WiFi AC real life speeds?

[capflam]

Hi,

I am a bit lost in all specs and performance reviews.
I want to upgrade my old Linksys E4200 to a Linksys E8350 but what speed improvements should I expect?
Currently I get about 180mbps over N at 5Ghz, 10 feet from the router.
I use exclusively 5Ghz, not 2.4.

Should I expect the E8350 (or please point me to a better router) in terms of speed?

Thanks

 

[azazel1024]

What is your client? That is what matters too.

Figure at 10ft from the router and line of sight you should get roughly 50% yield on 802.11ac. So if you have an 867Mbps client connected to that E8350, you should probably get in the realm of 430Mbps if it is a good client.

 

[stevech]

But move to another room or floor or some practical distance other than 10 ft. - and the speed advantage of AC is mostly lost for lack of a strong enough signal.

 

[chadster766]

Keep in mind that the range of 5Ghz is basically the same as 2.4Ghz with clear line of sight (nothing in between). As you mention a small break in line of sight will drastically lower signal.

 

[L&LD]

Hi,

I am a bit lost in all specs and performance reviews.
I want to upgrade my old Linksys E4200 to a Linksys E8350 but what speed improvements should I expect?
Currently I get about 180mbps over N at 5Ghz, 10 feet from the router.
I use exclusively 5Ghz, not 2.4.

Should I expect the E8350 (or please point me to a better router) in terms of speed?

Thanks

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/bar/116-5-ghz-updn-c

I have filtered by Linksys as the company in the link above (don't know if it will show like that) and selected the 5GHz UpDown Throughput charts.

As stated, the client will make a big difference on the speed improvement you get.

If it is AC, you can expect more than triple the throughput at close or medium range.

 

[john9527]

Just for a reference point....connecting to what is essentially a laptop (internal antennas) with a 7260AC card through two walls and two full closets, line of site 20ft.....I get a reported connect speed of 565-702 Mbps and an actual measured throughput with NetIO of 250-275 Mbps.

 

[capflam]

Hi,

Thanks you all for your replies.
My laptop antenna is an Intel 7260AC.

I borrowed the Linksys E8350 from a friend today and I am getting 45-49 MB/s at 10 feet max. so that's around 370-380 mbps.
That seems a bit on the low end to me as I was expecting more improvement over N. I was expecting about 500 mbps. Am I right?

Thanks

 

[L&LD]

No, with the two antennae Intel AC7260, the maximum connection rate is 867Mbps, so about half of that is very close to the real world maximum I would expect too.

Of course, it depends on how you were running the test. Were you downloading to your laptop or uploading? From a wireless computer or from a wired connection? Or was this simply an Ookla speedtest run?

The best real world test would be from a computer directly wired to the router with a 1GgE cable and connection. This computer would preferably be using an SSD for you to copy to your wireless laptop a large 1GB or larger file. And ideally, your laptop would also have a fast SSD to copy to.

You can try different channels to try to increase this throughput speed, just make sure to reboot the router each time you change the channel.

 

[stevech]

Isn't REAL WORLD for AC how much speed it can deliver with some walls and distance - given all the MIMO help?
Speed at 10 ft. seems irrelevant in the real world.

 

[capflam]

@L&LD > so you are saying that about 430 mbps would be what I should expect at the most via AC?
The test I was running was:
1. Wireless
2. Downloading a file from my NAS which is wired with Cat6
When wired to the router, to and from my NAS I get about 113MB/s.
My computer is using a SSD.
And all files I tested with were over 1Gb.

 

[stevech]

@L&LD > so you are saying that about 430 mbps would be what I should expect at the most via AC?
The test I was running was:
1. Wireless
2. Downloading a file from my NAS which is wired with Cat6
When wired to the router, to and from my NAS I get about 113MB/s.
My computer is using a SSD.
And all files I tested with were over 1Gb.

good rule of thumb for any form of WiFi is the net yield is about 60% of the WiFi connection speed - if there is no competition for airtime with nearby WiFi.
To begin with, WiFi is half-duplex and most ethernet is full duplex. And WiFi has a large percentage of bits-sent are non-data-payload bits for management and for forward error correction.

