Gigabit Wireless? Five 802.11ac Routers, Benchmarked

[Guest]

I wish you had also tested the performance of the routers' USB ports -- I suspect many will want to use these routers as I do, by also having them double as a NAS and performing significant data transfers (i.e. such as watching HD movies).

 

[palladin9479]

I wish you had also tested the performance of the routers' USB ports -- I suspect many will want to use these routers as I do, by also having them double as a NAS and performing significant data transfers (i.e. such as watching HD movies).

Most will perform like crap with a few performing adequately. The USB protocol wasn't designed for large block data transfers, it was designed to replace the PS/2, COM and LPT interfaces on a computer with a single universal interface. As such it doesn't support DMA transfers and each transfer must be micromanaged by the CPU. It's an incredibly CPU intensive protocol when compared to Ethernet, 1394, SATA and the rest. Modern CPU's have more then enough spare CPU power to accommodate high speed USB block transfers, little SOHO gateway devices not so much. Their CPU's must handle all the packet inspection, routing and IP Masquerading functions as well as running the web interface daemon. Tacking bulk USB data transfers and SMB file server duties tends to stretch them to the limit.

 

[heizenbrg]

hi everyone big nerdy college student here, I'm looking for a roomshare with high speed internet connection for gaming and hd streaming, but most places share a lousy wifi connection. It's very hard to come by a place with an ethernet port in the wall so I can easily install a router. What would you guys recommend I do? What is a good down and up speed? I'd like to stream hd youtube vids quickly and have no lag in fps games.

 

[tigerwild]

heizenbrg - I recommend the ASUS in this review. I have the RT-N66U, however you can get the AC66U... either/or. The key is that it's fast, reliable, easy to use, and compared to its competitors out-classes them all in range of transmission even in highly congested areas. I swear by it. Plus if you get into Tomato router mods, you can free up its abilities taking it from a great router to an AMAZING router. my 2 cents 😛

 

[tigerwild]

heizenbrg - I am sorry, I forgot to officially answer your, "what would you do".

I would try hard to get internet via cable modem etc. then get the above router I mention, and viola you're set. If not your going to need to invest in a great ethernet card for your PC/Laptop and borrow a neigbors network. I suggest making friends with your neibors if you can't afford to go it on your own!

Also remember that many restaurants will provide minimal speed wireless at their site. All you have to do is pay for a drink or something to make them happy 😛

Either way you will want a great network wireless adapter. I suggest:
(Half sized mini pcie) Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (for wifi@300mbps + bluetooth)
found at: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Centrino%C2%AE-Advanced-N-Bluetooth-6235ANHMW/dp/B009SJTSWU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1358341539&sr=8-3&keywords=Intel+Centrino+Advanced-N+6235


or
(Half sized mini pcie) Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 (for wifi@300mbps + 4G)(contact your local Verizon or AT&T to see if they support 4G in your area via this card)
11$ on amazon!!!! found at: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Advanced-n-Wimax-6250-622anxhmw/dp/B004M9NZIO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1358341848&sr=1-1&keywords=Intel+Centrino+Advanced-N+6250

And if your laptop doesn't support half sized minipcie but does support express cards, then
Cisco-Linksys WEC600N Dual Band Wireless-N Ultra RangePlus Expresscard
found at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0011E6300/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00

 

[stephan_]

Why do I need wireless that fast, who has got internet connection to go along with it. Sharing files over wlan, thats often so complicated with all the settings and complications and then it doesnt work anyway so you get an usb stick do to the real job

 

[icepick314]

words of an ignorant PC user...

I'm surprised you even have enough intellegence to post on websites...

if you're experienced PC user (yes PC includes Mac OS AND Windows OS), directory and resource sharing is one of the easiest thing to set up...

if you're copying files using USB flash drive, you're taking far longer than just copying files to another PC over wifi...you need to copy the files to that USB flash drive THEN from USB drive to another PC....over wifi, you're just copying files from one PC to another PC and that's it...

also most users only have USB2 drives which maxes around 20MB/s...good luck trying to transfer large files if you have USBs flash drives...either you don't have enough capacity or it'll take HOURS...

