[SOLVED] I need a new router. Help please!

[gack2009]

Hi all,

So I did some research and I found 2 routers in my price range:
1- tp link ax50 ax3000
2- ASUS RT-AX82U also know as AX5400

I am not sure if there is a major difference between them except for wifi speed also idk what to look for.
I need a new one because i am currently on the IPS one which does not have any eithernet port also games are lagging, i want to use expressvpn on it and connect a hard drive to it to stream media. I want something a bit future proof.

Thanks

 

[Krotow]

Both routers does support WiFi 6. ASUS RT-AX82U seems faster for several simultaneous fast Internet users with AiMesh as option that does allow to use other existing routers as repeaters (sort of) to extend WiFi coverage round home or office. However in real life AiMesh is a gamble - several folks who have it are disappointed about frequently disappearing nodes. Maybe it will be fixed, maybe not, nobody knows. TP-Link Archer AX50 seems plain old style router with good MIMO support. If I would purchase a new router for my apartment, I would take AX50.

Anyway fastest Internet access you can have, depends from uplink. Don't expect gigabit speed if your uplink is slow and unstable.

 

[bill001g]

First wifi6 is not "future proof". It is already obsolete. There is very limited wifi6e equipment on the market currently but wifi6e is going to be a massive improvement. The largest problem with wifi is all the interference from other people, does not do a lot of good to try to use more complex data encoding methods when you are already getting stomped on by your neighbors. Wifi6e has a huge amount of new bandwidth in the 6g range that will solve this problem for a while.

VPN on the router is huge limiting factor. Almost all routers will be limited to about 20-30mbps when you run vpn on the router. The router cpu is just not powerful enough. Currently there is only 1 cpu that has a VPN encryption accelerator. It is used in the asus rt-ac86u. You can get about 200mbps with this router. This same cpu is used in a couple other asus router some of which support wifi6. I know the very first wifi6e router axe11000 uses this cpu but I have not seen if they actually support the vpn accelerator. You used to have to load the merlin firmware ot get the feature. That router is so new there is not a lot of info on what it can do.

 

[gack2009]

First wifi6 is not "future proof". It is already obsolete. There is very limited wifi6e equipment on the market currently but wifi6e is going to be a massive improvement. The largest problem with wifi is all the interference from other people, does not do a lot of good to try to use more complex data encoding methods when you are already getting stomped on by your neighbors. Wifi6e has a huge amount of new bandwidth in the 6g range that will solve this problem for a while.

VPN on the router is huge limiting factor. Almost all routers will be limited to about 20-30mbps when you run vpn on the router. The router cpu is just not powerful enough. Currently there is only 1 cpu that has a VPN encryption accelerator. It is used in the asus rt-ac86u. You can get about 200mbps with this router. This same cpu is used in a couple other asus router some of which support wifi6. I know the very first wifi6e router axe11000 uses this cpu but I have not seen if they actually support the vpn accelerator. You used to have to load the merlin firmware ot get the feature. That router is so new there is not a lot of info on what it can do.

Hmm thanks for your reply but there isn't any affordable wifi6e routers atm and i need a router soon. Thanks for explaining the vpn on router it sounds like a bad idea to use router vpn either way the problem is I have lg tv web os but i cannot download express vpn to it.

 

[gack2009]

Both routers does support WiFi 6. ASUS RT-AX82U seems faster for several simultaneous fast Internet users with AiMesh as option that does allow to use other existing routers as repeaters (sort of) to extend WiFi coverage round home or office. However in real life AiMesh is a gamble - several folks who have it are disappointed about frequently disappearing nodes. Maybe it will be fixed, maybe not, nobody knows. TP-Link Archer AX50 seems plain old style router with good MIMO support. If I would purchase a new router for my apartment, I would take AX50.

Anyway fastest Internet access you can have, depends from uplink. Don't expect gigabit speed if your uplink is slow and unstable.

Thanks for your replay what does MIMO mean? also how do i compare both routers as each one list their specifications differently and what are the key things to look for.
My internet is very good i have 900Mbps download and upload full fiber

 

[Krotow]

Short and dumb meaning of MIMO is a possibility to send more data in several streams over same wireless channel. MIMO require more complex WiFi hardware and more complex antennas in both router and client side. In result is possible to increase data transfer rate 1.5-3 times over standard data transfer rate in particular WiFi band.

For router comparison you can run online comparison for routers in Versus. Seems they have both routers you mentioned.

https://versus.com/en/asus-rt-ax82u-vs-tp-link-archer-ax50