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Whats the Best and most Powerful router in 2015?

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ewwatson

ewwatson

Occasional Visitor
ASUS AC2400 vs
ASUS AC3200 vs
NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 vs
NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 vs
other?

This is for my home wifi. It's a big two story home so I need large coverage. I spend a great deal of time on the internet all over the home. I work form home so its important it works all the time and fast. You guys have a preference?
 
No single router will guarantee coverage in a large multi-story home. If you want to try, you'll need to locate the router as close to the center of the home as possible on the first floor.

AC1900 class routers provide the best combination of price and performance. Your best bet would be two of them, with the second operating as an access point and connected to the main router via Ethernet, or if that isn't available, powerline.

See the Router Ranker for router selection.

This article for setting up multiple routers.
 
Thanks bro. What do the larger numbers actually mean? Does AC3200 offer larger coverage than a 1900?
 
ewwatson said:
Thanks bro. What do the larger numbers actually mean? Does AC3200 offer larger coverage than a 1900?
Click to expand...

No, those numbers refer to the combined wireless speed, i.e. the speed of both 2.4 and 5GHz together
 
funny thing is when you say router it doesnt mean wireless. Ofcourse the most powerful routers would be those multi terabit routers they use in datacenters or at Tier 1 ISP connection points that perform L3 routing.

When you say wireless that would mean the radio towers for phones and wireless.

What you want is wifi with better throughput at lower signals rather than relying on signal strength. You could have a 100W transmission output but that doesnt mean that your clients can communicate. Try placing your access point in the middle of your house. If range is the issue than lower the throughput, use features meant for long range transmission and increase the signal strength.

All consumer wifi routers use very similar chips so theres not much difference but what you really want is the router that has the best throughput at lower signal qualities. I think this website has such charts in their router reviews.
 
System Error Message said:
funny thing is when you say router it doesnt mean wireless. Ofcourse the most powerful routers would be those multi terabit routers they use in datacenters or at Tier 1 ISP connection points that perform L3 routing.

When you say wireless that would mean the radio towers for phones and wireless.

What you want is wifi with better throughput at lower signals rather than relying on signal strength. You could have a 100W transmission output but that doesnt mean that your clients can communicate. Try placing your access point in the middle of your house. If range is the issue than lower the throughput, use features meant for long range transmission and increase the signal strength.

All consumer wifi routers use very similar chips so theres not much difference but what you really want is the router that has the best throughput at lower signal qualities. I think this website has such charts in their router reviews.
Click to expand...

Sorry to piggy back on your comment - but you've made a fantastic point here...

Look at the recent review of the WRT1200ac - it's an AC1200 class AP, but it's probably one of the more powerful consumer grade routers on the market right now, based on the strength of the discrete CPU and higher performance discrete switch...

Based on personal testing, I would suggest that is one of the strengths of it's sibling as well - the WRT1900ac.

sfx
 
A million watt router will not improve the client-to-router. Imaging your WiFi coverage is a misshapen fried egg - on the from-router direction. This direction is largely governed by the transmitting side of the router.

The OTHER coverage fried-egg is the TO-ROUTER direction - where the size of that coverage is largely governed by the transmitter in each client device.

A new wizbang router will help the TO-ROUTER coverage only slightly.

WiFi is two-way. It's not like a broadcast radio tower - one-way.
 
My thinking for a larger home is you are better off buying multiple access points than multiple routers. Why buy one of these hot running new routers to run as an access point. Just buy an access point.

Maybe ASUS or Netgear should offer a package where there is a router and one or two access points designed to run with their router in some kind of seamless manner for larger homes.
 
microchip said:
Speed and rage are both the R7000s strengths. However, if you look for features, definitely the AC68U offers much more
Click to expand...

I don't know if rage is a strength :) but the Asus routers are supported better and longer by RMerlin and Asus itself vs. the Netgear offerings.

I would choose the RT-AC68U myself.
 
Choose one of these which ever you can find cheapest 68U, 68W, 68R or 68P. I got the 68P at Best Buy for $169.99 on sale.
 
My I put a question in here?
I have a ASUS 66U and have read here that it is the exact duplicate of a 66 (?).
So here's my question: What does the trailing letter, -U, -W, -R, -P designate then?
 
Mostly,

U = as sold by Asus
W = white model
R = as sold by BestBuy
P = perhaps 'performance' for the upgraded cpu in the '68P.
 
ewwatson said:
pc world says sort of the opposite. As far as range and speed. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2050...s-802-11ac-router-sets-lan-speed-records.html

I want to want the nighthawk. But apart from this website most put the ASUS ac1900 slightly ahead
Click to expand...

The R7000, which was reviewed together with the AC68U here on SmallNetBuilder, holds the top place for AC1900 routers. It has better LAN -> WAN and WAN -> LAN throughput and slightly better throughput when signal drops along with a faster CPU (1GHz dual core VS 800 MHz dual core)

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...1900-first-look-netgear-r7000-a-asus-rt-ac68u

In terms of firmware, as an R7000 user myself, I must say that what Netgear is doing to it is just to cry about it. They have dumbed it down so far that even some important basic settings are missing. Luckily, I don't turn my routers into "mini PCs" as I don't try to run torrents, VPN, SSH, etc and only need the basics routing/switching
 
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