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ASUS RT-AC5300

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It's the chicken-and-egg situation. Nobody will manufacture clients if there's no router (and not enough customers with them), and nobody will buy the routers until there are clients out there.

The only solution is what is currently happening: manufacturers go ahead and release routers. A market base slowly builds itself with enthusiasts first, and gradually expands to more mainstream customers.

But meanwhile, you can still keep buying the products that are just below on the product chart if they suit YOUR needs - they don't disappear or become obsolete just because something faster appears. And Asus has repeatedly shown their commitment in supporting older generations of products for years. The RT-AC56U now has the same AiProtection technology that was introduced last year with the RT-AC87U.

Tim has repeatedly said that the AC1900 class is the sweet spot right now for a potential buyer. We wouldn't have reached that point if manufacturers hadn't released AC1750 and AC1900 routers 2-3 years ago.

Rather than complain about manufacturers releasing new products that support new technologies, people should complain at laptop manufacturers that still ship mainstream product with pretty craptastic 1x1 single band solutions by default. It's 2015 - a 2x2 dual band solution is marginally more expensive, and is a huge improvement already for probably just 3-5$ more to the BOM - out of a 500-1000$ retail product.

So basically - if the new product does not serve your needs, then don't buy it, and buy something older and less expensive. Progress isn't always about sticking to mainstream markets, it requires pushing those boundaries.
 
This came out recently. Looks like it's gonna take awhile for MiMo to come to desktop.
You might never see MU-MIMO USB adapters. MU-MIMO is more focused on mobile devices with embedded radios.
 
You might never see MU-MIMO USB adapters. MU-MIMO is more focused on mobile devices with embedded radios.

Yep, and remember, MU frames are limited to 1 spatial stream for each client in that MU frame...

MU is not about speed, it's about capacity...

That being said, there's huge benefit for SU-MIMO clients attaching to a MU capable AP - current implementation of MU are all 4*4:4, which helps all SU clients attached to that AP - yes, even single stream clients...
 
You might never see MU-MIMO USB adapters. MU-MIMO is more focused on mobile devices with embedded radios.

Wouldn't even a M2 laptop adapter make sense there with a 2x2 configuration?
 
Wouldn't even a M2 laptop adapter make sense there with a 2x2 configuration?

STA only has a single MAC addr - MU frames are addressed that way - so an MU frame sent to that device would be a single spatial stream...

That's the challenge of MU on frame scheduling - do we send an SU frame or a MU frame? And the MU frame has to be at the lowest MCS of the targeted clients, so if one is out on the edge of coverage, everyone inside the BSS for that frame will be slow...

MU isn't easy - someone mentioned that Qualcomm worked for 7 years to get it right...
 
STA only has a single MAC addr - MU frames are addressed that way - so an MU frame sent to that device would be a single spatial stream...

That's the challenge of MU on frame scheduling - do we send an SU frame or a MU frame? And the MU frame has to be at the lowest MCS of the targeted clients, so if one is out on the edge of coverage, everyone inside the BSS for that frame will be slow...

MU isn't easy - someone mentioned that Qualcomm worked for 7 years to get it right...

Why do I get the feeling that this is something that most people will want to manually disable as it will take years for it to be reliable enough in the current diversified wireless ecosystem? Like BF still seems to have trouble dealing with various clients...
 
Why do I get the feeling that this is something that most people will want to manually disable as it will take years for it to be reliable enough in the current diversified wireless ecosystem? Like BF still seems to have trouble dealing with various clients...

I suppose the good news here is that MU is specific to 11ac, whereas TxBF has several different iterations before getting standard and locked down in 11ac..
 
STA only has a single MAC addr - MU frames are addressed that way - so an MU frame sent to that device would be a single spatial stream...

That's the challenge of MU on frame scheduling - do we send an SU frame or a MU frame? And the MU frame has to be at the lowest MCS of the targeted clients, so if one is out on the edge of coverage, everyone inside the BSS for that frame will be slow...

MU isn't easy - someone mentioned that Qualcomm worked for 7 years to get it right...

I need to clarify my earlier comment on MU - it's possible that a MU grouping can consist of multiple frames to a single client... e.g. one group to a single stream MU client like a handset, and 2 groups to a laptop... this makes it more complicated, but there's nothing to stop it from happening...

