ASUS RT-68 vs Linksys WRT1900AC vs Netgear N7000

JokerPower said:

Regarding R7000, what firmware do you recommend? In case if something goes wrong, how to restore?

I've seen ASUS offers restoration tool in case of emergency

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I use the XVortex mod of RMerlin's Asuswrt and it works like a champ here. XVortex offers a back-to-stock tool to use in case you want/need to go back to stock http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/asuswrt-merlin-on-netgear-r7000.71108/

"Whilst the router is fast, potential users should be aware that IPv4 NAT routing throughput tops out at 450Mbit on latest Netgear stock firmware, and at 360Mbit on DD-WRT with default configuration (no overclocking), or425Mbit with a 20% overclock.

Users with 500Mbit or 1Gbit connections (yes, Romania, this means you) should be aware that the R7000 will not give you the full line speed you'll get from your modem, at least not with IPv4 and NAT. It works well for 100Mbit - 300Mbit connections (and this is the typical use case for it); below about 50Mbit or above about 500Mbit, it will offer poor value and may not be the best router for those requirements."

http://dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/DD-WRT_on_R7000

What do you think? My connection is 500 Mbps

JokerPower said:

Regarding R7000, what firmware do you recommend? In case if something goes wrong, how to restore?

I've seen ASUS offers restoration tool in case of emergency

Click to expand...

Generally, if you carefully follow directions for flashing, you won't have emergencies *smile*.

I'd recommend trying both dd-wrt and XVortex's port of RMerlin to the R7000. Either one of those is great, the RMerlin port more so if you don't care about IPv6 *smile*. You can also try tomato ARM. That's what I'd do, just try them and see which one(s) perform best for you, and which firmware web interface(s) you like the most. I'm currently using Kong's latest dd-wrt on my R7000, and it's working well for me. However, so did the RMerlin firmware port to the R7000 (but no IPv6). And the tomato ARM worked well also...while I think that the wireless on dd-wrt is slightly better than tomato ARM, but not enough so to matter to most people.

It doesn't take long to flash new firmware just to try it...just be sure to reset your router to defaults (using either the web interface or the reset button, whichever makes you happy *smile*) before manually re-entering your configuration. You'll get a feel for each one pretty quickly and see what works at your place, what performs best for you.

JokerPower said:

"Whilst the router is fast, potential users should be aware that IPv4 NAT routing throughput tops out at 450Mbit on latest Netgear stock firmware, and at 360Mbit on DD-WRT with default configuration (no overclocking), or425Mbit with a 20% overclock.

Users with 500Mbit or 1Gbit connections (yes, Romania, this means you) should be aware that the R7000 will not give you the full line speed you'll get from your modem, at least not with IPv4 and NAT. It works well for 100Mbit - 300Mbit connections (and this is the typical use case for it); below about 50Mbit or above about 500Mbit, it will offer poor value and may not be the best router for those requirements."

http://dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/DD-WRT_on_R7000

What do you think? My connection is 500 Mbps

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Can't provide advice about 500Mbps connection, my connection is about 5% of that speed *smile*. I'm guessing that CTF works on XVortex's RMerlin port to R7000, and I do think that it also works on tomato ARM firmware. You could also try dd-wrt, and overclock the R7000 to 1.2GHz. and see what that looks like, but no CTF there yet. CTF is "cut through forwarding", that's a Broadcom thing that can be used to short-circuit part of the networking stack, assuming that you don't use QoS or per-IP traffic monitoring. It allows higher speed connections like yours to run full speed.

Yes, but they are saying that even on stock firmware 450 Mbps is the maximum.. strange..

JokerPower said:

Yes, but they are saying that even on stock firmware 450 Mbps is the maximum.. strange..

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I don't think what they're saying is correct at all. Tim has tested the R7000 with stock and he was able to achieve close to Gbps speeds for both WAN -> LAN and LAN -> WAN

Only r7000 stock and xvortex will give you full sync 500mbps. Choose for the latter as it gives you a much better UI, full channel spectrum and power, and scripting options.

paraplu said:

Only r7000 stock and xvortex will give you full sync 500mbps. Choose for the latter as it gives you a much better UI, full channel spectrum and power, and scripting options.

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I understand that tomato ARM firmware also has CTF, although you couldn't prove it by me *smile*. At least I've seen postings from others that it does.

RogerSC said:

I understand that tomato ARM firmware also has CTF, although you couldn't prove it by me *smile*. At least I've seen postings from others that it does.

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One of the three routers mentioned in the OP's original question is Marvell based... (WRT1900AC) - CTF is something very specific to Broadcom based routers, and other architectures don't seem to need it... and even on the ASUS devices, it tends to disable itself fairly easy without much performance impact.

RogerSC said:

I understand that tomato ARM firmware also has CTF, although you couldn't prove it by me *smile*. At least I've seen postings from others that it does.

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Indeed, tomato also provides ctf but haven't tested this as a router. I used tomato on R7000 for a while only as wap, and was pleased with its extensive user interface and options. I think it was shibby, but it's a while ago so I might be mistaken.

Does the merlin port for r7000 support download master and dual Lan as standby mode or balanced mode. Plus VPN server. As these 3 are most likely best and expected features

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

Thanks for your feedback. Got R7000