I'm undecided between asus rt-ac66n or asus rt-n66u Help me to choose

[hdv]

hi friends,
I'm undecided on what to buy asus router.
asus rt-ac66n to 180 euro or asus rt-n66u to 132 €??

my fears on the model rt-ac66u are as follows:
STEP 1 I'm afraid that the frequency of 5 GHz is more 'harmful to health than the 2.4 ghz.
STEP 2 wlan standard ac and 'still draft
STEP 3 the new router does not support the firmware tomato etc etc
STEP 4 I fear that my wifi devices operating at 2.4 ghz see Sansung galaxy s2 netbook asus 10,005 d multimedia player Xtreamer work worse than the other router rt-n66u.

what do you advise me??
thank you very much and sorry for my poor English.
cordial greetings hdv

I'm undecided between asus rt-ac66n to 180 euro or asus rt-n66u
Help me to choose

 

[stevech]

hi friends,
I'm undecided on what to buy asus router.
asus rt-ac66n to 180 euro or asus rt-n66u to 132 €??

my fears on the model rt-ac66u are as follows:
STEP 1 I'm afraid that the frequency of 5 GHz is more 'harmful to health than the 2.4 ghz.
STEP 2 wlan standard ac and 'still draft
STEP 3 the new router does not support the firmware tomato etc etc
STEP 4 I fear that my wifi devices operating at 2.4 ghz see Sansung galaxy s2 netbook asus 10,005 d multimedia player Xtreamer work worse than the other router rt-n66u.

what do you advise me??
thank you very much and sorry for my poor English.
cordial greetings hdv

I'm undecided between asus rt-ac66n to 180 euro or asus rt-n66u
Help me to choose

1 no health hazard in these unlicensed band products (unless you live in France )
2 802.11ac - come back in a year - don't pay premium for it now
3 Opinion: Today's good routers have all the features that 99.9% of users need. No need for DD-WRT or other. But do so if you wish to tinker.
4 In terms of range, most any new router can be configured to disable the highest speeds, 40MHz mode, and so on. These reduce range but may increase speed. So speed/range is always a tradeoff in unlicensed bands like 2.4 and 5.8GHz. Again, if you don't really NEED the features, don't spend extra to get them!

 

[fritsp1989]

hi friends,
I'm undecided on what to buy asus router.
asus rt-ac66n to 180 euro or asus rt-n66u to 132 €??

my fears on the model rt-ac66u are as follows:
STEP 1 I'm afraid that the frequency of 5 GHz is more 'harmful to health than the 2.4 ghz.
STEP 2 wlan standard ac and 'still draft
STEP 3 the new router does not support the firmware tomato etc etc
STEP 4 I fear that my wifi devices operating at 2.4 ghz see Sansung galaxy s2 netbook asus 10,005 d multimedia player Xtreamer work worse than the other router rt-n66u.

what do you advise me??
thank you very much and sorry for my poor English.
cordial greetings hdv

I'm undecided between asus rt-ac66n to 180 euro or asus rt-n66u
Help me to choose

Buy the RT-N66U, as from now the CFE is fixed you can flash it yourself.
Tomato is supported and ddwrt works but needs some bug fixes.
The AC is not supported by ddwrt and i doubt it will ever be, but thats just a small argument merlin-WRT works perfect for the AC it also does for the N66U.
As for the 2,4GHz And 5GHz i don't think any of them will seriously injure you.
Your galaxy S2 is 5GHz capable so that wont be a real problem.
Bot of the bands on the rt-n66u work fine and have good throughput so.
The AC is just a new standard but if your hardware isn't ready for AC then don't buy the AC it means no value to you.

I actually think that the n66u has some more potential at custom firmwares and stuff since the CFE problem is fixed.

 

[Nerre]

The AC though has more RAM (If I don't remember wrong), so if you are planning on running stuff that needs a lot of RAM it might be better off.

I bought the AC because the swedish price comparison site Prisjakt said "Openwrt compatible" and it was the router with the most RAM for the bucks (I'm eventually going to run Asterisk on the router). Not until after the order I realised that neither openwrt nor dd-wrt was possible. But with Merlins builds it seems as if there is nothing amiss.

 

[RMerlin]

The AC though has more RAM (If I don't remember wrong), so if you are planning on running stuff that needs a lot of RAM it might be better off.

I bought the AC because the swedish price comparison site Prisjakt said "Openwrt compatible" and it was the router with the most RAM for the bucks (I'm eventually going to run Asterisk on the router). Not until after the order I realised that neither openwrt nor dd-wrt was possible. But with Merlins builds it seems as if there is nothing amiss.

They both have 256 MB of RAM. It's the NAND (flash) that's much bigger on the RT-AC66U - 128 MB instead of 32 MB. This means it can potentially contain a much larger firmware, tho I doubt Asuswrt will require that much anytime soon. As for DD-WRT, the big edition currently takes around 8 MB if I recall.

 

[house]

also AC-66U has a second 2mb serial flash so I don't think that he will be supported by any alternative firmware ever. Same as netgear Wndr4500. No one can do firmware upgrade without support of 2 memory chips...

 

[hdv]

hello guys you convinced me.
carefully reading your post I decided to save money and I ordered the model
asus rt-n66u.
thanks a lot hdv

 

[fritsp1989]

hello guys you convinced me.
carefully reading your post I decided to save money and I ordered the model
asus rt-n66u.
thanks a lot hdv

Glad i could help

 

[NWolvie]

If I could chime in on this thread, I'm dealing with the same question as to which one to get. I want to get the AC66, but a lot of the reviews suggest the 2.4Ghz performance is not very good, especially compared to the N66. Is there anything to this?

