Good Mid Range Router for Gaming

[Alfster]

Hi,

I have a decent gaming PC and high speed fibre optic broadband but my ping is usually quite high during gaming e.g. 70-80 sometimes. Online it seems to say that router quality is essential to good ping and online gaming in general.

I have a default tank talk router and wanted some advice on a mid range router that will make a difference. I don’t want to spend £100 and it make no difference. For example, will this be much better than a talk talk router?


https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-Nighthawk-Streaming-Advanced-GS808E-100UKS/dp/B019DBOUWA/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1546690708&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=gaming+router&dpPl=1&dpID=31kI5HUdl7L&ref=plSrch

If that link doesn’t work it is a Netgear Nighthawk S8000

Thanks!!

 

[Lutfij]

You could also look at TP-Link routers, with this one being half your maximum budget. To be fair to the router you already have, before you give it the boot, might be a good idea to see if it has any firmware updates pending.

Then see if uninstalling and reinstalling your wireless adapter's drivers improves the ping times. Then try other games to see if the (game)servers are the issue or if your ISP is at fault.

 

[Alfster]

Thanks. So is it usually unnecessary to swap the providers router for pc gaming?

 

[bill001g]

The key to good gaming experience is consistent latency.

Latency is mostly a function of distance. It based on the path your data must take. A huge amount of the delay is related to the speed of light so no matter what you buy in your house it will have little effect on the latency.

The bandwidth/speed of connection you buy will not reduce the latency. Games use very little bandwidth, most under 1mbps, so almost any router can keep up with that.

Most the difference in routers are related to WiFi. If you play games on wifi you are just asking for problems. There are way too many variable involved and wifi because of how it retransmits data can cause massive issue for game. It has little effect on almost any other application.

When it comes to wifi it is impossible to pick a "best" router. It depend too much on how your house is built, how close your neighbors live, the wifi nic in your pc,etc etc. There is no way to predict what your results will be no matter how many recommendation for certain hardware you find.

So as long as you are using ethernet cables the provider router will likely be as good as the most expensive router you can buy. If you are using WiFi you buy a bunch of routers and keep trying to you find one that works best for you......and you will still get random lag spikes in your games.