Network Utility is very accurate for Ethernet speed, but it may show instantaneous Wi-Fi speed, so you should check it again. Mine shows the exact same speed as Option-WiFi Transmit rate, and has been stable for several minutes and does not sag and surge.
Speed test does a test that shows raw speed of simple data transfers.
Option Wi-Fi shows what transmit speed has been attained at this moment. Its transmit speeds tend to be very reliable and the other information is that pane can help you diagnose problems.
You probably don't need to do a Safe Mode test unless you are trying to debug a massive shortfall in speeds. Safe Mode is invoked by holding Shift at startup. It loads a small portion of MacOS, then does a five-minute disk test, then proceeds. It deliberately loads only a minimal set of Apple-only extensions, NOT including graphics acceleration extensions, and assumes defaults for everything possible. You screen resolution may revert to a lower default setting, and screen updates may be wonky and slow, but ultimately correct.
Safe mode has two additional "tricks":
• no extensions loaded means you can check for side-effects caused by third-party extensions.
• takes defaults for everything possible means you can escape from deadly wrong settings, such as screen resolution out-of-bounds, and settings you make in Safe Mode will "stick" in regular mode.