NANANANANANANANA BATLAN
New Around Here
Hey guys
So I've been planning to get either one of these excellent routers for my grandma but I couldn't find one decent site that would tell me which router runs best on their most recommended custom firmwares.
All I needed the router to do is show me their best 5Ghz wireless speeds on their most popular custom firmwares. Like I said, I couldn't find that info available so I bought both routers to test out their wireless speeds myself.
My grandma has devices that are all support 802.11n speeds and they are all configured to listen on the 5Ghz (N-Only) frequency on the 80MHz channel bandwidth.
So that single benchmark is the basis of my test.
Here's what I have....
Router and firmware:
R7000 (NightHawk) OC to 1400
DD-WRT Firmware (Kong): DD-WRT v24-sp2 (06/13/14)
Router and firmware:
RT-AC68U on Stock
RMerlin Firmware: RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4_374.43_2
Both are the latest firmware as of 6/29/2014 from my understanding.
My test was done using my 105 Comcast internet speed which is constant 99% of the time and I configured both routers on the same 5Ghz channel individually one after the other.
R7000
Advantages:
-A ton of features obviously
-Overclock friendly via Command terminal GUI. I overclocked it to 1400Mhz in breeze and the aircooling is more than sufficient because I hardly noticed any heat coming off the CPU.
-Faster reboots. I found her PC to recognize the R7000 on Kongs build to reboot and recognize a lot faster than the AC68U on Merlin's build. I'm talking about times like 3 mins vs 6-10mins on the AC68U.
-Very stable. Excellent uptime .. 30 days not a single disconnect.
Disadvantages:
-Inconsistent speeds. On 5Ghz (N-Only) client, speedtest.net revealed max download speeds on 38.81Mbps and upload of 24.21Mbps. However, this was not sustained in the dozen attempts I tried and the average speeds (excluding max and min) was around 24Mbps - down and 23Mbps-Up.
-Takes too much space if placed on a desk because it lays flat on the surface.
RT-AC68U
Advantages:
-User friendly GUI with most of the common features you will use.
-Consistent wireless speeds compared to R7000. Max download speeds on 55.48Mbps and upload of 22.21Mbps. I found the speeds on the Rt-AC68U (Merlin's latest build) consistent every time I ran the speedtest.
It never went below 29Mbps unlike the R7000 which would go anywhere from 19 Mbps to 30Mbps. Keep in mind that the R7000 was CPU overclocked to 1400/800 while the RT-AC68U was on stock.
Anyways the average speeds for the RT-AC68U (excluding max and min) was around 29Mbps - down and 23Mbps-Up.
-Stands upright so router footprint in terms of desk space is low.
-Very stable. Excellent uptime as the R7000. 30 days not a single disconnect.
Disadvantages:
-Any router setting changes take quite a bit of time to be applied from the time the router reboots.
-Lacks in features when compared to the R7000 on DD-WRT (Kong's build) but this is an known statement.
-Not easy to overclock and can be overclocked to max of 1Ghz on aircooling. When overclocked, router can heats up to over 75C every time. Also, the router did not respond when I used the one-button LED overclock option a couple of times on this 68U.
I also perform this test on the 40Mhz channel bandwidth and the RT-AC68U came up on top again.
Either way I decided in keep the RT-AC68U for its consistent speeds over the feature-rich R7000.
Hope this small bit of reviews helps (sorry I didn't perform any other kind of test)
So I've been planning to get either one of these excellent routers for my grandma but I couldn't find one decent site that would tell me which router runs best on their most recommended custom firmwares.
All I needed the router to do is show me their best 5Ghz wireless speeds on their most popular custom firmwares. Like I said, I couldn't find that info available so I bought both routers to test out their wireless speeds myself.
My grandma has devices that are all support 802.11n speeds and they are all configured to listen on the 5Ghz (N-Only) frequency on the 80MHz channel bandwidth.
So that single benchmark is the basis of my test.
Here's what I have....
Router and firmware:
R7000 (NightHawk) OC to 1400
DD-WRT Firmware (Kong): DD-WRT v24-sp2 (06/13/14)
Router and firmware:
RT-AC68U on Stock
RMerlin Firmware: RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4_374.43_2
Both are the latest firmware as of 6/29/2014 from my understanding.
My test was done using my 105 Comcast internet speed which is constant 99% of the time and I configured both routers on the same 5Ghz channel individually one after the other.
R7000
Advantages:
-A ton of features obviously
-Overclock friendly via Command terminal GUI. I overclocked it to 1400Mhz in breeze and the aircooling is more than sufficient because I hardly noticed any heat coming off the CPU.
-Faster reboots. I found her PC to recognize the R7000 on Kongs build to reboot and recognize a lot faster than the AC68U on Merlin's build. I'm talking about times like 3 mins vs 6-10mins on the AC68U.
-Very stable. Excellent uptime .. 30 days not a single disconnect.
Disadvantages:
-Inconsistent speeds. On 5Ghz (N-Only) client, speedtest.net revealed max download speeds on 38.81Mbps and upload of 24.21Mbps. However, this was not sustained in the dozen attempts I tried and the average speeds (excluding max and min) was around 24Mbps - down and 23Mbps-Up.
-Takes too much space if placed on a desk because it lays flat on the surface.
RT-AC68U
Advantages:
-User friendly GUI with most of the common features you will use.
-Consistent wireless speeds compared to R7000. Max download speeds on 55.48Mbps and upload of 22.21Mbps. I found the speeds on the Rt-AC68U (Merlin's latest build) consistent every time I ran the speedtest.
It never went below 29Mbps unlike the R7000 which would go anywhere from 19 Mbps to 30Mbps. Keep in mind that the R7000 was CPU overclocked to 1400/800 while the RT-AC68U was on stock.
Anyways the average speeds for the RT-AC68U (excluding max and min) was around 29Mbps - down and 23Mbps-Up.
-Stands upright so router footprint in terms of desk space is low.
-Very stable. Excellent uptime as the R7000. 30 days not a single disconnect.
Disadvantages:
-Any router setting changes take quite a bit of time to be applied from the time the router reboots.
-Lacks in features when compared to the R7000 on DD-WRT (Kong's build) but this is an known statement.
-Not easy to overclock and can be overclocked to max of 1Ghz on aircooling. When overclocked, router can heats up to over 75C every time. Also, the router did not respond when I used the one-button LED overclock option a couple of times on this 68U.
I also perform this test on the 40Mhz channel bandwidth and the RT-AC68U came up on top again.
Either way I decided in keep the RT-AC68U for its consistent speeds over the feature-rich R7000.
Hope this small bit of reviews helps (sorry I didn't perform any other kind of test)
Last edited:
