[SOLVED] Help me to decide which router to buy ?

[WrongRookie]

I'm in a line torn between either Asus RT AX82U or Asus Tuf Gaming AX5400. Can anyone give advice on which of these routers is better?

 

[bill001g]

They might be the same router with different slightly different software. They like to make models for "gamers" so they can charge more money I think sometimes. Hard to say for sure I can't find detailed info on the chipsets so these routers maybe fairly new.

In general you likely are wasting your money on either.

Since your end device is half the connection it is as important as the router. The most common wifi6 end device only has 2 antenna feeds and only supports 80mhz of bandwidth. This means you are looking at a 1200 number rather than the 4800 on 5g. This also only works that fast very close to the router. This tends to be the reason many people report very little speed increase when they move from 802.11ac to wifi6.

The huge issue is there very limited radio bandwidth on the 5g band. Wifi6 is pretty much attempting to use all of it. It increase the chance of interference from neighbors and stuff like weather radar. The weather radar issue is why many end device do not support 160mhz radio bands and when you drop back to 80mhz then you lose the major thing that makes wifi6 faster.

So first look at your end devices and see if you can actually use the really fast data rates. You also need to consider how many neighbors around you also use lots of wifi. Using more radio bandwidth and the more dense encoding methods is much more affected by interference which can decrease the speed.

The long term solution might be wifi6e that runs on the 6ghz radio band. There is so much new bandwidth with no stupid weather radar restrictions it should allow many people to have 160mhz bands and not interfere with each other. Problem is again end devices. Wifi6e is still rather uncommon so it will take a while before wifi6e becomes very useful.

I guess it depends on what router you currently have and what you goal is. These routers do not get better coverage or go more distance. In some ways they go less because using a more complex encoding is more subject to interference. Unless you have some current issue you might be better off waiting a least a year and then look at wifi6e.

 

[WrongRookie]

But aren't the routers backwards compatible with ac?

 

[kanewolf]

But aren't the routers backwards compatible with ac?

Yes they are. What @bill001g is trying to stress is that the big numbers that are advertised probably won't happen. So spending a lot more on a router with big WIFI numbers is not the best use of your money. You would get better WIFI by buying two cheaper routers, connecting them by cable and placing them in different rooms of your house.

 

[WrongRookie]

Yes they are. What @bill001g is trying to stress is that the big numbers that are advertised probably won't happen. So spending a lot more on a router with big WIFI numbers is not the best use of your money. You would get better WIFI by buying two cheaper routers, connecting them by cable and placing them in different rooms of your house.

Ok I get that. But there are not any routers i can find that support gaming port whether wifi 5 or 6...

 

[kanewolf]

Ok I get that. But there are not any routers i can find that support gaming port whether wifi 5 or 6...

What do you mean by "gaming port". Just to be sure we understand your requirement.
Also what is your upload and download ISP bandwidth ? If you have high bandwidth connections, "gaming" optimizations can actually hurt performance.

 

[WrongRookie]

What do you mean by "gaming port". Just to be sure we understand your requirement.
Also what is your upload and download ISP bandwidth ? If you have high bandwidth connections, "gaming" optimizations can actually hurt performance.

Gaming port basically that lan port that prioritizes more speed if its connected to that port according to what this Tuf AX5000 and AX82U mention...and it sounds handy when gaming online. My ISP provides 150/150 Download and Upload.
That seems fine but the router I have AC53 seems to be out of date and no new firmware is around so I thought its best to get a Wifi 6 router that is most likely to get latest firmware.

 

[kanewolf]

Gaming port basically that lan port that prioritizes more speed if its connected to that port according to what this Tuf AX5000 and AX82U mention...and it sounds handy when gaming online. My ISP provides 150/150 Download and Upload.
That seems fine but the router I have AC53 seems to be out of date and no new firmware is around so I thought its best to get a Wifi 6 router that is most likely to get latest firmware.

With a 150Mbit upload bandwidth, it is doubtful that a gaming port will make much difference. You can only prioritize traffic within the router. Traffic will only be slowed IF the upload bandwidth is used. UNLESS you have large torrent traffic or cloud backups, it is unlikely your upload traffic is very great.

 

[bill001g]

Explain why you think it would be "handy".
Are you overloading your internet connection in particular the upload rates.