I moved from 802.11g to 802.11ac and the transfer speed went up 15x...I was barely able to stream HD media (1080 mkv files) and file transfer was pokey 3-5MB/s...now with the new 802.11ac router and adapter, I have absolutely no problem playing any media files (no stutters or buffering) and file transfers are anywhere between 45-55MB/s...

is it worth the money? depends....I think it was worth the extra cost when I have strong signal level, no drop in signal levels, and fast transfer speed...

[citation][nom]stephan_[/nom]Why do I need wireless that fast, who has got internet connection to go along with it. Sharing files over wlan, thats often so complicated with all the settings and complications and then it doesnt work anyway so you get an usb stick do to the real job[/citation]

 

[analdwellingbuttmonkey1]

This is a very detailed and useful report. However like all others its focus is completely on performance.
I would be willing to trade performance for software features. I want such features as:
Change both Username and Password
AP isolation
Multiple schedules/week to deny/allow wireless internet access
Configure each 2.4GHz b/g/n and 5GHz a/c incombination or alone
High/Med/Low transmit power setting
Configure Time Server
Guest zone requiring only a password – no network key.
Configure IP lease time in minutes

These are rarely if ever described in the manufacturers documentation and getting a hold of someone in tech support let alone someone competent is very difficult. I would like to see Tom's Hardware insist manufacturers provide detailed documentation ay least for the routers reviewed and available for readers to download. I recently had to buy 3 routers just to see what features were available and had to just take what I could get. And Cisco Cloud Connect was a complete debacle since I tried manually setting up the router in a location that did not have internet access.

 

[manicmike]

What I took from this article:

Like the only Belkin Router I've ever purchased, then smashed with a hammer later (literally), Belkin is garbage.

 

[Turbomcp]

Hi
I have the asus ac router plus the pcie asus ac card
but not getting speeds mentioned or even close.
getting around 17MB/Sec when coping file from wireless ac pcie machine on sata2 to a pc connected with gb wred connection with ssd.
is that normal?
also the pcie card shows its connected using N sped and 200-250 speed is that normal or should it say AC speed?
Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[williamvw]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]4) Power savings: I think more than anything that 11ac is going to show most of it's usefulness in power savings for future portable devices (and I think that ties in a lot with why they are marketing it as 5G to tie in with the cell network speak of 3G and 4G). I look at my friends phones that are only 1-2 years old, and they have to disable the wifi to get a full day's battery out of the phone because wifi's idle simply takes too much power. Compare that to new phones (or even higher quality old phones) which you can leave the wifi on all day and not have a significant battery issue. Even my 5 year old laptop gains an hour or more of battery life (a near 1/3 life boost) simply by turning off the wifi switch, so obviously the new radios in devices are getting much better at battery life without sacrificing much in the way of performance. Also cell providers like ATT and VZW have a lot of incentive to push 5G on phones and in houses to off-load cell traffic.Anywho, I guess what I am curious about is if the actual network speed is what gains the battery performance, or if it is merely having a more modern radio which brings such gains. As mentioned already, I am running 11g both at work and at home, and so 'all things being equal' the battery impact of wireless appears to have more to do with how modern the device is rather than the speed of the wireless network. I understand the 'race to sleep' argument, but if your internet coming in is only ~5-30Mb/s then I relay wonder if the end device will be able to sleep much at all. Because no matter if your network is 54Mb/s or 1300Mb/s the slow drip of the internet connection is going to keep those radios awake the entire time the internet is up. So is the 5G battery improvement really going to be from the network speed? Or is it merely going to be a factor of having a smaller and more efficient radio package to begin with regardless of what network it hooks up to?-Note: this is not the same thing as comparing 3G to 4G/LTE networks where the actual internet speed is faster allowing the device to gets it's job done faster and go to sleep faster. When on a network the internet speed is a relative constant (and almost always slower than 11g), and I am curious if changing the wireless from 11g to 11n/ac provides any battery gain on any given device for a set workload.[/citation]

Just got this answer from Broadcom:

Here’s the answer from one of our 5G WiFi engineering experts, Manny Patel.

"There are significant power savings due to the faster wireless data rates which come with an 11ac link despite the interest speeds typically being much slower than the wireless LAN data rates. A big contributor to WLAN power consumption is transmit operation. If the WLAN transmitter can quickly transmit a packet and turn off until the next packet is ready then this will result in power consumption savings over time. In the case where the Internet connection is slower than the WLAN connection the WLAN device will be in a standby state while waiting for the next packet from the Internet to be queued up."

