Question Modem Router Recomendation Required

[rabmcnair90]

Hi,

I am based in the UK and my ISP is Plusnet. When I moved to my new ISP they sent me a modem router which is pretty poor quality. Therefore, I was hoping to upgrade and was wondering if someone could suggest a new modem router. My network is used mostly for gaming and streaming and would like to give gaming priority, so would like to have this feature as well as being able to have multiple SSIDs, VPN, good security features and USB 3.0 for connecting a 2TB external Drive.

Liked the look of ASUS DSL-AC68U as it had the features I needed but have read mixed reviews about it.

I was also in need of a recommendation for a PCIe Wireless Adapter for my PC.

My budget is £200 in total.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[chippenweow]

I've used the AC68U for several years and is the only router I really recommend. It's a great router that has come down in price quite a lot the last year. So +1 for the AC68U, you will find mixed reviews on any router, no product is 100%.

Wireless adapter can't say anything about, sorry

 

[rabmcnair90]

Thanks for that, always nice to hear from someone who is using the hardware.

 

[bill001g]

You will always see mixed reviews because people are idiots. They seem to not understand that their end device is 1/2 the wifi connection and that details of their individual houses make far more difference than routers.

Be careful about vpn it takes a massive amount of cpu. It may not be a issue on a slow dsl connection. Most routers can not exceed 20-30mbps when running vpn.

I would consider other technology than wifi if you main use is gaming. You many times can not solve interference issues from radio sources outside your house. Maybe look at powerline network or if there is any possibility at all run ethernet cable.

 

[rabmcnair90]

Will I be ok to run a VPN if my connection is around 15Mb?

Also could anyone recommend a wireless PCIe adapter for my PC? I think the adpater has to have TurboQAM feature to get most of modem router but happy to be corrected if I picked things up wrong.

Cheers

 

[bill001g]

It should work at 15m I have not looked at that router specs for a while. I know the one with the number the reverse...ie the 86u....is the best vpn router because the cpu has special encryption acceleration.

Since you have budget limitation i would not worry a lot about a fancy pci card. The best option to get if you can find one in your budget is the ones that have short cables that let you mount the antenna on top of your computer. This will give you more signal strength which should be more stable and in theory faster. You likely will be fine with a card that only has 2 antenna even though it can not match the top speed of your router. I would opt for a card with cable and 2 antenna than a card with 3 antenna and no cables.

Pretty much as long as you can get 15mbps like your connection anything faster on the wifi just costs you more money but does not do much.

What they are calling turboQAM is a non standard extension of 802.11n. There are using a encoding method that is used for 802.11ac on the 2.4g band. It means very little you will still get much more speed using 802.11ac on 5g it just lets them claim 1900 rather than 1750. They pretend that the fact that a device can not actually use the 2.4g and 5g radio at the same time.

These non standard extensions are mostly for advertising, they only work well in very strong signal conditions and many device like apple will never support something that is not a official standard.

 

[rabmcnair90]

Managed to get a second hand Asus DSL A68u and new ASUS PCE-AC68 for £110.

So plenty of change left over for new set of headphones.

So thanks for the help everyone.