Router recommendation needed

[srudy]

Need help with home networking. I currently have an old Linksys EA6300 that needs to be replaced. I am trying to decide between either a Linksys EA9400, a Nighthawk X6S or google Wi-Fi. I have a 2 story home 3500 sqft with the router in the basement mechanical room. Thanks for your help.

 

[vmfantom]

Need help with home networking. I currently have an old Linksys EA6300 that needs to be replaced. I am trying to decide between either a Linksys EA9400, a Nighthawk X6S or google Wi-Fi. I have a 2 story home 3500 sqft with the router in the basement mechanical room. Thanks for your help.

Having a router in a basement generally isn't ideal, unless you're distributing some of the wifi signals over coax and/or connecting to rooms' Ethernet runs that way.

In terms of transmit power alone, the EA9400 can do 989 mW on 2.4 GHz and 993 mW on 5 GHz, the R7900P (X6S) can do 989 mW on 2.4 GHz and 979 mW on 5 GHz, and the AC-1304 (Google Wifi) can do 656 mW on 2.4 GHz and 535 mW on 5 GHz. So the loser is Google Wifi.

Between the EA9400 and R7900P (X6S), the EA9400 has double the RAM (1 GB vs. 512 MB). And it has 4-stream MIMO, so while both support NitroQAM, the link rates could be 33% higher with the EA9400. With meshed ranged extenders like Google Wifi, you can't predict the network hops used, latency between them, level of hidden node interference affecting throughput, etc., but in any case, that's only 2-stream MIMO. So the EA9400 is better.

But I'm not sure why you've narrowed it down to just those 3. The ASUS RT-AC88U is 4-stream MIMO, lets you mesh other routers down the road with AiMesh (AFAIK), and lets you upgrade the antennas to improve their gain. You don't get the latter 2 attributes with the EA9400 or R7900P (X6S). And it costs less. If you're really putting the router in your basement, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by buying a router with U.FL antennas you can't detach and upgrade.

 

[srudy]

Need help with home networking. I currently have an old Linksys EA6300 that needs to be replaced. I am trying to decide between either a Linksys EA9400, a Nighthawk X6S or google Wi-Fi. I have a 2 story home 3500 sqft with the router in the basement mechanical room. Thanks for your help.

Having a router in a basement generally isn't ideal, unless you're distributing some of the wifi signals over coax and/or connecting to rooms' Ethernet runs that way.

In terms of transmit power alone, the EA9400 can do 989 mW on 2.4 GHz and 993 mW on 5 GHz, the R7900P (X6S) can do 989 mW on 2.4 GHz and 979 mW on 5 GHz, and the AC-1304 (Google Wifi) can do 656 mW on 2.4 GHz and 535 mW on 5 GHz. So the loser is Google Wifi.

Between the EA9400 and R7900P (X6S), the EA9400 has double the RAM (1 GB vs. 512 MB). And it has 4-stream MIMO, so while both support NitroQAM, the link rates could be 33% higher with the EA9400. With meshed ranged extenders like Google Wifi, you can't predict the network hops used, latency between them, level of hidden node interference affecting throughput, etc., but in any case, that's only 2-stream MIMO. So the EA9400 is better.

But I'm not sure why you've narrowed it down to just those 3. The ASUS RT-AC88U is 4-stream MIMO, lets you mesh other routers down the road with AiMesh (AFAIK), and lets you upgrade the antennas to improve their gain. You don't get the latter 2 attributes with the EA9400 or R7900P (X6S). And it costs less. If you're really putting the router in your basement, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by buying a router with U.FL antennas you can't detach and upgrade.

Thanks for the answer. The only reason I am putting the router in the basement is that is where the cable comes into the house and is cleaner. It’s not a huge house so I thought I could get by with just a really big router rather than having all my gear (router/modem/cloud) out in the open. The house is run with cat 5e so I could run it through that but would rather be wireless. I narrowed it down to those based on price. Sam’s has the ea9400 for 219 and Costco has the X6S for 199. Google Wi-Fi was thrown in for mesh capabilities. The Asus you mentioned I looked at as I read some high reviews on it but it was only an ac3100 and didn’t seem to get the range/speed as the Linksys.

 

[kanewolf]

3500 sqft may not be "huge" but if it is multi-story and you have the router in the basement, you are in a poor wifi configuration. Leaving the modem in the basement is OK, but bring an ethernet cable to the first floor. You will be much better served. Bring the ethernet into the room you use WIFI the most (living room?). That way your streaming devices will be closest to your 5Ghz AC WIFI source.