Undecided between the AC87U & X6 Nighthawk

I am deciding between these 2 as I would be able to get a pretty good price for either. Based on user-experience, would anyone care to give their inputs?

My apartment is around 120sqm and I plan to place this router in the living room. Not considering multiple APs at the moment. I have around 10 devices connected to the router when everyone is home, out of which 3 of them are ac compliant. All 4 lan ports would probably be used (2xPCs, 1xPrinter, 1xSet Top Box).

I also torrent regularly, almost 24/7.

I'm not that proficient with routers and as such, the reviews for these 2 are actually a tad confusing for me.

Thanks for your input!

If most of your devices are dual-band, AC3200 class routers should provide more benefit due to multiple 5 GHz radios to spread the load and provide more usable bandwidth.

Current 4x4 routers provide no actual benefit over AC1900.

I have the Asus AC87U and am very disappointed, firmware is slow very buggy, installed merlin but many bugs remains, not very strong signal not worth the price.

Chrismallia said:

I have the Asus AC87U and am very disappointed, firmware is slow very buggy, installed merlin but many bugs remains, not very strong signal not worth the price.

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Not very informative. Many have reported that the latest firmware fixes many issues for them and there are no issues if one or two things are left off, for now.

L&LD said:

Not very informative. Many have reported that the latest firmware fixes many issues for them and there are no issues if one or two things are left off, for now.

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Well rebooting the router from gui the wifi never shows up I will have to manually reboot the router by power button, bandwidth monitor keeps showing false bandwidth and also crashes also will have to reboot router to get it back to work, Asus advertises great range coverage threw out the home well sorry to say it is not true I have a TPLINK dual band wdr3600 2 antenna gives better range in the same building, also rebooting the router takes very long time, no limit in guest network, no domain time based blocking and no blocking by ip range/ip/mac, firmware also feels heavy and slow to respond , Merlin's firmware was much better. I sent the router back and they replaced it but this has the same problems

I think either of these two units are overkill for most people. Wireless itself is a poor cousin to wired ethernet as well, I would wire anything in that needed good speed. I have my TV, Apple TV and Blu Ray player running off a power line ethernet adapter which works well.

I wanted my AC87 as I wanted something to give my home network some extra protection as I have possibly up to 80 or so computers per month running on my network (at different times) in my business. I wanted at least some security on the router itself. I also wanted to experiment with parental controls on behalf of my customers also but more in the way of providing advice on suitable devices to protect them at the router level.

I suppose in these respects, I got what I paid for. The only downside I have noticed is Wireless AC, while it works wonderfully with most devices, it doesn't work with my iPad Air 2 (fine on Wireless N 2.4GHz). This might well be a reflection though on the iPad and the fact that Wireless N is absolutely bulletproof but AC is much newer and isn't. My Surface Pro 3 works just fine on AC as does my Nokia 1520 and also my Apple MacBook Air.

The AC87 contains the MU-MIMO technology that doesn't exist yet and the X6 Nighthawk is really overkill unless you run an office with a dozen users or so running wireless simultaneously.

The software these routers contain is very complex and there is a lot of code behind each function. It makes me wonder whether it will be a few years before the manufacturers really get on top of this. In the meantime there are quite a few bugs. My AC87 though works well enough and I'm happy with it.

My recommendation though would be to go with the cheaper AC68 or the Netgear R7000. They're both cheaper alternatives that have been out for a while and will give you what you need. If you listen to some of the very experienced testers on this forum, most regard these latest routers as expensive toys packed with unnecessary features.

InspectHerGadget said:

If you listen to some of the very experienced testers on this forum, most regard these latest routers as expensive toys packed with unnecessary features.

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+1,000,000,000
Even if the OP isn't an "advanced" user, if he/she's that concerned about performance and is proficient enough to wire an access point to a router on the same subnet, then I think you'd appreciate the suggestion of forgoing the purchase of one of those overpriced betaware Erector sets and instead coupling a dedicated wired router with as many AC access points (or AC wireless routers set as access points) as needed. In the end, you have a similar expenditure and usually way better reliability, upgradability and troubleshooting capacity. Just my two cents from 20 years of messing with this stuff.

