I have both the R7000 and AC68U... which to keep

[hungarianhc]

So I ordered the AC68U, and now I have the R7000. One of these is going back. I just plugged in the R7000 a couple hours ago.

First impressions are that this thing is MUCH larger than the AC68U. Much heavier too.

One odd thing that i've noticed is that no matter how many times I unplug and replug in my cable modem, now that I've switched to the R7000, speedtest.net defaults to Arkansas as my location to test speed from, even though I'm in San Francisco. It typically picks San Jose or something like that. I'll jump back to the AC68U tomorrow to see if it's totally Comcast related or if it's some kind of odd issue.

Other than that, I had originally been set on the AC68U, but the higher CPU of the R7000 drew me in... I also like that it "supports" DD-WRT, even though both can take the firmware.

Which should I keep!? WIth return policies, I have about a week to decide. I'll pay a restocking fee either way.

 

[thiggins]

only you can answer that question. Why did you buy them and which one better meets your requirements.

 

[hungarianhc]

only you can answer that question. Why did you buy them and which one better meets your requirements.

I bought the AC68U because I needed a router to replace my 802.11N router. When the R7000 was available, I got excited about the faster CPU. My requirements are to get the fastest router...

 

[RMerlin]

I bought the AC68U because I needed a router to replace my 802.11N router. When the R7000 was available, I got excited about the faster CPU. My requirements are to get the fastest router...

What are you doing that requires a faster CPU? Cause the CPU speed will have zero impact on wired/wireless performance. It will have an impact om USB-based disk sharing and VPN mostly.

 

[hungarianhc]

What are you doing that requires a faster CPU? Cause the CPU speed will have zero impact on wired/wireless performance. It will have an impact om USB-based disk sharing and VPN mostly.

USB sharing, FTP for the USB, lots of bittorrent sync for my NAS to another location, gaming, lots of wireless clients, etc.

It seems like most of the posts thus far have been questioning the purchase. I'm a geek. I love having the newest tech - so that's why I have them. Most decisions I make aren't based on "need" - otherwise, I'd still have an 802.11g router. Now that I have them both, I was just looking for some other user feedback on experiences w/ the device(s) and recommendations about which to keep.

 

[thiggins]

Hey, the heart wants what the heart wants. And the companies love consumers like you.

I am more of a pragmatist. I also have reviewed enough of these things since the dawn of the consumer networking and seen reality fall far short of marketing hype more often than not, especially when it comes to wireless.

For what you want to do, you should have a standalone NAS.

 

[hungarianhc]

Hey, the heart wants what the heart wants. And the companies love consumers like you.

I am more of a pragmatist. I also have reviewed enough of these things since the dawn of the consumer networking and seen reality fall far short of marketing hype more often than not, especially when it comes to wireless.

For what you want to do, you should have a standalone NAS.

I do have a standalone NAS . I have a Synology DS1513+ with 3 4TB drives and all of my media, backups, etc on there. Just trying to figure out the best router to pair with it...

I love the site btw - I visit daily. Fantastic content.

 

[lexist2112]

So I ordered the AC68U, and now I have the R7000. One of these is going back. I just plugged in the R7000 a couple hours ago.

First impressions are that this thing is MUCH larger than the AC68U. Much heavier too.

One odd thing that i've noticed is that no matter how many times I unplug and replug in my cable modem, now that I've switched to the R7000, speedtest.net defaults to Arkansas as my location to test speed from, even though I'm in San Francisco. It typically picks San Jose or something like that. I'll jump back to the AC68U tomorrow to see if it's totally Comcast related or if it's some kind of odd issue.

Other than that, I had originally been set on the AC68U, but the higher CPU of the R7000 drew me in... I also like that it "supports" DD-WRT, even though both can take the firmware.

Which should I keep!? WIth return policies, I have about a week to decide. I'll pay a restocking fee either way.

On speedtest.net you can go to settings and change the preferred server settings ( lower right tab)

 

[hungarianhc]

On speedtest.net you can go to settings and change the preferred server settings ( lower right tab)

I figured that out, but the auto-detection made me nervous...

 

[PrivateJoker]

I figured that out, but the auto-detection made me nervous...

Unplug your cable modem for 10 min then plug it back in, it should get a fresh address to identify you with. Also dump your cookies and cache from the Speedtest site.

There are lots of ways to test geolocation functionality. You can do a straight IP geolocate on a site like http://www.ip2location.com

Or via the more sophisticated HTML5 method (which will use your IP, and more info if it can get it). http://html5demos.com/geo

 

[stevech]

Unplug your cable modem for 10 min then plug it back in, it should get a fresh address to identify you with.

My cable modem's public IP address hasn't changed but twice in 12 years. My ISP runs it that way; yours may not.

I found one local host to use with Speedtest.net... "ScaleMatrix", a hosting company in town. Fast, consistent.