 

[WrongRookie]

Explain why you think it would be "handy".
Are you overloading your internet connection in particular the upload rates.

Ok. I'm planning to like, record online games and showcase them on my own channel. Thing is, online games need good internet and the latency so those gaming routers could come in handy regarding that aspect.

As far as upload goes..nothing in particular other than trying to backup my files through Mega and uploading my videos on youtube. Mega just caps it at 1Mbps for whatever reason though and i'm not sure if youtube takes my upload speed in mind...

With a 150Mbit upload bandwidth, it is doubtful that a gaming port will make much difference. You can only prioritize traffic within the router. Traffic will only be slowed IF the upload bandwidth is used. UNLESS you have large torrent traffic or cloud backups, it is unlikely your upload traffic is very great.

If that is the case, then what must I do?

 

[kanewolf]

Ok. I'm planning to like, record online games and showcase them on my own channel. Thing is, online games need good internet and the latency so those gaming routers could come in handy regarding that aspect.

As far as upload goes..nothing in particular other than trying to backup my files through Mega and uploading my videos on youtube. Mega just caps it at 1Mbps for whatever reason though and i'm not sure if youtube takes my upload speed in mind...



If that is the case, then what must I do?

What is most important? Wired or wireless connectivity?
Do you have any ethernet cabling in the walls of the house?
Do you have coax cabling in the house?
If WIRED connectivity is most important then look at MicroTik. They have advanced QOS that can do what you want for $50. There is a learning curve, but there is lots of online info.
If WIRELESS connectivity is most important, then the next questions are important. WIFI is best when there are multiple WIFI access points near the client devices. If you can do some kind of wired connectivity, then TWO cheaper AX routers like AX58U routers might be the best option.
You need to think about what is important, not just the hype.

 

[WrongRookie]

What is most important? Wired or wireless connectivity?
Do you have any ethernet cabling in the walls of the house?
Do you have coax cabling in the house?
If WIRED connectivity is most important then look at MicroTik. They have advanced QOS that can do what you want for $50. There is a learning curve, but there is lots of online info.
If WIRELESS connectivity is most important, then the next questions are important. WIFI is best when there are multiple WIFI access points near the client devices. If you can do some kind of wired connectivity, then TWO cheaper AX routers like AX58U routers might be the best option.
You need to think about what is important, not just the hype.

See the thing is I already set up Wired connection. the router I'm using with my Desktop is behaving as an access point as it is connected to the main router which is TP-Link Archer A7. The main router is connected to the modem so its not difficult to get them both set up as wireless routers(unless for some reason, my ISP restricts that only one router can get internet)

I can simply use the A7 and get internet there but the problem is that it'll only provide internet that have ethernet ports so that is why I am using this AC53 as an access point for my other devices that don't have ethernet port.

So if that's the case, then getting a gaming router is pointless then is it? And I'm just better off getting AX58U?

 

[bill001g]

Here is your problem like many gamers you hear the word gamer and think you need it. They used to put the word turbo on all kinds of things for the same reason.

All they are doing is using QoS so make sure game traffic is sent first BUT and critically important this only matters if you have overloaded your internet connection. If the connection is not overloaded data is sent with no delay even without any fancy QoS.
If you had say a DSL connection it might make a difference. Game traffic uses almost no bandwidth but if you only had say 10mbps upload and you tried to live stream you would be close to maxing out that upload rate.

What can happen if you say have a gigabit connection just turning on the function will cap your bandwidth to a few hundred mbps because of how much load the QoS/gaming feature puts on the CPU.

Routers are such a scam in general. They like to confuse people with tech details. There are way to many people that go well if it is so complex it must be something good and I need to buy it not to miss out.

 

[WrongRookie]

Here is your problem like many gamers you hear the word gamer and think you need it. They used to put the word turbo on all kinds of things for the same reason.

All they are doing is using QoS so make sure game traffic is sent first BUT and critically important this only matters if you have overloaded your internet connection. If the connection is not overloaded data is sent with no delay even without any fancy QoS.
If you had say a DSL connection it might make a difference. Game traffic uses almost no bandwidth but if you only had say 10mbps upload and you tried to live stream you would be close to maxing out that upload rate.