For what you have you can get away with a $20.00 N300 router. And the title should be Asus AC3200 or Netgear X6. AC2400 and AC3200 are totally different routers so comparing them is not accurate.

L&LD said:

Not very informative. Many have reported that the latest firmware fixes many issues for them and there are no issues if one or two things are left off, for now.

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LD you must work for Asus. All I ever see you post on this forum is in defense of the AC87U. No reason for anyone to waste their hard earned money on the AC87U when any AC1900 can get the job done.

thiggins said:

If most of your devices are dual-band, AC3200 class routers should provide more benefit due to multiple 5 GHz radios to spread the load and provide more usable bandwidth.

Current 4x4 routers provide no actual benefit over AC1900.

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Thank you so much for this accurate comment.

sm00thpapa said:

LD you must work for Asus. All I ever see you post on this forum is in defense of the AC87U. No reason for anyone to waste their hard earned money on the AC87U when any AC1900 can get the job done.

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Let's try to stay focused here. Your speculations are not true, I work for myself. If you have issues with other posts I've made, state it in those threads.

Here, the quote of mine in your post is accurate as to the current state of the RT-AC87U. I don't defend companies. I defend good products.

Period.

As to Tim's comment, I concur with him, today.

But what he doesn't state is the potential benefits that owning a true 4x4:4 router will bring if and when Quantenna and Asus enable MU-MIMO on this hardware ready device.

You can be as pessimistic as you want about the benefits this will bring. I choose to be optimistic instead.

Smoothpapa and L&LD: Reasonable people can reasonably disagree.

thiggins said:

Smoothpapa and L&LD: Reasonable people can reasonably disagree.

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Is this conversation not proof of that?


While also stating the missing info...

It looks to me like the AC87U is one of the only routers I know of that not only has comprehensive parental controls on the router but it also has pretty good built in protection in their partnership with Trend.

I've been looking at other routers for customers recently and it has made me appreciate more what Asus have done with the AC87. I think for an average user or even a reasonably sophisticated user this is a great router. It is great for what it has that many people need, that is, easy to use and administer parental controls and built in security for the router and attached devices that can make the whole network much safer. I have customers with themselves and their children on line and it can be time consuming and costly getting computers swept or reinstalled because of malicious attacks. They also want to protect their children by setting internet times, screening from Porn sites etc.. The controls for parental controls allow device level control and sufficient range of options to satisfy most people.

The MU-MIMO hardware is useless at the moment and it will be for a little while yet. I guess people criticise the AC87 for that but that is just a part of what it offers.

The Netgear doesn't offer the same security but it does use OpenDNS for it's live parental controls. These are good too and can be remotely administrated. It doesn't offer device level control though and I prefer the Asus approach.

thiggins said:

If most of your devices are dual-band, AC3200 class routers should provide more benefit due to multiple 5 GHz radios to spread the load and provide more usable bandwidth.

Current 4x4 routers provide no actual benefit over AC1900.

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@tim - I respectfully disagree - the AC3200 class of devices, e.g. what Broadcom is offering as a dual-radio solution in 5GHz is a horrible value and an evolutionary dead-end - it's non-standard, and very few clients can leverage it into a full 3-stream 802.11ac solution...

To be honest, right now, most casual users cannot even make the most of what is referred here as an AC1750 class router.... and in that class, is some very good, very mature, stable, and, highly rated devices, and the prices are coming down very fast...

(was at Fry's the other day, and even there, AC1900 devices are dropping below the $200 price point)...

sfx2000 said:

@tim - I respectfully disagree - the AC3200 class of devices, e.g. what Broadcom is offering as a dual-radio solution in 5GHz is a horrible value and an evolutionary dead-end - it's non-standard, and very few clients can leverage it into a full 3-stream 802.11ac solution...

