Some router Q's from a networking noob

[MrMario]

Router: Belkin N600
Modem: Netgear CM400
PC:
-MSI 797S SLI Krait Mobo
-EVGA 650w GS Supernova PSU
-Windows 10
Connection: TWC 100mbps down/10mbps up internet
Devices: 2 desktop PCs, 1 Roku, 3 smartphones

So I've got this 5 year-ish old N600 router (dual-band, non-gigabit) that's giving me anywhere from 40-50mbps down on a wired connection to my PC. I've been very happy with TWC so far because when I connected directly to the modem I got about 117mbps down, a little faster than the advertised speed.

I figure the bottleneck is my old router. Now this may seem dumb or naive of me, but the router box advertises up to 300mbps. Of course they're being generous, but I would imagine with a claim like that I should be gettting on average 150mbps-ish on wired.
So here's my question: Is that marketing B.S or is it possible to make this old dog actually push those kinds of speeds?

My solution is probably to pick up an ac1200-1750 router, but I just wanted to check here to see if there's anything I might be missing. Thanks!

 

[nigelivey]

The speeds you are quoting are maximum throughput on the wireless which would then be dependent on the wireless client device, distance from router etc etc etc.

 

[bill001g]

It is major marketing BS. Obviously first you can not go above 100m with 100m wan ports so you know the router maker knows the 300m number is not even close to 100m. As it appears you know the 600 number is a deception/lie too. To start the 300 represents the UP and DOWN combined. This would be like calling a 100m ethernet port 200m. Since you can't really send and receive data at the exact same time like you can on ethernet this is being extremely deceptive. Most testing sites get about 50mbit download rates on a 300m router.

Hard to say what you can get on wired. Belkin is know as a "value" router. The speed you get on wired is mostly based on the CPU capacity. Some n600 routers like tplink 3500 can actually pass very close to 100m of traffic even with 100m wan/lan ports.

The next big deception you have to watch out for is the multiple antenna scam. This is where you get the 150,300,450,600 numbers from. They represent 1-4 antenna transmitting overlapping signals. The largest issue is that most end devices only have 2 antenna at most. This means you can not even attempt to get the 450 number. So unless you have end devices that can use it having more antenna on the router does not help much.

There are 802.11ac 1200 routers that can approach 200m on wireless. Almost all can do close to 1g on wired . Stay away from cheapest routers....although tplink which tends to be a little cheaper performs quite well.

I would stick with 1200m routers. Even if you were to have 4 antenna on your end devices, the speed test numbers only go to about 300m so you are pay a huge amount more for your router and your nic cards to gain maybe a little over 100m of throughput.

 

[MrMario]

It is major marketing BS. Obviously first you can not go above 100m with 100m wan ports so you know the router maker knows the 300m number is not even close to 100m. As it appears you know the 600 number is a deception/lie too. To start the 300 represents the UP and DOWN combined. This would be like calling a 100m ethernet port 200m. Since you can't really send and receive data at the exact same time like you can on ethernet this is being extremely deceptive. Most testing sites get about 50mbit download rates on a 300m router.

Hard to say what you can get on wired. Belkin is know as a "value" router. The speed you get on wired is mostly based on the CPU capacity. Some n600 routers like tplink 3500 can actually pass very close to 100m of traffic even with 100m wan/lan ports.

The next big deception you have to watch out for is the multiple antenna scam. This is where you get the 150,300,450,600 numbers from. They represent 1-4 antenna transmitting overlapping signals. The largest issue is that most end devices only have 2 antenna at most. This means you can not even attempt to get the 450 number. So unless you have end devices that can use it having more antenna on the router does not help much.

There are 802.11ac 1200 routers that can approach 200m on wireless. Almost all can do close to 1g on wired . Stay away from cheapest routers....although tplink which tends to be a little cheaper performs quite well.

I would stick with 1200m routers. Even if you were to have 4 antenna on your end devices, the speed test numbers only go to about 300m so you are pay a huge amount more for your router and your nic cards to gain maybe a little over 100m of throughput.

Thanks for your very informative response. I ended up getting the TP-Link ac1200 Archer c5. It's great! My wired speeds are perfect. Wifi is pretty good, speeds are basically just as good as wired in the living room/kitchen, which is where people usually are. Speed drops off a lot towards the back of the house, to be expected though. I got a pretty good price on the router, too.

It's possible to use my old N600 router as an extender, right? Any tips or advice for doing that?

 

[bill001g]

Look how do I use a router as a AP. There are even youtube video.