Best Wireless AC Router for my range of devices?

[SheridanPC]

In my house we have two 2013 macbook airs with wireless AC and a soon to be built desktop PC whose motherboard has a built in wireless AC adapter. The motherboard is an Asus Z97-Pro (Wi-Fi ac). I'm not sure if it matters, but the most detailed info I could find on its wireless performance is from this review:

http://www.legitreviews.com/asus-z97-pro-wi-fi-ac-intel-z97-motherboard-review_140521/14

This is all inside an old wood framed house, two floors plus a basement. Currently our Verizon branded 802.11 n modem/router is on second floor and gives good performance on our macbooks even when in basement. I'm hoping to relocate the modem to the basement and get the fastest speed feasible on my desktop on second floor. Based on info given, is there an easy first choice for wireless router?

And realistically, how long could I expect a 10GB (or larger) file to take to transfer to a NAS in the basement (plugged into router) from the desktop pc above? I may be doing some video editing in the future, and am wondering if AC speeds will be sufficient for occasional backups of large files, or if I need to get serious and run an ethernet cable up from basement to second floor.

 

[chadster766]

In my house we have two 2013 macbook airs with wireless AC and a soon to be built desktop PC whose motherboard has a built in wireless AC adapter. The motherboard is an Asus Z97-Pro (Wi-Fi ac). I'm not sure if it matters, but the most detailed info I could find on its wireless performance is from this review:

http://www.legitreviews.com/asus-z97-pro-wi-fi-ac-intel-z97-motherboard-review_140521/14

This is all inside an old wood framed house, two floors plus a basement. Currently our Verizon branded 802.11 n modem/router is on second floor and gives good performance on our macbooks even when in basement. I'm hoping to relocate the modem to the basement and get the fastest speed feasible on my desktop on second floor. Based on info given, is there an easy first choice for wireless router?

And realistically, how long could I expect a 10GB (or larger) file to take to transfer to a NAS in the basement (plugged into router) from the desktop pc above? I may be doing some video editing in the future, and am wondering if AC speeds will be sufficient for occasional backups of large files, or if I need to get serious and run an ethernet cable up from basement to second floor.

The WRT1900AC is about as strong a 5ghz signal you can get and the NAS transfer speeds are way up there with USB 3.0 and AC Tech.
What would be ideal is to have an Ethernet cable run from basement to upstairs. Then have one WRT1900AC as the main router and the Second WRT1900AC installed upstairs in a cascaded LAN to LAN configuration.

I did some initial speed testing and posted result in the beginning of the below post.

WRT1900AC Performance Testing including adapters AC580 AC1200 AC1300

 

[Mordred]

There are two choices right now. Asus AC68U or R7000 you can forget all the Linksys crap. They WRT1900AC costs twice as much offers half the features in firmware and the firmware is pre alpha.

With the above two you can try a few different firmwares, from Asus,Netgear firmware to DD-WRT or Tomato. I'm sure you will find a stable firmware for you.
Don't play Beta tester for linksys.

 

[thiggins]

People have been reporting good performance and stable operation with the new Linksys WRT1900AC. Its main weakness right now is that it has fewer features than other routers in its price class.

Let's say the wireless connection yields 400 Mbps (optimistic). Time to transfer would be 80000 Mbits / 400 Mbps = 200 sec. Actual time will be lower due to transfer overhead and lower actual throughput.

If it is easy to do, I'd run the Ethernet.

 

[htismaqe]

People have been reporting good performance and stable operation with the new Linksys WRT1900AC.

And the same can't be said for the R7000 with stock firmware.

If you like DD-WRT, the R7000 is a solid choice.

 

[sfx2000]

In my house we have two 2013 macbook airs with wireless AC and a soon to be built desktop PC whose motherboard has a built in wireless AC adapter. The motherboard is an Asus Z97-Pro (Wi-Fi ac). I'm not sure if it matters, but the most detailed info I could find on its wireless performance is from this review:

http://www.legitreviews.com/asus-z97-pro-wi-fi-ac-intel-z97-motherboard-review_140521/14

This is all inside an old wood framed house, two floors plus a basement. Currently our Verizon branded 802.11 n modem/router is on second floor and gives good performance on our macbooks even when in basement. I'm hoping to relocate the modem to the basement and get the fastest speed feasible on my desktop on second floor. Based on info given, is there an easy first choice for wireless router?

And realistically, how long could I expect a 10GB (or larger) file to take to transfer to a NAS in the basement (plugged into router) from the desktop pc above? I may be doing some video editing in the future, and am wondering if AC speeds will be sufficient for occasional backups of large files, or if I need to get serious and run an ethernet cable up from basement to second floor.

The WRT1900AC is a good choice - alternate recommendation would be AirPort Extreme AC - it's not as feature rich as some others, but if you're concerned about stability and range, it's also a very good choice.

Amazon has the AirPort Extreme AC right now in the US for $184...

As for your Video Editing Use Case - you're better off running CAT6 than trying to do it over Wireless.

 

[SheridanPC]

Thanks for all the advice guys. Since posting yesterday I've done some more research and am surprised at how immature the state of AC routers seems to be right now! At this point I'm leaning heavily towards airport extreme if only because 2 of our 3 computers are macbook airs and my experience with Apple has always been one of relative ease (if a little too much inflexibility). Still tempted to get the WRT1900AC because it seems like it has a huge potential upside if Linksys supports it.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
My observation on WRT, 2.4GHz is lesser in range compared to R7000 but on 5GHz
WRT outperforms at fringe distance. Starting out close to router where two are neck and neck, but as range increases towards fringe distance WRT still does keep up better. Also try turning the WRT 90 deg. left or right from where it is sitting watching the isSSIDer reading at client device.