 

[hungarianhc]

Hey guys,

I wanted to circle back on this. This is 100% reproducible. It does not matter how long I keep my cable modem unplugged for. I have tried multiple computers, I've tried mulitple browsers, and I've cleared cookies / cache. Bottom line is this:

- With the netgear router, it always puts me in Arkansas... with a ping time of about 70ms.

- With the Asus router, it always puts me in norcal where it should... with a ping time of about 15ms.

I have both of these right here so if there's a router setting that you think needs to be changed, I can try things - but this is VERY odd behavior from the netgear router. I'm going to go back to the Asus one for now. I'll be out of the house for the next 24 hours, but I can give it another go tomorrow evening.

 

[RMerlin]

The MAC address of the router is what will usually determine which IP your ISP gives you. When I switch between three different routers here, they all get different IPs, often each router always gets the same IP. And in fact they come from at least two different IP ranges.

The geolocalisation is 100% related to the IP your ISP provides you, not with the router itself. Most likely your ISP has different IP ranges, and they're not all up-to-date on the ARIN database. The MAC of each of your routers ended up getting IPs from different blocks. ISPs will reassign the same IPs to the same MACs quite often to make things simpler.

 

[hungarianhc]

The geolocalisation is 100% related to the IP your ISP provides you, not with the router itself. Most likely your ISP has different IP ranges, and they're not all up-to-date on the ARIN database. The MAC of each of your routers ended up getting IPs from different blocks. ISPs will reassign the same IPs to the same MACs quite often to make things simpler.

So... how does one go about fixing this?

 

[RMerlin]

So... how does one go about fixing this?

As a real fix? By telling your ISP what your IP is, and telling them to get their ARIN database record updated. They're the only ones that can really fix it.

If for some reason this is really bothering you, you could always have your router clone the MAC of the other router, so it will inherit the same IP.

 

[PrivateJoker]

So... how does one go about fixing this?

Moving back to where your router says you should be from is the only foolproof option.

I use the Tor browser and the hostel system to plan my vacations. Which Tor node I exit from determines the next place I visit.

 

[whsbuss]

I like the review on both these routers. However I have issues:

- R7000 has the best performance but cannot set date/time via NTP in AP mode so the USB storage has incorrect timestamp info

- RT-AC68U has issues with their USB 3.0 implementation

So each user has to determine what works best for them.

 

[stevech]

I like the review on both these routers. However I have issues:

- R7000 has the best performance but cannot set date/time via NTP in AP mode so the USB storage has incorrect timestamp info

An AP wouldn't have much use for date/time. None of the routing functions are enabled, no DHCP, etc. All it does is bridge IEEE 802.3 (ethernet) frames to/from IEEE 802.11. The AP is working at layer 2 - no matter whether those layer 2 frames are IP or ICMP or whatever protocols. Just chucking data. And handling client association requests and so on per IEEE 802.11.

That the file system has the wrong time.. seems to be a semi-bug.. where they assumed that a disk is attached to a router, not an AP. Makes sense.... an AP can work fine with no assigned IP address - it's admin only. So user PCs and port forwarding for WAN access to the file server wouldn't make sense for the AP having the attached disk.

The administrative user interface and web server are just for admin, in the AP. Nothing to do with its AP duties per se.

 

[whsbuss]

An AP wouldn't have much use for date/time. None of the routing functions are enabled, no DHCP, etc. All it does is bridge IEEE 802.3 (ethernet) frames to/from IEEE 802.11. The AP is working at layer 2 - no matter whether those layer 2 frames are IP or ICMP or whatever protocols. Just chucking data. And handling client association requests and so on per IEEE 802.11.

That the file system has the wrong time.. seems to be a semi-bug.. where they assumed that a disk is attached to a router, not an AP. Makes sense.

The administrative user interface and web server are just for admin, in the AP. Nothing to do with its AP duties per se.

You are missing my point. Because the date/time is not set any files created on the attached USB has the wrong info. Doing an rsync from the USB to a file server won't work well without correct timestamp.

 

[Sky1111]

Unplug your cable modem for 10 min then plug it back in, it should get a fresh address to identify you with. Also dump your cookies and cache from the Speedtest site.

There are lots of ways to test geolocation functionality. You can do a straight IP geolocate on a site like http://www.ip2location.com

Or via the more sophisticated HTML5 method (which will use your IP, and more info if it can get it). http://html5demos.com/geo

Holy sh@@@@!!!

All my traffic is going thru VPN with a gateway in another country, so ANY ip location service I used before, showed me as I am there (where VPN server is).

However, when I tried that HTML5 method, Firefox did ask me I want to share my location, I clicked yes - and that thing showed my actual location as in street address!!!!!! The laptop does not have GPS sensor, so how on earth it detected my precise location?

I tested my VPN for DNS leaks, nothing came up suspicious... Any ideas?