What can happen if you say have a gigabit connection just turning on the function will cap your bandwidth to a few hundred mbps because of how much load the QoS/gaming feature puts on the CPU.

Routers are such a scam in general. They like to confuse people with tech details. There are way to many people that go well if it is so complex it must be something good and I need to buy it not to miss out.

Ok but my AC53 is old and out of date(no latest firmware since 2019)...so I anyway have to replace it even if it is used as an access point right?

 

[bill001g]

Not really. What do you need new firmware for. In some ways old stuff is better because they have fixed the bugs. If there were security issues they would put out a new update for even old routers but most updates are related to say some screen has text misalignged. Sometime they add new feature very early on but there really is no need to update a router.

Even when they update firmware they generally only update the router firmware. There is a second kind of firmware file provided by the wifi chipset maker that does all the wifi function and these are seldom updated.

The only reason you would "need" to update a old wifi router is if you needed support for say Wifi6 or needed say to run a VPN on the router and you weren't doing that before.

In your case you would not want to use the ac53 as a router because it only has 100mbps ports and your internet is 150mbps. It likely is fine as a AP because few wifi device actually "NEED" more than 100m. Lots of people like to get fast speedtest number but a portable device using wifi tends to not actually have a real use for a high speed internet. Most application even 4k netflix do not use a lot of bandwidth. Only large downloads need fast speed and there is very little storage on a most portable devices.

 

[WrongRookie]

Ok so now I tried resetting the AC53 router but for whatever reason it never can be set as a wireless router but only as an access point or repeater.

But your basically saying that I'm fine with this one and that it can do online gaming and uploads just fine? If that's the case then when is it the time to upgrade the router other than wifi 6?

 

[bill001g]

If you keep the ac53 I would downgrade your internet service to 100mbps. The router can not run faster than 100mbps because of the ethernet ports.

I would suggest you buy a fairly basic router. Something with a number 1200-1900. It will likely be faster on wifi and support gigabit on ethernet. These routers support at least 2x2 mimo which matches what most end device are. It won't be fully 2 times as fast but it will likely be at least say 1.5 or 1.75. On ethernet you could connect it to a full gigabit ethernet and it would keep up.

Something like a tplink a7 which has 1750 number on it is around $50 and you can get them used for much less. This is just a example most routers with similar numbers have similar performance. Because they are older they have all stole each others secrets


Note most tplink and asus router firmware have the very basic QoS that would let you favor game traffic if you just can not resist. You would just have to do it manually rather than paying extra for some silly gamer port.

 

[WrongRookie]

If you keep the ac53 I would downgrade your internet service to 100mbps. The router can not run faster than 100mbps because of the ethernet ports.

I would suggest you buy a fairly basic router. Something with a number 1200-1900. It will likely be faster on wifi and support gigabit on ethernet. These routers support at least 2x2 mimo which matches what most end device are. It won't be fully 2 times as fast but it will likely be at least say 1.5 or 1.75. On ethernet you could connect it to a full gigabit ethernet and it would keep up.

Something like a tplink a7 which has 1750 number on it is around $50 and you can get them used for much less. This is just a example most routers with similar numbers have similar performance. Because they are older they have all stole each others secrets


Note most tplink and asus router firmware have the very basic QoS that would let you favor game traffic if you just can not resist. You would just have to do it manually rather than paying extra for some silly gamer port.

Ok then any of these routers would do the job then?

Asus RT-AX53U

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09HNSHSDN...2421_iceleadscom0d-21&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1

ASUS RT-AC59U V2

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B089MQXDJM...2421_iceleadscom0d-21&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1

Asus AC1900 RT AC68U

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B00FB45SI4...2421_iceleadscom0d-21&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1

I prefer ASUS because of my preference so I don't know of good TP Link ones. Plus I don't know if the TP Link routers can support AP modes...

 

[bill001g]

All will work for you. The performance you get will all depend on your end devices. Again if you do not have wifi6 you can not use the wifi6 feature and that router will drop back to its wifi5 support mode and be about the same as router with a 1200 number

The 1900 ones is using a non standard data encoding on the 2.4g band not a lot of end devices support. It is really the same as a router that gets a 1750 number. Again to get even the 1750 number they assume that your end device has 3 antenna and most only have 2. It all depends on the details of your end devices.

