on the servers and traffic.
Also noticed it’s slow sometimes. I only bought Nord for a month so I think I’ll give ExpressVPN a go next month. 
I did some testing today, like the other comments said my speed and ping is worse using nord. When connected to my home country I have about 10ms more than without. When connected to US I have 300+ms. It seems to work fine when browsing and watching NF but its definately not for gaming in my case. 
Thanks for the response! I understand now
Late (like 2 years late) but what was your opinion on ExpressVPN? 
Ah. You’re also in Europe, ISP’s are different. My experience is likely to due with the repeal of Net Neutrality & lack of choices for internet.
ExpressVPN was faster overall in my experience, Nord worked better with Netflix though. atm I use Surfshark just because my dad is using it and this one seems to be the slowest of the three
Yes I’m in western Europe, I have 185Mb/s down (should have 200).