 

[L&LD]

Isn't REAL WORLD for AC how much speed it can deliver with some walls and distance - given all the MIMO help?
Speed at 10 ft. seems irrelevant in the real world.

10 feet is real world to many of my customers. Even at home I am within 10 feet when transferring very large folders, because time matters.

With smaller transfers, I don't need to be anywhere close to that short distance. But if I'm feeling lazy to connect to a wired connection, simply walking to the room with the router installed makes the transfer complete in a quarter of the time or less.

 

[azazel1024]

Real world is whatever your setup is.

As for the transfer speed, it depends. I typically hit around 50-55MB/sec on my Archer C8 to my laptop of Intel 7260ac. I CAN hit closer to 60MB/sec from time to time, but it tends to take a convergence of circumstances to get sustained transfer speeds that high (I have bigger antennas on my router).

Anything in the high 40's to around 60MB/sec is what I'd expect with a good router and a good client that is 2x2 for 802.11ac.

One thing to keep in mind is that 802.11ac is still relatively new.

Look at 802.11n, early on in the 802.11n era most clients and routers, even really good ones would have a hard time managing much more than 50% yield on the connection. Now several years on, a really good 802.11ac client and router in 2.4GHz (which is using 802.11n protocols, and I am ignoring the "turboQAM crap") can hit around 75% net yield.

Examples, my old Netgear 3500L with my old Intel 2230 could maybe hit 20MB/sec down and 18MB/sec up on a GOOD day on 2.4GHz 40MHz. That is around 53% yield. My TP-Link WDR3600 to my Intel 7260ac on 2.4GHz can hit about 25MB/sec, which is 66.7% net yield. On 5GHz it can hit 25.5MB/sec, which is 68%. My Archer C8 to my Intel 7260ac on 2.4GHz (I have not tested it with the 7260ac in 11n only mode on 5GHz) gets 28.5MB/sec, which is 76% yield.

On a really good day I can get 60MB/sec, which is ~55% net yield (and typical is more like 50% yield in the low 50's MB/sec). Intel claims that the new 7265AC has a nice increase in throughput, or efficiency or something along those lines compared to the 7260AC. So if you were testing with a 7265AC, you might well have more like a 60 or 65% net yield.

As chipsets, firmware and designs improve for 802.11ac I'd imagine we will slowly inch our way towards >60% net yield and maybe >70% yield under ideal circumstances.

As for 802.11ac performance at range, on my Archer C8 to my laptop with Intel 7260ac sitting in my living room, about 30ft, 3 walls and a floor away from my router I get about 20MB/sec on 5GHz and only 16MB/sec on 2.4GHz 40MHz, so 5GHz is still faster than 2.4GHz with a fair amount in the way. Granted, if I move even further away to my kitchen table, which is 40ft, a floor and 3 walls (but more obtuse path through the various walls and floor) 5GHz is only about 3.5MB/sec down and 1MB/sec up (and before swapping antennas the connection was unusable on 5GHz. I swapped the ~2-3dBi antennas for 5dBi antennas). One 2.4GHz 40MHz I can get 8.5MB/sec down and 3.5MB/sec up.

So, get to long/extreme range and 2.4GHz is still quite a bit better than 5GHz, but at least with 802.11ac capable client and router, 5GHz is faster than even 2.4GHz 40MHz at a pretty reasonable range. Previously 802.11n 2.4GHz 40MHz vs 5GHz 40MHz and generally 5GHz was only faster in the same room within a few feet of the router. Even 2.4GHz 20MHz vs 5GHz 40MHz, at best 5GHz might be faster one room over, move much further than that and 2.4GHz 20MHz was simply much faster.

With 5GHz 80MHz I'd say it roughly doubled the range at which 5GHz is faster than 2.4GHz 40MHz and also doubled the range at which 5GHz is faster than 2.4GHz 20MHz.

I am replacing my WDR3600 fairly soon (I hope) with a 2:2 or 3:3 802.11ac router, and with that, unless I am badly wrong, I'll have faster 5GHz performance through out my house than I can get on 2.4GHz 40MHz anywhere in my house with just an 11ac router and an 11ac access point to cover my 2500sq-ft house.

 

[azazel1024]

10 feet is real world to many of my customers. Even at home I am within 10 feet when transferring very large folders, because time matters.