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]SteelCity1981[/nom]You do realize that 54MB doesn't equal 54 megabytes. 54MB is 54 megabits which equals around 6.7Mb or megabytes throughput and since a lot of people have highspeed connections faster then 6.7mb now wireless N was needed. At the time when Wireless G mcame out it was plenty fast enough considering most highspeed data lines were throughputing on 1 to 3Mb's but by te time Wireless N came out with cable modems etc that were offering 7 to 10mb's throughput N was needed. Now you have super highsped internet ike fiber optics that are capable of upwords of 100 Mb's throughput. Even though 100mb is still exotic to the home user and pretty costly in the next few years 100Mb's throughput connection will be coming down in price and will be more within the afforable range like what we are starting to see now with 50Mb throughput connections. So is wireless AC needed at this point? Yes if you are running a super highspeed connection faster then 50Mb's and if you have AC compatible devices which is another big factor to consider But If you are running anything below 50Mb's connection then and have no wireless devices that are AC compatible then no.[/citation]

MB=Megabyte. Mb=Megabit.

EDIT: Just to clarify in case what I said before would only add to confusion, yes, Wireless G is 54Mb/s, not 54MB/s. My above two *sentences* merely match the acronyms with what they represent and were not meant to imply that you were wrong about saying that Wireless G is only about 6.7MB/s max. /EDIT

You are correct that Wireless G is insufficient for many cable internet connections and such, but do realize that you don't need the full bandwidth of those connections in most situations anyway. Web browsing, gaming, and more are generally fine with G's 54Mb/s max. Also, it doesn't take fiber to get 100Mb/s internet. We have copper Ethernet cables that can handle 10Gb/s both ways just fine and 1Gb/s cables are very common. Furthermore, most people, at least in the Americas, do not have very high speed internet connections like many do in countries such as Japan.

My point is that AC is not needed for the vast majority of people regardless of their internet connection. Chances are that anyone with such high speed internet connections would have far faster internet connections than most web servers have to individual web clients anyway. AC is not needed for the bandwidth boost that it has and for the niche that can actually make good use out of it, the usage improvement is mostly in connectivity improvement, not raw performance improvement, over its predecessors. The only reasons that I could see for using AC when you need more wireless bandwidth than N can provide strictly for internet bandwidth would be for very specific and non-average tasks such as running many high-speed downloads/uploads, some sort of fairly high-traffic home web server, or stuff like that and even then, you'd be better off with a wired connection at such points.

 

[DDJJR]

I have verzion fios with 150 Mbps/65 Mbps. I purchased a Cisco Linksys EA6500 and a Asus PCE-AC66 dual band pci-e wireless card and i get wirelessly over 140mbps down and 65 mbps up speed consistently on 5ghz and on 2.4ghz i get 120 mbps down and 65 mbps up. Wireless router is in a room at least 40 ft away and signal goes through two walls. Now my laptop thats only 2.4ghz wireless N pulls over 85mbps and 65 mbps up no matter where in my house even upstairs. My desktop pc is old...3.2ghz p4.

 

[Mah Khi]

These devices don’t co-operate with neighbourhood networks. These Channel Bonding devices are not able to decode a distance AP because the signal is too weak. They will then start to communicate on such channels creating noise on neighbourhood channels. When multiple devices start to do this then the whole WiFi band becomes overcrowded.
The question arises for what purpose? Most Broadband connections are under 20 Mbit/s. 720p HDstreams are only 5 Mbit/s. Sure everybody would like the fastest connection but neighbours also need to co-operate. It’s idiots like Broadcom that have messed up the 2.4 GHz spectrum and are now about to do the same in the 5 GHz Band. In a few years time consumers living in apartment blocks will struggle to watch a Standard Definition 1 Mbit/s Internet Stream over WiFi on their Tablet. Broadcom you are not smart but in reality quite pathetic! Time to read up on the CSMA/CD protocol.

 

[Mah Khi]

If you need to do large file transfers quickly then Ethernet or USB2 cables are more than adequate for connecting with NAS drives.

 

[RealBeast]

If you need to do large file transfers quickly then Ethernet or USB2 cables are more than adequate for connecting with NAS drives.

USB 2.0 is terrible for large file transfer -- it is way too slow.

