[SOLVED] Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 vs Wifi 6 for Gaming [Bufferbloat]

[lamachin007]

There is the Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 which is a gaming router that stops Bufferbloat and along with other features it is supposed to make online gaming better. Then there is the new wifi 6 devices, people are saying that they are great for gaming.

I haven't seen one wifi 6 router for gaming with dumasos or any other mechanism to help with lag . Does wifi 6 has features that are make gaming better compared on an XR500 ?

Maybe new gaming routers with Wifi 6 will be released ?

I am trying to make a decision as to which product to buy since I need to share my internet connection via wireless for multiple devices in the house but I also want features to protect my gaming experience. I hopefully plan to be wired to the router for the gaming pc.

Please advice,

Best Regards,

 

[bill001g]

You really need to learn how the technology works rather than believing the marketing guys.

First you should never play games on any form of wifi. You get interference from devices outside your house and you get competition for bandwidth from devices inside your house. There are no setting that can fix these 2 issues.

I would avoid wifi6. There will be a newer wifi6e released "soon" that will make the wifi6 devices obsolete.

So called "gaming" routers are marketing to get you to pay too much for a device. They just make setting the QoS up easier. I don't think any of the routers have the ability to fix bufferbloat. The router needs a feature called SQM but there are a couple of variations of it. This generally is only available with third party firmware or on a couple fairly uncommon routers. Most these so called gaming router can only fix bufferbloat on the upload side not on the download.

If you are going to look for a router to solve bufferbloat you are better off look for that feature.

Still before you go to all the trouble are you sure you actually have bufferbloat. Just because you ran a test on say Dslreports means nothing. It will show bufferbloat on a 1gbit connection. It can overload any connection which is the actual cause of bufferbloat.

So first are you actually overloading your upload or download rates. If you have a very fast internet connection it is not likely you are, In fact running any form of QoS on a internet connection say above 300mbps will cap the speed because of all the overhead of running the QoS

 

[lamachin007]

Thank you for your response, it was very detailed ! I don't know if I am overloading my rates, I pay for 200 Mbps but I only get 133 Mbps due to my current Cable modem, I need to upgrade it. I am not sure If I need to get a faster speed. I did some research and it seems that 100 Mbps should be enough to watch Netflix in 4k, and play video games on the PC. I would want to connect via wire to the wireless router for my gaming PC and was thinking that a gaming router would use its 'special' tech to avoid lag spikes when the wife starts watching netflix or doing anything online. What speed would you recommend ? Is there a way to limit bandwidth and make sure that the gaming pc has priority over all other network devices ?

Thank you

 

[bill001g]

I would get a different modem that can run the 200 you pay for. Check the ISP for modems compatible with your plan.

You could be watch 10 4k movies at the same time on a 200mbps connection. Netflix generally does not cause issues on a fast connection like yours. Games use almost no bandwidth. Less than 1mbps.

The only feature that you really need is gigabit ports so you can use the full 200mbps. A router in the $75 range will likely work fine for you. Both tplink and asus routers have pretty good qos in the base code. Many asus routers can run the third party merlin firmware. Merlin firmware is very simple and easy to install compared to some other third party firmware. it supports Fq-codel which is one of the bufferbloat qos options.

So if you really want the bufferbloat stuff I would look at asus routers on the merlin list. One of the cheaper ones is RT-AC68U. Still this router is $150. Any router with numbers say between 1200-1750 will likely work fine for you and both tplink and asus base QoS settings are good enough to reserve bandwidth for a machine in the factory firmware.

Be aware just turning the bufferbloat feature on will likely cap your maximum rate below 100mbps. The fq-codel stuff is very cpu intensive and really runs best on a pc based router when you have a very fast internet connection.

You likely do not need QoS in your situation. It generally is someone what say has only 50mbps and has 3 or 4 people attempting to share that bandwidth. QoS is not some magic solution is really comes down to someone not getting the bandwidth they need. It would be for example a agreement nobody watches 4k netflix without checking with others if it was going to overload the connection.

 

[lamachin007]

Thank you ! I think that my current setup is probably enough then. I might downgrade to 100 Mbps and save a bit of money. I have 1 gig Nic on the PC and the port on my current wireless and cable modem must be 1 gig else it probably would not be doing 133 Mbps in speed tests.

I appreciate the advise, what do you do for a living ? , you know a lot.

Best Regards