With smaller transfers, I don't need to be anywhere close to that short distance. But if I'm feeling lazy to connect to a wired connection, simply walking to the room with the router installed makes the transfer complete in a quarter of the time or less.

I agree with this whole heartedly. There is still times where I have a BIG file transfer and I walk over to a LAN drop and plug in for the transfer, but these days with around 55MB/sec down and 45MB/sec up being typical speeds in most of my basement main area and basement office, I don't bother wiring for a transfer. A 2GiB transfer only takes around 40 seconds. More of a pain to find a cable and plug in. With my WDR3600 and only around 25MB/sec transfers, I'd often plug in still unless it was something fairly small (~1GiB or less generally). It is why I am looking at replacing my WDR3600 soonish. It is pretty good for an 11n router, but the 3 areas of my house I tend to use the laptop are the main part of my basement, where I am covered by my Acher C8 for >50Mb/sec transfers, my kitchen table where I get ~18MB/sec transfers from the WDR3600 or my kid's playroom, where I get ~25MB/sec transfers from the WDR3600.

I have relatively easy access to a LAN drop in my kitchen, but I don't leave a cable laying around. The kid's playroom will soon have a LAN drop right near where I typically sit (I've been renovating the room over the last few months), but still, fast wireless transfers would be nice in that room.
Depending on how I feel, sometimes it is just easier to walk 10 ft and plunk the laptop down to get 25-50% faster transfers than it is to wire it up, or else I am already at an ideal distance from the router/AP. Or else whatever I am tranfering doesn't really matter because it is only a 100MiB file or something.

 

[stevech]

10 feet is real world to many of my customers. Even at home I am within 10 feet when transferring very large folders, because time matters

Big files. Time matters.
10 ft.
No ethernet cable?

Using laptop? Don't wanna power cable. Nor ethernet?

 

[azazel1024]

Big files. Time matters.
10 ft.
No ethernet cable?

Using laptop? Don't wanna power cable. Nor ethernet?

My "old" HP Envy 4t with an i5-3217u in it generally lasts 5-6hrs of light use...so, no, a lot of times I don't have it plugged in to power unless I am going to be gaming on it or a nice long 2+hr photoshop session or something. I don't happen to leave leave spare ethernet cables plugged in to my router, or in to LAN drops.

I probably WILL once I finish wiring in the one in my kid's playroom, but that is because the one drop is right behind the desk my son uses for his homework where the laptop normally lives (when he is using it, and sometimes my wife or I use the laptop there too). So I'll run an ethernet cable up through the wiring hole in the desk along with the laptops power cable.

Otherwise, no, it probably won't get plugged in. Generally at worst I am transfering only 2-3GiB of files...so 40-60 seconds compared to 18-25s isn't that big a deal and not worth the hassle. 4 seconds to possibly walk in to the next room and set the laptop down, and I can start a transfer before I even move my butt. Ethernet often means the 4 second walk, plus probably 5+ seconds to fish around for a cable, if it is already plugged in to the wall to in the end maybe save 15s...doesn't sound like a good ROI on the effort. If I have to find a cable, its probably 30-60 seconds to walk over to a draw, fish around for a cable, pull it out, plug it in to the wall and laptop.

When I am transfering a boat load of movies for a vacation or something, sure, I plug the sucker in so I can drop a 20-40GiB file transfer from 7-10 minutes down to only 3-4 minutes.

Which gets back to my, "looking forward to replacing my WDR3600 N600 with something that is AC1200". If I am upstairs with the laptop in my kitchen or kid's playroom, that means 20-25 minutes for a big transfer if I don't wire it, or 2-3 minutes for a more typical sized "big" transfer (new game, a single movie, pictures I've edited, etc.). Makes it sometimes worth it to wire it up...going to twice the wireless transfer speeds makes it not worthwhile to wire it generally.

 

[stevech]

I like the thin/flat ethernet cables. Very flexible, easy to coil up.

 

[sfx2000]

I like the thin/flat ethernet cables. Very flexible, easy to coil up.

Monoprice is pretty cool here...

http://www.monoprice.com/Search/Index?keyword=ethernet+cables+flat