[SOLVED] Question about powerline, extender or aimesh for internet

[MutualBenefits]

For the fastest internet on my Ryzen 9 5950x pc, do I go with a TP-LINK AV1000 powerline starter kit I recently brought from Microcenter, NetGear NightHawk Ax6000 AX8 Wi-Fi extender or another Wi-Fi 6 ASUS router that will be connected to my Asus RT-AX92u router that located 2 rooms from my pc set-up. (I have FIOS 1GB)

If you think a powerline adapter is better, what would u recommend so that I can the starter av1000 from Tp Link purchased from Microcenter.

 

[bill001g]

It is almost impossible to actually predict because your particular house is going to have a huge impact. Powerline is dependent on you electrical wires and wifi repeaters depend on how many walls etc are between and are also impacted by how many neighbors you have using wifi.

It also depends on if you only care about pure speed like download rates or if you are also concerned about the quality of the signal...for example if you play online games.

In very general terms wifi has more bandwidth to start with so it will be able to transfer more data. Wifi is also much more susceptible to interference so the rates and the latency will be very much more inconsistent than powerline. Many people on this forum play online games. Games do not care about bandwidth they use well under 1mbps, what they care about is no packet loss and very consistent ping times.

The best option when you can not use actual ethernet cables is to use MoCA. You need coax tv cable in both rooms but this technology can actually get 1gbit speeds and has very low and consistent latency.

 

[MutualBenefits]

I can't do Moca, do you have a powerline adapter recommendation that from the
TP-LINK TP-Link AV1000 model I own

 

[bill001g]

In general you will find 3 different powerline units. The tplink ones tend to be highly rated by most people. Because all the tests you see are tested in someones house you can't really compare results and even worse predict how well a particular unit will work. This unfortunately you pretty much buy something and hope it works well for you.

Most units are based on AV2-600 and AV2-1200 which is a powerplug standard. These all now call themselves av2-1000 and av2-2000. This started when another standard pretty much made by only 1 company called g.hn came out and started using number like 1000 and 2000. From test people did they are more or less the same speed as the units based on powerplug. Do not expect more than 300mbps from any of these units and many people do not get that much.

Not sure what to recommend. TPLINK has very good customer support but there is almost no software on these units. Everything is pretty much built into the chips doing the network and you can't set much other than stuff like encryption keys. Which I guess is good in some ways. You plug them in and you look to see if you get a green light and if you do it works.

 

[gggplaya]

How's the wifi signal in the PC room? If it's decent, I think another Asus router set to "MEDIA BRIDGE" mode will give you the best bandwidth, over powerline. In my experience, even the best powerline adapters tend to average more like 150mbps. Media Bridge mode will use all the wifi antenna's of the router to connect to the main router and create an ethernet LAN bridge to your desktop PC. It works quite well. But not all Asus routers have this feature, make sure you check the product specs to be sure before buying. It'll say under "Operating MODES-->Media Bridge." I was able to get near gigabit speeds with two Asus AC86u routers in an apartment where I couldn't run ethernet.


Administration
Operating mode : Wireless router mode
Access point mode
Media bridge mode
Repeater mode
AiMesh node mode

For actual gaming, it won't really matter which one you go with. Gaming doesn't need much bandwidth. However, for game updates it does help alot.

 

[MutualBenefits]

Ok gggplaya..

So, the Wi-Fi is decent in my bedroom with the router being in the living room of the house... (Kitchen and Bathroom is in between).. I'm using a TP Link AV2000 powerline adapter, should I return this to microcenter and purchase a used Asus RT-AC5300 for $180 off of craigslist instead?

 

[gggplaya]

I don't see a reason to get an AC5300, it'll have more antennas than your main router, so the extra antennae won't benefit you at all. But connecting with the AX protocol will help with bandwidth optimization. So I would try to get another AX router with a 4x4 5ghz configuration to get you the most bandwidth.

Generally speaking, powerline adapters won't get you anywhere near gigabit speeds. Typically I can get about about 150mbps out of them. They are great for houses with poor wifi coverage where 150mbps of solid connection is better than flaky low wifi signal.

The absolute best thing you can get without running an ethernet cable is MOCA. If you have a coaxial cable or satelite tv outlet in your room, as well as the room with your router. You can get full gigabit speeds with MOCA.

 

[MutualBenefits]

OK, gggplaya

What do you think of the Nighthawk Ax8 (AX6000) Wi-Fi extender to use with my Asus RT-AX92U..?

I’m thinking of returning the Ax92U + powerline adapter to microcenter before my return period ends from microcenter for the Asus Rapture. Plus, get a Nighthawk Ax8 Wi-Fi Extender from craigslist for $50 from a seller from Facebook marketplace in NYC…

I appreciate you answering my questions

 

[gggplaya]

No, I'd recommend you stick with dual Asus units. The Media Bridge mode works quite well on Asus. It uses all the antennae to connect to the main router and gives excellent bandwidth.

I personally don't like netgear products anymore, their software team has gone downhill in the past few years. They used to be Excellent, but as of lately they are plagued with software issues.

Don't get caught up in all the marketing hype when they talk about speed. Most of those routers simply take the connection speed of all their antennae and add them all together, however most clients only have 2 antennae. So the best you'll get is generally 866mbps divided by 2(half duplex) so essentially 433mbps on wireless AC, and 1200mbps divided by 2 equal to 600mbps for wireless AX @80mhz channel. With wifi 6E emerging, you'll be able to get 160mhz per channel and that can double your speed, you'll be able to get 1200mbps real world (2400 connection) with a 2x2 client.

TLDR: You don't need to get the highest end model with a 30 antennae attached to it. You are at the limit of the number of antennae your client device has anyways. If you get two 4x4 Asus routers and put one into media bridge mode(ethernet connected to desktop), you should be able to hit gigabit speeds.

 

[MutualBenefits]

So based on you guys advice I was able to go with the following setup after returning the ASUS RT ax92u and powerline adapter at micro enter…

ASUS Rapture GT-Ax11000
Plus
Used ASUS RT-Ax92u from Craigslist @ $125

An ill be getting 2 moca adapters from a Facebook friend sent to me via mail next week