 

[dotnetbrett]

I have an Apple AC Router and a mid 2013 MacBook Air with AC and it is as fast as my bandwidth in and out, so it comes down to your available speed on the web. It is extremely fast making N look like Dialup

 

[Jacob Larsen]

Just hit this article. Your UDP tests are wrong, which is why you get weird results. You can never measure UDP on the TX side. UDP is best measured by stuffing as much data as possible through the link, and then measure how much/fast it arrives on the RX side. Iperf can do this for you.

 

[RonniP]

Well, you can read this review http://wirelessroutersreviews.com/netgear-n900-dual-band-gigabit-wifi-router-wndr4500v2/ as well.

 

[mshirley1964]

@fwupow: yep it does, then you just say 'screw it' and never redo it. like you did. lol.

I recently upgraded to comcast's x1 platform and it came with a dual band router.
I just got an 802.11ac usb wifi adapter for my laptop and just check out the before
and after results:
http://productresearch.info/802-11ac-speed-demon-netgear-a6100-wifi-usb-mini-adapter/

 

[CaedenV]

Here's the gist of what I typed before it was rudely vaporized.

I have a dual-band router (Netgear N600). I also purchased a couple of dual-band client USB adapters Linksys AE2500 or something to that effect.

So the USB adapter works fine for a desktop, but having that crap sticking out the side of a laptop, netbook or tablet? Busted in 10 minutes. I hooked one up to my netbook and fried it within a couple of weeks because I'm a Netbook in bed guy. You wouldn't think it could get so hot from a USB port but it does.

So the reality is that you have all these devices that can't be upgraded to dual-band and enjoy very little if any benefit from the new-fangled dual-band router.

The other beef I have with routers is that they're terrible with the way they split up bandwidth between multiple devices. Instead of responsively reassigning bandwidth to the device that needs it, the router continues to reserve a major slice for a device that I'm not using.

If you live in an apartment building, it's actually rather rude to use the full 300Mbps capacity of the wireless N band, since you may well succeed in effectively shutting your neighbor down. There's so much happening in the 2.4GHz band nowadays, it's unreal. Your own cordless keyboards/mice/controllers etc can malfunction from being unable to get a packet in edgewise.

For these dual-band routers to be really useful, we need manufacturers of smartphones, tablets, laptops, netbook and such to build dual-band clients into them because adding the functionality with some sort of dongle just doesn't work.

A few things...
yes, dongles are a PITA, and netbooks and other cheap devices are not moving to AC any time soon (and when they do it will likely be a 1x1 implemtation which will be no better than a midrange N network to begin with). But at the same time most netbooks cannot really utilize the added bandwidth of an AC network in the first place, so it makes having AC on such a device a rather moot point. If you are going to be doing bandwidth intensive things on the network on a regular basis then simply upgrade to a better device that has it built-in. Not a huge jump; we are talking about a move from $300 devices to $500 devices... and $500 devices that will do more and last longer making their added price pretty easy to justify.

While moving to 5GHz N may help alleviate congestion, AC will not solve this problem because it uses channel bonding of the 2.4 and 5GHz spectrum. When I am transfering big files on the home network (with no real negibors to speak of) it essentially blocks all 2.4GHz devices from working until the file transfer is done. Not a huge deal as almost everything on the network is dual band N or AC... but in an apartment situaiton 1-2 AC devices will totally monopolize the 2.4GHz spectrum, while still taking a chunk of the 5GHz range.

Lastly, not all hardware is made equal. Moving from a cheap N router to a much nicer quality N device can dramatically help the router's ability to filter cross-talk with other networks and really help throughput with your end devices, even if they are stuck on the 2.4GHz range. The move from a cheap Linksys or Negear router to a high-end Asus or Linksys device can really help. Even if you pick up a newer high-end AC router and are only using 2.4GHz it may still help because it will have much better 2.4GHz radios and antennae.

At the end of the day, wireless is still no replacement for a wired connection. I have relatively free airwaves in my home with AC devices, but when I need to move bulk files arround it is MUCH faster to walk over to dock my laptop to a wired connection to do my data dump. Wireless is OK for streaming real-time media, or web browsing, but moving big 10GB files over the network can take upwards of an hour even over AC... or under 5 minutes over a wired conection. There is just no comparison.