Linksys WRT1200AC and EA8500 @ CES 2015

sfx2000 · Apr 22, 2015

RMerlin said:
Depends on the manufacturer of the SoC probably, maybe they switched from Marvel to a new platform whose 802.11ac platform uses a 1.3 GHz CPU. Also, this router is newer by a year, so probably the SoC is newer as well.

Looking back at the WRT1900ac, the big stumbling block was the Marvell wifi driver, not the actual SoC - Marvell's support there is without question - it was the WiFi that they would not release a GPL compliant drive...

Looking forward to seeing the board shots/bill of materials...

RMerlin · Apr 22, 2015

sfx2000 said:
Looking back at the WRT1900ac, the big stumbling block was the Marvell wifi driver, not the actual SoC - Marvell's support there is without question - it was the WiFi that they would not release a GPL compliant drive...

Looking forward to seeing the board shots/bill of materials...

So far I can't find any confirmation of the platform, beside that it uses a 1.3 GHz dual-core ARM v7 CPU.

The presence of an eSata port make me suspect that it's still Marvell-based. So that's some good news - it means all the pain they went through last year with Marvell will be paying off, and it should make this router get OpenWRT support more rapidly.

It's still an odd beast, having 512 MB of RAM, and apparently upgradable (RAM is probably on a SODIMM I suppose).

RogerSC · Apr 22, 2015

$180 for wireless-1200AC...Linksys/Belkin does know how to set luxury-level prices:

http://www.linksys.com/us/p/P-WRT1200AC/

I'll be interested to see how these things sell at that price *smile*.

sfx2000 · Apr 22, 2015

RMerlin said:
Depends on the manufacturer of the SoC probably, maybe they switched from Marvel to a new platform whose 802.11ac platform uses a 1.3 GHz CPU. Also, this router is newer by a year, so probably the SoC is newer as well.

My guess is that it's the same or similar mainboard as the WRT1900ac - Armada XP clocked up a bit - double the RAM is good, as I've felt that the WRT1900ac was a bit short considering the rest of the design. I haven't seen anything that would confirm if there was a SO-DIMM slot, but I think this is unlikely. Space on the board is one thing, but so is the cost-adder of the socket and the SO-DIMM itself.

It is a cost reduced design, and the one thing I would expect is that the WiFi chip daughterboard will go away, and the WiFi baseband/MAC/RF sections would be on the main board - for a 2 stream design, it makes sense. Now whether the WiFi chipsets remain Marvell, or something else, that remains to be seen..

sm00thpapa · Apr 23, 2015

RMerlin said:
Depends on the manufacturer of the SoC probably, maybe they switched from Marvel to a new platform whose 802.11ac platform uses a 1.3 GHz CPU. Also, this router is newer by a year, so probably the SoC is newer as well.

It's also a Marvell chipset. I have it in hand and let me tell you it is much more stable has more range and faster than the WRT1900AC. As far as Wifi is concerned I think Linksys has a winner on their hands.

RMerlin · Apr 23, 2015

sm00thpapa said:
and faster than the WRT1900AC.

I'm not sure how a 1200 Mbps router can be considered "faster" than a 1900 Mbps one.

RMerlin · Apr 23, 2015

sfx2000 said:
My guess is that it's the same or similar mainboard as the WRT1900ac - Armada XP clocked up a bit - double the RAM is good, as I've felt that the WRT1900ac was a bit short considering the rest of the design.

Routers barely use 256 MB of RAM, so I consider 512 MB to be mostly useless (except for marketing purposes), unless you do a lot of file sharing on it, and need it for the extra disk buffering. In which case you should most probably go with a real NAS if your file sharing needs are that high - you will get better performance and stability.

sfx2000 · Apr 23, 2015

RMerlin said:
I'm not sure how a 1200 Mbps router can be considered "faster" than a 1900 Mbps one.

More than just WiFi... faster clock helps all functions...

sfx2000 · Apr 23, 2015

RMerlin said:
Routers barely use 256 MB of RAM, so I consider 512 MB to be mostly useless (except for marketing purposes), unless you do a lot of file sharing on it, and need it for the extra disk buffering. In which case you should most probably go with a real NAS if your file sharing needs are that high - you will get better performance and stability.

I agree with you - a Router is not a NAS

That being said, if the functions and ports are there, people are going to use it - and by the time one has all the optional goodies running - OpenVPN client/host, Samba, Twonky Media Server, extra packages like uTorrent, etc... and trying to still do the routing, NAT, Firewall, and wired/wireless services, 256MB starts getting pretty tight.

Used to be that 128MB was more than enough...

RMerlin · Apr 23, 2015

sfx2000 said:
I agree with you - a Router is not a NAS

That being said, if the functions and ports are there, people are going to use it - and by the time one has all the optional goodies running - OpenVPN client/host, Samba, Twonky Media Server, extra packages like uTorrent, etc... and trying to still do the routing, NAT, Firewall, and wired/wireless services, 256MB starts getting pretty tight.

Used to be that 128MB was more than enough...

This is my RT-AC87U, which currently runs an OpenVPN server (I'm remotely connected to it right now), Trend Micro's DPI engine, and the usual routing stuff:

Code:

admin@Stargate87:/tmp/home/root# free -m
total  used  free  shared  buffers
255752  68196  187556  0  372

thiggins · Apr 23, 2015

Test results posted in charts and Ranker. Check the Storage benchmarks.
Shooting for review Friday or Monday.

sfx2000 · Apr 23, 2015

thiggins said:
Test results posted in charts and Ranker. Check the Storage benchmarks.
Shooting for review Friday or Monday.

So far, the number do look encouraging on the storage front - must be the larger RAM -> nudge, nudge

Hoping to see at least some board porn there... even if we can't lift the cans.. something tells me however, that Linksys would frown on that in a big way...

thiggins · Apr 23, 2015

sfx2000 said:
Hoping to see at least some board porn there... even if we can't lift the cans.. something tells me however, that Linksys would frown on that in a big way...

Your lust will soon be satisfied.

sm00thpapa · Apr 24, 2015

RMerlin said:
I'm not sure how a 1200 Mbps router can be considered "faster" than a 1900 Mbps one.

Sorry Merlin I should of been more specific. I was strictly talking about the wifi from my ISP. I have a 150Mbps download speed and my WRT1900AC could never deliver it on the 2.4 or 5 GHz bands. But this WRT1200AC is giving me my full speed and more. On my LG G3 I could only manage 120 Mbps with the 1900AC but with the 1200AC I'm getting 170Mbps. Same with all my other wifi devices on both bands. Settings for both routers were set exactly the same. I'm hoping Belkin/Linksys will keep the same wireless driver with each new firmware. I'm not sure what driver it is but it has to be a different one than on the 1900AC. If it's the same driver what can be contributing to my faster wifi speeds?

thiggins · Apr 24, 2015

sm00thpapa said:
Sorry Merlin I should of been more specific. I was strictly talking about the wifi from my ISP. I have a 150Mbps download speed and my WRT1900AC could never deliver it on the 2.4 or 5 GHz bands. But this WRT1200AC is giving me my full speed and more. On my LG G3 I could only manage 120 Mbps with the 1900AC but with the 1200AC I'm getting 170Mbps.

Are you quoting actual throughput or link rates?

sm00thpapa · Apr 24, 2015

thiggins said:
Are you quoting actual throughput or link rates?

Actual throughput.

thiggins · Apr 27, 2015

Review is up. Please continue the discussion in this thread.

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Linksys WRT1200AC and EA8500 @ CES 2015

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