Buffalo WXR-1900DHP Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router Reviewed

[T.N.]

I found that ASUS' PCE-AC68 is used as test client only for Buffalo's WXR-1900DHP and Netgear's R7000 is used for other routers. Is there any reason?

 

[thiggins]

Sharp eyes, there, T.N.! Just a cut and paste error. We used the standard R7000 in bridge mode. I've updated the info and am correcting the screenshots. Thanks for catching the error.

 

[buffalo7x]

Hi, I read your review and something popped out at me. The WAN to LAN throughput of the 1900 is quite a bit less than the 1750. Conventional wisdom would not guess this to be the case because the 1900 has a 1GHz processor which is faster than what the 1750 has. Yet that's what the review shows.

I would like to know your thoughts on this. Why would a newer, faster model have worse performance than its predecessor?

I was wondering if you still have the router on hand to test with. Could you redo the test with the latest firmware and see if the results are still the same?

If they are the same, this is a pretty bad mark against Buffalo's engineering staff. I really want to buy this router due to the built in torrent software, but am holding off because of the performance numbers shown in this review.

Edit: I have noticed that not only are your reported throughput numbers worse for recent Buffalo routers, but they are also worse for Linksys and ASUS. Routers from major vendors appear to be getting *worse* over time, not better. This despite having better hardware. There is either something wrong with your tests, or something severely wrong with the router industry.

 

[L&LD]

Hi, I read your review and something popped out at me. The WAN to LAN throughput of the 1900 is quite a bit less than the 1750. Conventional wisdom would not guess this to be the case because the 1900 has a 1GHz processor which is faster than what the 1750 has. Yet that's what the review shows.

I would like to know your thoughts on this. Why would a newer, faster model have worse performance than its predecessor?

I was wondering if you still have the router on hand to test with. Could you redo the test with the latest firmware and see if the results are still the same?

If they are the same, this is a pretty bad mark against Buffalo's engineering staff. I really want to buy this router due to the built in torrent software, but am holding off because of the performance numbers shown in this review.

Edit: I have noticed that not only are your reported throughput numbers worse for recent Buffalo routers, but they are also worse for Linksys and ASUS. Routers from major vendors appear to be getting *worse* over time, not better. This despite having better hardware. There is either something wrong with your tests, or something severely wrong with the router industry.

Are you taking into account that the testing hardware and methods have changed over time?

 

[thiggins]

I have noticed that not only are your reported throughput numbers worse for recent Buffalo routers, but they are also worse for Linksys and ASUS. Routers from major vendors appear to be getting *worse* over time, not better. This despite having better hardware. There is either something wrong with your tests, or something severely wrong with the router industry.

No. Routers are not getting worse. The router test process has not changed in some time, but the hardware did between the products shown with grey bars and those with magenta (pink). I will describe the changes in the "How We Test" article.

Most every router I test today basically maxes out the limit of the Router test process. I hope to update the process soon.

At any rate, do you have an internet connection capable of >700 Mbps down or uplink?

 

[buffalo7x]

No. Routers are not getting worse. The router test process has not changed in some time, but the hardware did between the products shown with grey bars and those with magenta (pink). I will describe the changes in the "How We Test" article.

Most every router I test today basically maxes out the limit of the Router test process. I hope to update the process soon.

Ok, that makes more sense. So are you saying that your test hardware bandwidth capacity has gotten lower over time?

At any rate, do you have an internet connection capable of >700 Mbps down or uplink?

My home ISP is gigabit fiber =) TBH, I don't think any ordinary downloading or video streaming will ever come close to using all of that. But I want to run a wired WAN to LAN download speed test and make sure that the router isn't the bottleneck. Some of your tests show very new routers maxing out their wired connection at 7xx Mb/s, while their predecessors get 8xx and 9xx speed. That's the justification for me researching this stuff. Any help clarifying the numbers would be much appreciated.

Thanks.