All will be fine but unless you have some fancy end devices that can use the extra feature I would just buy the ac59u because it is cheaper.

Almost all routers can be set to bridge/ap mode even the unknown brands you see shipped directly from china. Even if they don't have a AP feature you can make any router be a AP by plugging into the LAN port rather than the WAN port and disabling the DHCP function and change the lan ip.

I actually use asus but it tends to be the most expensive brand of router so when people are concerned about money I tend to recommend tplink. All the major brands have pretty good support the only one you have to be careful of are "value" brands like belkin or buffalo and then you have all those unknown brands on amazon. It is all related to thing like how good they are with warranty service. The actual wifi chips that do all the work are made by the same 2-3 companies none of which actually make their own router.

 

[WrongRookie]

All will work for you. The performance you get will all depend on your end devices. Again if you do not have wifi6 you can not use the wifi6 feature and that router will drop back to its wifi5 support mode and be about the same as router with a 1200 number

The 1900 ones is using a non standard data encoding on the 2.4g band not a lot of end devices support. It is really the same as a router that gets a 1750 number. Again to get even the 1750 number they assume that your end device has 3 antenna and most only have 2. It all depends on the details of your end devices.

All will be fine but unless you have some fancy end devices that can use the extra feature I would just buy the ac59u because it is cheaper.

Almost all routers can be set to bridge/ap mode even the unknown brands you see shipped directly from china. Even if they don't have a AP feature you can make any router be a AP by plugging into the LAN port rather than the WAN port and disabling the DHCP function and change the lan ip.

I actually use asus but it tends to be the most expensive brand of router so when people are concerned about money I tend to recommend tplink. All the major brands have pretty good support the only one you have to be careful of are "value" brands like belkin or buffalo and then you have all those unknown brands on amazon. It is all related to thing like how good they are with warranty service. The actual wifi chips that do all the work are made by the same 2-3 companies none of which actually make their own router.

Thank you for your advice bill. Just one last question. You mentioned that the AC53 doesn't have gigabit ports and only supports 100 Mbps. But when I look at the specs of it, it claims it has 10/100/1000 BaseT.

RT-AC53 - Tech Specs｜WiFi Routers｜ASUS Global

Detailed specification of RT-AC53 Tech Specsï¼Network Standard :IEEE 802.11a|IEEE 802.11b|IEEE 802.11g|WiFi 4 (802.11n)|WiFi 5 (802.11ac)|IPv4|IPv6ãNetwork Standard :IEEE 802.11a|IEEE 802.11b|IEEE 802.11g|WiFi 4 (802.11n)|WiFi 5 (802.11ac)|IPv4|IPv6ãWiFi Data Rate :802.11a : up to 54...

www.asus.com

Does this imply it has gigabit? If not, then how do I determine if the next router I get has a gigabit port? I'm going with the AX53U because my office laptop supports Wifi 6 and so do my other two phones.

 

[bill001g]

That is interesting seems you have to search the exact part number they have other maybe older models with similar names. I need to be more careful

 

[WrongRookie]

That is interesting seems you have to search the exact part number they have other maybe older models with similar names. I need to be more careful

So...do I need to upgrade the router or not other than wifi6?

 

[bill001g]

Up to you. It will run 1gbit on ethernet...sorry for not spending more time reading specs.

For wifi it is a pretty basic router. If it meets your current needs for wifi then there is no reason to replace it. A newer router might be faster on wifi hard to tell. My guess is the speed would be noticeably faster but much less than 2 times as fast.

 

[WrongRookie]

Up to you. It will run 1gbit on ethernet...sorry for not spending more time reading specs.

For wifi it is a pretty basic router. If it meets your current needs for wifi then there is no reason to replace it. A newer router might be faster on wifi hard to tell. My guess is the speed would be noticeably faster but much less than 2 times as fast.

But...what about security? Isn't wpa2 going to be unreliable now that wpa3 is out?

 

[kanewolf]

But...what about security? Isn't wpa2 going to be unreliable now that wpa3 is out?

As long as you have ANY older WIFI devices, you will have to have WPA2 enabled. Unless you do something that would cause someone to sit and capture your WIFI traffic long enough to be able to crack it, you have little to worry about.