 

[RMerlin]

If I could chime in on this thread, I'm dealing with the same question as to which one to get. I want to get the AC66, but a lot of the reviews suggest the 2.4Ghz performance is not very good, especially compared to the N66. Is there anything to this?

I haven't seen any recent benchmark, but this is something I know Asus has been working on for the past few releases. The new Enhanced Interference Management option in 246 is part of their solution to those issues.

 

[NWolvie]

RMerlin - thank you. I may just wait until they solve the problem.

 

[RMerlin]

I know Asus got a new wireless driver coming real soon for the RT-AC66U. No word on what impact it will have on performance.

Still, I'd say the AC66U (lack of) performance on the 2.4 GHz have been a bit exaggerated. The CNet test for instance was done in a VERY crowded environment, which caused their results to be worse than they really are. Tim's own results were more stable.

I did a quick (non-scientific) test here to compare my RT-N66U and RT-AC66U, and the difference was marginal at best.

 

[bheiser1]

They both have 256 MB of RAM. It's the NAND (flash) that's much bigger on the RT-AC66U - 128 MB instead of 32 MB. This means it can potentially contain a much larger firmware, tho I doubt Asuswrt will require that much anytime soon. As for DD-WRT, the big edition currently takes around 8 MB if I recall.

I'm making the same decision myself, and I think for me too it comes down to the amount of flash memory. At least I think that's the case, because I need to use the VPN function and have read that the RT-N66U has issues with VPN due to the lack of flash memory. (I would like to use a VPN more secure than PPTP). Is this a legitimate concern?

Other than that it seems to me the RT-N66U is the best bet right now since due to a lack of AC clients & almost another year before the AC standard will be ratified.

 

[RMerlin]

I'm making the same decision myself, and I think for me too it comes down to the amount of flash memory. At least I think that's the case, because I need to use the VPN function and have read that the RT-N66U has issues with VPN due to the lack of flash memory. (I would like to use a VPN more secure than PPTP). Is this a legitimate concern?

Other than that it seems to me the RT-N66U is the best bet right now since due to a lack of AC clients & almost another year before the AC standard will be ratified.

You are confusing general flash space with nvram space. OpenVPN requires nvram space to store its settings, the amount of total flash is irrelevant. OpenVPN through Asuswrt-Merlin or Tomato will both work fine on the AC66U and N66U, as both routers have 64 KB of nvram when running either of these firmwares.

The nvram issue only affects DD-WRT, and currently there's no DD-WRT support for the RT-AC66U anyway, so neither routers are good candidates for DD-WRT.

 

[bheiser1]

Thanks for the clarification. This leaves me wondering what the value is of paying the premium for the AC model at this time. My initial thought is "future proofing", but I've read that the chipset in the current generation won't likely fully support the final standard anyway...

 

[RMerlin]

but I've read that the chipset in the current generation won't likely fully support the final standard anyway...

Where did you read that? As far as I know, this is not true.

 

[bheiser1]

Where did you read that? As far as I know, this is not true.

Here's the link:

http://www.zdnet.com/tech-guide-next-generation-802-11ac-wi-fi-3040155415/

It's in the paragraph titled "Plan Ahead", where they mention this generation of devices not supporting the highest data and multi-user MIMO aggregation...

Does this not apply to home-user applications? And the article is from June - has the outlook changed since then?

 

[RogerSC]

Here's the link:

http://www.zdnet.com/tech-guide-next-generation-802-11ac-wi-fi-3040155415/

It's in the paragraph titled "Plan Ahead", where they mention this generation of devices not supporting the highest data and multi-user MIMO aggregation...

Does this not apply to home-user applications? And the article is from June - has the outlook changed since then?

The way that the article is phrased is to say this for businesses, not for home consumers:

It's far too soon for businesses to go shopping for 802.11ac kit: enterprise-grade access points won't be available until the first quarter of 2013, and those will have early chipsets that don't offer the highest data transfer rates and multi-user MIMO aggregation that businesses will want.

That is pretty clearly addressed towards business and the enterprise market, seems to me.

 

[bheiser1]

The way that the article is phrased is to say this for businesses, not for home consumers:

It's far too soon for businesses to go shopping for 802.11ac kit: enterprise-grade access points won't be available until the first quarter of 2013, and those will have early chipsets that don't offer the highest data transfer rates and multi-user MIMO aggregation that businesses will want.

That is pretty clearly addressed towards business and the enterprise market, seems to me.

Right, I read it too and see what they said. But just because they said it doesn't make it true. That's why I am digging deeper rather than taking the statement on blind faith without any reason behind it.

 

[RMerlin]

They are talking about features of the 802.11ac standard that aren't supported by current routers. What it means is that in a year or two, the 802.11ac network adapter you might buy could support those new features. That doesn't meant they won't work with older routers, only that these particular features won't be supported.

Nothing says as well if those features will be available in all mainstream products, or only on high-end/enterprise products either. Look at how 802.11n can support up to 450 Mbits, but the vast majority of laptops sold only support 150 Mbits, and a few support 300 Mbits. 450 Mbits is limited to some high-end desktop cards, or a few high-end laptops.