Asus AC88U vs Netgear R8500 (nighthawk x8)

[Robin844]

Please can you give me an advice which router should i buy ? I can have Asus AC88U or nighthawk x8 per the same price so which one should I buy .
Please say why would you chose Asus or Netgear . Thx

 

[RMerlin]

You would need to provide more details as your intended use for the router, otherwise people will mostly recommend what they personally prefer.

 

[Robin844]

You would need to provide more details as your intended use for the router, otherwise people will mostly recommend what they personally prefer.

I want highend router which is future-proof. At least I need 6 gigabit lan ports or more. Also i want the good coverage for one flat (6 rooms ) . I live in prefab with lots of neighbours and lot of their wifis ( mostly 2.4 Ghz ). Is it good to have two 5 GHz bands or just one is enough. I know this routers are overkill, despite that i want really good router for streaming mostly 1080p video to chromecast over the whole flat ( 4 walls ),online gaming and everything . I am going to buy NAS in future . I can have ac88u per 352 USD and r8500 per 370 USD. They are almost same ( r8500 has one more 5 ghz band ) but i dont know which brand should i choose.

 

[avtella]

Go for the AC88U, uses a similar chipset, I doubt the extra 5Ghz band on the R8500 will help much if you don't have too many devices, plus the 2nd 5Ghz band uses internal antennas only. Another thing is if you intend to only use stock firmware, the ASUS units generally have more user options is the firmware and more regular updates.

The R7800 & Synology AC2600 are more powerful than either of the two you mentioned CPU wise (if using VPN) and 5Ghz performance wise, also the Qualcomm streamboost QoS is fairly good in my experience. So take a look at those also, and they may in fact be cheaper, only thing missing is the two extra ports as they only have 4 LAN ports.

 

[Rossmon]

the price you quoted for the asus 88u sounds very high. i just bought one 3 weeks ago on amazon for $249.

 

[Britewood]

the price you quoted for the asus 88u sounds very high. i just bought one 3 weeks ago on amazon for $249.

I agree with Rossmon's price statement, the Asus should be $100+ less than the Netgear.

If you don't have a lot of 5Ghz devices in your Flat, and don't see the number of 5Ghz devices increasing over the next few years, save the $ and forget the additional 5Ghz band.

The Asus has more stock behind the scene features than the Netgear, but both have available DD-WRT roms you can flash to really soup them up.

I do have an R8000 and love it, it has amazing performance, just not the SQ\ft coverage I need for my new house.

 

[sm00thpapa]

the price you quoted for the asus 88u sounds very high. i just bought one 3 weeks ago on amazon for $249.

That had to be a sale or used model. The new ones are currently $269.99 on Amazon. Don't think you'll find it lower that that anywhere.