Netgear R7960P (Costco) covert to R8000P?

[danieldynasty]

Hello everyone, I am in the market for a new router and came across a Costco exclusive Netgear Nighthawk X6S AC3600 (R7960P) for $149.99(!!!) on this deals blog.

Since the R7960P is a feature-limited R8000P, is it possible to flash the R7960P's firmware to a R8000P?

Also, since DD-wrt supports the R8000P, will there be any chance the R7960P will be supported in the near future? Have any Costco exclusive Netgear routers become supported on DD-wrt before?

Which is a better buy given the price to feature/opensource support trade-off between the Costco X6S R7960P ($149.99) vs. the X4S R7800 ($191.98 on Amazon)?

I was originally looking at the Nighthawk X4S (R7800) prior to coming across this Costco deal. From the SNB review of the X6S, the X4S has better(???) wireless 2.4ghz and 5ghz speed performance than the X6S for some reason.

Thank you very much for sharing your professional advice in advance

 

[kc6108]

R7960P is better than the R7000P/R8000P as it supports WAN Aggregation and Circle with Disney... neither of which will be supported in the older models, AFAIK.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/netgear-stealthily-releases-the-nighthawk-x6s-r7960p.56063/

The only thing I can find that the R8000P has over the R7960P is:

R8000P is AC3600 (600+1300+1625Mbps) class
...and the...
R7960P is AC4000 (750+1625+1625Mbps) class

 

[danieldynasty]

Hi kc6108,

I read your thread before posting, thanks for making it! Is there any reason to get the R7800 over the R7960P in this case? (since the X6S is cheaper) Why does the X4S’ wireless performance beat the X6S?

R7960P is better than the R7000P/R8000P as it supports WAN Aggregation and Circle with Disney... neither of which will be supported in the older models, AFAIK.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/netgear-stealthily-releases-the-nighthawk-x6s-r7960p.56063/

The only thing I can find that the R8000P has over the R7960P is:

R8000P is AC3600 (600+1300+1625Mbps) class
...and the...
R7960P is AC4000 (750+1625+1625Mbps) class

 

[kc6108]

Take a look here to compare all of Netgear's Nighthawk routers. You will see that the R7800 is Qualcomm-based and the R7900P/R7960P/R8000P are Broadcom-based. It's really like comparing apples to oranges. Pro and Cons to each.

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/List_of_Netgear_Nighthawk_Products

 

[e38BimmerFN]

The R7960P out performs the R7800.
The R7800 is a dual band router whlie the R7960P is a tri band router.

 

[danieldynasty]

Hi e38, thanks for your input/experience. I see that you have both models so I've decided to get the R7960P despite it not being supported by dd-wrt. I still am a bit perplex as to why the SNB wireless benchmarks show the X4S to have much higher throughput than the X6S though.. can anyone explain why that is?

The R7960P out performs the R7800.
The R7800 is a dual band router whlie the R7960P is a tri band router.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Don't give up on DD-WRT. The R7960P is new and I presume take time for WRT at some point. Will be up to WRT to support it though.

Anything is possible when it comes to wireless performance. True performance will be based on what users see in there own environments. SNB does more controlled environments with specific configurations. Things different when in real world environments.

There are some differences between dual and tri band routers.

Overall, you'll enjoy the R7960P. Good solid router. Though I'm hopeful that NG will fix a bug I found on it and the R8000P routers dealing what NAT Filter. it only effects configurations with two or more game consoles online at the same time.

 

[ezmac]

Sorry for thread necro if this is that. The r8000 is NOT the r8000p. The r8000p has NO dd-wrt support. Believe me, I've been checking about monthly since last November. I can't recommend anything instead, but I'll say that my r8000p is sitting on a shelf gathering dust and I got the r7800 to replace it. I did not find the r8000p to be good enough for me with stock firmware and the r7800 supported dd-wrt.