And going back to the scheduling - the AP does need to consider - is it better to burst the data over to SU frames at a higher MCS, or take a chance and burst it as a 2 MU groups in one MU frame... and consider that MU is best when the client is stationary due to the sounding needed, someone walking around the house with an MU client might see negative impact if trying to do MU..

The devil is in the details - like I said, MU ain't easy...

The upside here is that because of the strict timing and RF requirements to get a good MU implementation, SU performance is going to be very good at any given MCS rate - and SU benefits from the additional diversity gain on a 4 chain radio...
 
And the other cool thing with MU - and again, it's implementation - but consider a single client - like in a handset - there's nothing to stop a MU frame from having multiple MU groups in that frame sent to that single client - effectively doubling (not quite, but close) the payload to that client...

This is all in the specs, but generally I consider MU to be an improvement for overall channel capacity, not for outright speed...
 
Yep, and remember, MU frames are limited to 1 spatial stream for each client in that MU frame...
That comment didn't sit right with me. So I rechecked Matt Gast's 11ac Survival Guide.
From
http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001739/ch04.html#multiuser_mimo_transmission

802.11ac supports sending up to four multi-user MIMO transmissions at one time, and the 802.11ac MAC protocol includes ways to negotiate the capabilities of each of the simultaneous transmissions. Each multi-user MIMO transmission may have a different number of spatial streams and may have its own modulation speed and coding.

Did Matt get it wrong?
 
Did Matt get it wrong?

I corrected myself... yes, one can include a user in the group with more than 1, but not more than 3 spatial streams allocated. Also note that TxBF is required to do MU, which is one of the reasons why 11ac needed to simplify the methods there.

One thing to note - while different MCS can be used, I'm thinking that implementation, at least in the early devices, the MU frame will be sent with all users at the same MCS value (modulation and coding rate) as it reduces complexity at that layer...

Again, I think a clever hack of MU would be to have that virtual MAC address (or more) and increase the payload quite a bit..
 
The upside here is that because of the strict timing and RF requirements to get a good MU implementation, SU performance is going to be very good at any given MCS rate - and SU benefits from the additional diversity gain on a 4 chain radio...

For most folks - the benefits early on of MU are pretty limited, need to have more than one MU capable device - but the AC2600 class of devices are going to be a positive step forward for SU-MIMO - mainly due to better radios and more powerful WiFi chipsets in the AP - even for single stream clients - should get better performance across the board.

It's not going to be huge... but it will generally be enough that it can be objectively measured and subjectively noticed... might be range, might be speed, could be both... my gut tells me 15-20 percent improvement over AC1900 in the same environment..
 
Are the pics of the AC5300 the final version? If so the designer and the persons who approved the design need to be fired immediately.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Are the pics of the AC5300 the final version?

Yes. The official product page, the manual, and the FCC submission all have that design.

It's no worse than DLink's own spaceship. And it succeeded in generating a lot of media buzz during the whole week. And I suspect they are targeting the same crowd who buy their ROG products, which have a somewhat similar design philosophy behind them.

I also have a suspicion that the RT-AC5300 won't be the "official" flagship, just like the RT-AC3200 wasn't - the RT-AC87U was the flagshsip product last year.
 
Yes. The official product page, the manual, and the FCC submission all have that design.

It's no worse than DLink's own spaceship. And it succeeded in generating a lot of media buzz during the whole week. And I suspect they are targeting the same crowd who buy their ROG products, which have a somewhat similar design philosophy behind them.

Saw a great quote over on the Verge related to the whole Gamer PC thing that Asus (via RoG line), Acer, Lenovo and MSI.. - seems to ring true - at least the Razor's aren't overly garish - but I would also toss Dell's Alienware into that whole design aesthetic....

A "gaming PC" is something that conforms to a certain set of aesthetic rules. To wit:
  • Only the colors red, green, black, and silver may be used
  • At least one bevel must be included
  • Something has to light up
  • The end result must be able to camouflage itself in a Terminator movie set
 
I wish they would just get on with releasing the newer models
so i can replace my rt-ac66u with a faster cpu

I just want a 1.4ghz duel core with 3x3 or better on a budget
no need for duel 5ghz
 

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