Hi Guys ..As per the subject heading yes after a few sleepless nights and some of your very informative comments back to me several days ago on my new first purchase of a Asus product being the RT-AXE7800 I was seriously bloody impressed with AsusWRT software!..It offers pretty much everything but the kitchen sink lol .
So used it and set it up in tandem as bridge mode with my original TP-Link VR2600 WiFi router now setup as a "dumb VDSL" connection only as that also has a fantastic rock solid broadcom chipset and it's 8 years old now well I've serviced it a few times cleaned it out and also replace the old thermal white paste with silver based thermal compound inside .
Anyhow...the Asus AXE7800 was replacing a NETGEAR nighthawk RAX120 which was a serious peace of kit but it sadly had it issues and flaws sadly so under its 2 year warranty with Amazon UK I have sent it back and will use the refund towards the new Asus router. I had purchased it as Amazon Warehouse deal the Netgear that is my absolute maximum budget was £200 and for me that's a serious amount of money to spend on a router but the specifications of the NETGEAR night hawk was pretty top spec .
Some of you suggested that it might have been better to send back the AXE7800 and grab the much praised AX86U ...as the specifications would be on par with my previous NETGEAR nighthawk RAX120 model .At that time I felt after owning the AXE7800 that it would be more than enough for my needs an still somewhat slightly overkill for my needs anyway it was on a Amazon UK spring deal.
After a few days and re-thinking my strategy and taking several of your comments into account I decided to look into the AX86U and maybe the Pro model
.
I Was pushing my budget limit at £200 and the AXE7800 I paid was £206 on a deal so that was fine but that A86U and Pro models were significantly much more money . Then I decided to look at the original specifications of my Netgear nighthawk RAX120 and it was actually superior to the AXE7800 . The NETGEAR nighthawk has 2.2GHZ QuadCore CPU and 1024GB of Memory amongst other things. Yes the 7800 was newer with 6E but to be honest I don't own any 6E products and the 7800 only had a 32bit CPU the Netgear had a proper 64bit CPU .
So I wrestled with this for a while and decided if I'm going to be spending the extra money might as well get the absolute best I can get push out my budget yet again just that little bit more and grab that 86U Pro Model !!! Ditch the 6E and get a router that on paper absolutely matches my previous NETGEAR model but the Asus obviously offer even more it's that AsusWRT software as far as I can see it absolutely smashes any other brand out their I think.
Then it got me thinking that the 86U Pro may perhaps get a the newer AsusWRT 5 software one day lol otherwise their is the Merlin Software mmmm.
So I sent back the 7800 and got my self the 86U Pro model on the Amazon UK 5 easy payment option they offer I've used that before on my account for other items it's fantastic!!! No interest charges at all you can pay over 5 months or pay the entire amount back when ever you want within the 5 month period theirs no charge for that either.
So far I've set-up the 86U Pro as a PPOE connection as Im with EE UK FTTC 80/20 broadband. I've run a DNS checker on my laptop and I used to use Cloudfare as my DNS resolvers but it came up with Open DNS which I've used in the past owned by Cisco it had slightly better ping rates .
Then I'm using Channel 100 DFS with 80mhz and I switched on TX bursting as well . I was going to adjust the RTS/CTS option down to 500 as I did that with my previous Netgear,I've left it as it is for now as default. I've also got my Surfshark account setup with VPN Fusion.
I'm on the fence weather to try the Merlin software ...I'll see how it goes with AsusWRT stock firmware for now it's pretty impressive as it stands .
The app allows you to either switch on and off the LEDs but shame theirs no way of being able just to "dim" the LEDs ...I would rather keep the LEDs on so I can see the routers status but would be good to just dim the LEDs a few notches. Unless the Merlin software allows for that .
So used it and set it up in tandem as bridge mode with my original TP-Link VR2600 WiFi router now setup as a "dumb VDSL" connection only as that also has a fantastic rock solid broadcom chipset and it's 8 years old now well I've serviced it a few times cleaned it out and also replace the old thermal white paste with silver based thermal compound inside .
Anyhow...the Asus AXE7800 was replacing a NETGEAR nighthawk RAX120 which was a serious peace of kit but it sadly had it issues and flaws sadly so under its 2 year warranty with Amazon UK I have sent it back and will use the refund towards the new Asus router. I had purchased it as Amazon Warehouse deal the Netgear that is my absolute maximum budget was £200 and for me that's a serious amount of money to spend on a router but the specifications of the NETGEAR night hawk was pretty top spec .
Some of you suggested that it might have been better to send back the AXE7800 and grab the much praised AX86U ...as the specifications would be on par with my previous NETGEAR nighthawk RAX120 model .At that time I felt after owning the AXE7800 that it would be more than enough for my needs an still somewhat slightly overkill for my needs anyway it was on a Amazon UK spring deal.
After a few days and re-thinking my strategy and taking several of your comments into account I decided to look into the AX86U and maybe the Pro model
.I Was pushing my budget limit at £200 and the AXE7800 I paid was £206 on a deal so that was fine but that A86U and Pro models were significantly much more money . Then I decided to look at the original specifications of my Netgear nighthawk RAX120 and it was actually superior to the AXE7800 . The NETGEAR nighthawk has 2.2GHZ QuadCore CPU and 1024GB of Memory amongst other things. Yes the 7800 was newer with 6E but to be honest I don't own any 6E products and the 7800 only had a 32bit CPU the Netgear had a proper 64bit CPU .
So I wrestled with this for a while and decided if I'm going to be spending the extra money might as well get the absolute best I can get push out my budget yet again just that little bit more and grab that 86U Pro Model !!! Ditch the 6E and get a router that on paper absolutely matches my previous NETGEAR model but the Asus obviously offer even more it's that AsusWRT software as far as I can see it absolutely smashes any other brand out their I think.
Then it got me thinking that the 86U Pro may perhaps get a the newer AsusWRT 5 software one day lol otherwise their is the Merlin Software mmmm.
So I sent back the 7800 and got my self the 86U Pro model on the Amazon UK 5 easy payment option they offer I've used that before on my account for other items it's fantastic!!! No interest charges at all you can pay over 5 months or pay the entire amount back when ever you want within the 5 month period theirs no charge for that either.
So far I've set-up the 86U Pro as a PPOE connection as Im with EE UK FTTC 80/20 broadband. I've run a DNS checker on my laptop and I used to use Cloudfare as my DNS resolvers but it came up with Open DNS which I've used in the past owned by Cisco it had slightly better ping rates .
Then I'm using Channel 100 DFS with 80mhz and I switched on TX bursting as well . I was going to adjust the RTS/CTS option down to 500 as I did that with my previous Netgear,I've left it as it is for now as default. I've also got my Surfshark account setup with VPN Fusion.
I'm on the fence weather to try the Merlin software ...I'll see how it goes with AsusWRT stock firmware for now it's pretty impressive as it stands .
The app allows you to either switch on and off the LEDs but shame theirs no way of being able just to "dim" the LEDs ...I would rather keep the LEDs on so I can see the routers status but would be good to just dim the LEDs a few notches. Unless the Merlin software allows for that .
.
