Does a "faster" router matter for 50mb/s internet?

[grit]

I'm pulling my hair out trying to understand the router tables for wired network connections. At the end of the day, I have a 50 megabit cable connection to the internet.

I currently have a D-Link 655 router. Does "upgrading" to a faster router, say a NetGear WNDR3700 make ANY difference on wired internet speeds? If the D-Link has a speed of 200mb/s, isn't that already 4x faster than MY internet connection? If so, it would seem like a new router doesn't help anything.

What about wireless speeds (assuming N networking and only 2.4GHz clients)? There it seems like it WOULD make a difference (28.9 mb/s for the D-Link 655 vs 41.2 for the NetGear WNDR3700v2.). Is that correct, and if not could someone please explain it?

Here's the boggle... using the NetGear WNDR3700v2, i get the same speed test results whether I'm wireless or wired via gigabit: 51mb/s. How is that possible if the wireless speed was measured here at 41.2 mb/sec??

 

[thiggins]

No, a router with much faster throughput than your Internet connection doesn't make a difference. All you need is a router a bit (maybe 5%) faster than your Internet service.

The 41.2 Mbps you see in the default wireless chart is the average throughput. This is explained in the note at the top of the page:

This chart shows the average throughput of 802.11 wireless devices for the frequency band, direction and mode described in the chart title. The average is calculated from throughput measurements taken at six locations in a residential home.

To see the throughput measured in each of the locations, check the box next to the product and click the Performance Table or Throughput vs. Location button.


Maximum throughput is higher than the 41.2 Mbps average.


So what you're seeing is that both the routing and wireless speed are fast enough to handle your Internet connection.

 

[grit]

Thanks, that helps a ton!