D-Link Dir-655/825

[red123]

So I am in the market for a new router that has QoS. I noticed that the dir-655/825 are pretty popular. I do quite a bit of gaming and I have housemates that stream quite often so I was hoping that the QoS feature will make my gaming experience as smooth as possible. I also do a lot of p2p download (ie torrenting). My apartment is pretty small so I don't think range is a problem.

I am wondering which one of these products is good for my need? Or is there another product that I should be looking at?

 

[thiggins]

Both those routers have upstream QoS only.

If you want up and downstream bandwidth control, you'll need to look at something like these.

 

[red123]

Those routers are not wireless so my housemates would definitely hate to buy a long ethernet cable.

I read the article and noticed that the D-Link routers are good for gaming and VoIP. I am not familiar with the QoS functions because I have never owned a router with such function. I don't mind much about not being able to control downstream bandwidth, but I am wondering will I be able to game while my housemates stream/download with the QoS on the D-Link routers?

If I can, then that would be perfect for what I need. And which one do you recommend for me the 655 or the 825?

EDITTED: I am currently using a 2Wire gateway given to me by my ISP (AT&T) and since it is a router, I am wondering is it possible for me to just connect a new router into my gateway? I do not want to use any features on the 2Wire gateway after I get a new router so will there be any conflict? I believe that I need the 2Wire gateway to connect to my broadband connection.

 

[thiggins]

D-Link advertises their routers as good for gaming and VoIP because they manage uplink bandwidth, which is usually much lower than download.

Gaming uses up and download bandwidth and streaming uses download. And if you want to prioritize streaming traffic lower than gaming, the streams could get prioritized low enough to get broken up.

Torrenting uses both up and download. So upstream QoS can help for the upload at least.

Are you having problems now with competition for bandwidth between streaming and gaming?

If you put another router behind the 2wire, you could have problems with the two firewalls for Torrents and gaming because you would need to open ports in two routers. You might be able to work around this by putting the new router's WAN IP address in DMZ on the 2wire. But DMZ doesn't always pass all traffic.

 

[red123]

I don't really have any problem when I torrent and game because I can always tell my housemates to limit their dl/ul, but I can't do anything if someone is doing a direct dl or streaming.

And about the 2Wire problem, can I just somehow open all possible ports that is possible for all computers linking to it and then just pretend that firewall is never there? The 2Wire router can only go into DMZ mode for one computer apparently so I am not sure how this is going to work. =/

 

[thiggins]

And about the 2Wire problem, can I just somehow open all possible ports that is possible for all computers linking to it and then just pretend that firewall is never there? The 2Wire router can only go into DMZ mode for one computer apparently so I am not sure how this is going to work. =/

That is what putting the second router in DMZ is supposed to do, i.e. all traffic on all ports will bypass the 2Wire's firewall and hit the second router's firewall. I'm just warning that sometimes DMZ isn't perfect and might not pass all ports and all traffic types. Only way to know is to try.

 

[red123]

After doing some search, I found out that my2Wire router can go into bridge mode, so I guess I should try that first after I find out how =/.

 

[thiggins]

Yes. That should work better than DMZ by essentially turning all routing functions off and having the 2wire just work like a modem.