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I don't see what is non-standard. It's an interesting architecture, but AFAIK, all radios are standard.

There are plenty of examples of non-standard stuff becoming standard practice. 600 Mbps link rate in 2.4 GHz, notable case in point. And soon 1024QAM, IF the RF component design guys can pull off the linearity requirements to decode all the points in that constellation!

To be honest, right now, most casual users cannot even make the most of what is referred here as an AC1750 class router.... and in that class, is some very good, very mature, stable, and, highly rated devices, and the prices are coming down very fast...

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I do agree with this. The biggest advantage AC1900 routers offer is faster processors that help boost throughput, even with 1x1 and 2x2 STAs. Put those processors in A1750 or even AC1200 routers and you'd get the same advantage. But the manfs can't do that without blowing up their pricing structure.

thiggins said:

I don't see what is non-standard. It's an interesting architecture, but AFAIK, all radios are standard.

There are plenty of examples of non-standard stuff becoming standard practice. 600 Mbps link rate in 2.4 GHz, notable case in point. And soon 1024QAM, IF the RF component design guys can pull off the linearity requirements to decode all the points in that constellation!

I do agree with this. The biggest advantage AC1900 routers offer is faster processors that help boost throughput, even with 1x1 and 2x2 STAs. Put those processors in A1750 or even AC1200 routers and you'd get the same advantage. But the manfs can't do that without blowing up their pricing structure.

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Going down this path - "AC3200" class router/AP's based on Broadcon's X-Stream - at the most, they will offer at best, three stream performance - basically AC1300, so this is patently a false promise to potential and current customers.

The X-Stream implementation is wasteful use of shared spectrum, and a false promise compared to what is found in the AC1750 class...

FWIW - QAM256 is very optimistic in wireless... most do fall back due to noise... which is my main complaint about QAM256/TurboQAM in 2.4GHz, again non-standard. 11n doesn't support this - vendors are putting in non-standard VHT slements, or taking this down the black hole with vendor specific attributes.. this causes interop issues within the local WLAN as well as adjacent WLAN's..

sfx

sfx2000 said:

Going down this path - "AC3200" class router/AP's based on Broadcon's X-Stream - at the most, they will offer at best, three stream performance - basically AC1300, so this is patently a false promise to potential and current customers.

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This is the usual "Creative" marketing that all consumer wireless vendors employ. This will stop only when someone sues.

The X-Stream implementation is wasteful use of shared spectrum, and a false promise compared to what is found in the AC1750 class...

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Don't see how this is any more wasteful of spectrum than running multiple 5 GHz APs. 802.11ac itself is the real spectrum hog.

FWIW - QAM256 is very optimistic in wireless... most do fall back due to noise... which is my main complaint about QAM256/TurboQAM in 2.4GHz, again non-standard. 11n doesn't support this - vendors are putting in non-standard VHT slements, or taking this down the black hole with vendor specific attributes.. this causes interop issues within the local WLAN as well as adjacent WLAN's..

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Agreed. But this has been going on since early Wi-Fi days. Remember Super-G?

thiggins said:

This is the usual "Creative" marketing that all consumer wireless vendors employ. This will stop only when someone sues.

Don't see how this is any more wasteful of spectrum than running multiple 5 GHz APs. 802.11ac itself is the real spectrum hog.

Agreed. But this has been going on since early Wi-Fi days. Remember Super-G?

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Super-G, Afterburner, all of those... at the long-tail end of that generation (802.11g/a) - horrible interop issues, and less than honest marketing. If I recall correctly, we had something similar back in the 802.11b days with US Robotics and 22Mbps extensions. I suppose we can lump in the single stream 802.11n AP's into that bucket of stuff as well...

It's a good sign that many folks do look to SmallNetBuilder product reviews as fair and impartial.

So perhaps it is an opportunity to mention that while vendor XXXX might have "feature A, B, C" that for the most part, client side support is also needed as a disclosure to properly set expectations.

sfx2000 said:

US Robotics

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X2