Netgear r8000 and Lynksys WRT1900ac - Had both returned one

[cc666]

I had both routers now and put through all the tests. The main concerns for me were stability and performance.

Range - Bot were very good reaching hard to get signal areas in my 3,000 sq foot home. Linksys can be fined tuned better because of the ability to aim the antennas.

Performance - I do allot of Hi Def Flac audio streaming from my server in the basement that has an Asus 56 ac adapter. No matter what I tried the Netgear would always have a sort of pause every few minutes that would interrupt the stream and cause the audio to skip. The second I replaced the Netgear with the Linksys the audio ran perfectly. Its seemed to be some sort of buffer overrun problem.

Stressing the routers - One test I use to see performance is to get 2 laptops, 2 ipads and an android phone, all in same room as router. Set ALL to 5.0 ghz channel and stream 1080p video. With the Smart connect on or off the Netgear after a few minutes would have a slight buffer. The Linksys in the same scenario was smooth even after a 12 minute HD video stream to all 5 clients. Can it be the processor?

Build - There is no doubt that the build quality of the Linksys is far superior than the Netgear. The Netgear fells cheaply made, those of you that have both will know what I am talking about. Linksys also has built in fan for times the router gets stressed.

Firmware - DDWRT support will come for the Netgear, Linksys is still slow in developing due to the driver information being released. Netgear would have an advantage if DDWRT firmware is your concern. Hopefully linksys will get the DDWRT as promised. Stock firmware as it stands today the Lynksys has the advantage. The Netgear smart connect is spotty and there is some sort of buffering issue going on with it.

I can't wait to see Tom's testing on the Netgear r8000. IMO for 299 dollars its just not worth it. The Linksys at 249 is reasonable for a product that at this point is more reliable, much better build quality, and has better real world performance.

Future firmware development may enhance the r8000 and the performance issues may get better but it seems to me this was rushed out to be the first on the block with 3200.

The Netgear r8000 is on its way back to Amazon, the Linksys WRT1900ac is currently running on my system with no problems.

Any comments are welcomed.

CC

 

[thiggins]

Buying a first-of-next-generation router when it is just released is signing up to be a beta tester. Not saying this is the right way, but it is reality.

 

[cc666]

Test

Buying a first-of-next-generation router when it is just released is signing up to be a beta tester. Not saying this is the right way, but it is reality.

I can't wait for your review. To me the extra radio made absolutely no difference in performance. My bet is your testing will also show this. You basically have to same processor power as the r7000 with an extra radio with the smart connect to compute.

CC

 

[RMerlin]

Firmware - DDWRT support will come for the Netgear, Linksys is still slow in developing due to the driver information being released. Netgear would have an advantage if DDWRT firmware is your concern. Hopefully linksys will get the DDWRT as promised. Stock firmware as it stands today the Lynksys has the advantage. The Netgear smart connect is spotty and there is some sort of buffering issue going on with it.

Just to clarify - Belkin's promise wasn't for DD-WRT, but OpenWRT. At this point it doesn't seem like Brainslayer will support this router. As for OpenWRT, after a three months wait, developers FINALLY received the wireless driver source code a few days ago, which was the main obstacle toward official OpenWRT support (they have a policy where they refuse to support a device for which they cannot have the WHOLE source code available). The last remaining obstacles are probably the fact that Belkin's provided patches for OpenWRT weren't meeting the coding standards of the OpenWRT team. Those will need to be cleaned up and reworked.

For now, the only OpenWRT build available comes from Belkin themselves. But with the driver code finally in the hands of the OpenWRT devs, there's hope for official OpenWRT support in the future. This will most likely take months to develop however.

Hopefully for WRT1900AC owners official OpenWRT development. The router has good hardware, it's just let down by its software (as is quite often the case these days unfortunately).

This is, of course, based on the hope that this wireless driver code they provided is a) full-featured and not cut-down, and b) stable and reliable.

As for DD-WRT on the Netgear, I don't think Brainslayer/Kong have done any work yet toward supporting it, but I'm willing to bet that they will eventually get on it. The R8000 will require more work than the R7000 because it's based on a newer SDK from Broadcom (SDK7), which has quite a few software changes to support functionalities such as band steering.

 

[thiggins]

I can't wait for your review. To me the extra radio made absolutely no difference in performance. My bet is your testing will also show this. You basically have to same processor power as the r7000 with an extra radio with the smart connect to compute.

This is not correct.

As I described in the article, each radio has its own CPU and memory.

The BCM43602's take the BCM4360 3x3 802.11ac MAC/PHY present in the majority of AC1750 and AC1900 routers today and add a local processor and 960 KB of SRAM to make a complete standalone radio. At boot, the CPU downloads code to the radios so that all Wi-Fi functions are offloaded from the CPU. All the BCM4709 has to do forward Ethernet packets to the 43602 where the 802.3 to 802.11 conversion happens, freeing up the 4709 CPU for faster routing and USB storage functions.

 

[Mordred]

Just to clarify - Belkin's promise wasn't for DD-WRT, but OpenWRT. At this point it doesn't seem like Brainslayer will support this router. As for OpenWRT, after a three months wait, developers FINALLY received the wireless driver source code a few days ago, which was the main obstacle toward official OpenWRT support (they have a policy where they refuse to support a device for which they cannot have the WHOLE source code available). The last remaining obstacles are probably the fact that Belkin's provided patches for OpenWRT weren't meeting the coding standards of the OpenWRT team. Those will need to be cleaned up and reworked.

For now, the only OpenWRT build available comes from Belkin themselves. But with the driver code finally in the hands of the OpenWRT devs, there's hope for official OpenWRT support in the future. This will most likely take months to develop however.

Wrong openwrt does not have the sources, quoting:



Hi All,

We (menas Belkin) received the official open source wireless driver this week. We will be working to get it integrated into the trunk in the coming days. The ipk package was created and posted for those who wish to use it, but we are still very committed releasing a version that can be recompiled by users. For those users with reservations about using a pre-compiled component, I would recommend waiting just a bit longer for the open source version. Once we have done some spot checks on the driver, I will see if I can get approval to post it as well ( no promises ).

https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=50173&p=21

Big difference Belkin has what they call "opensource" driver, no public opensource driver available. WTF?

R7000 is the best unit right now, the R8000 probably needs a few month just like the R7000. The WRT 1900 costs almost twice as much as the R7000 and is still far away from a stable usable unit.

 

[theveterans]

I had both routers now and put through all the tests. The main concerns for me were stability and performance.

Range - Bot were very good reaching hard to get signal areas in my 3,000 sq foot home. Linksys can be fined tuned better because of the ability to aim the antennas.

Performance - I do allot of Hi Def Flac audio streaming from my server in the basement that has an Asus 56 ac adapter. No matter what I tried the Netgear would always have a sort of pause every few minutes that would interrupt the stream and cause the audio to skip. The second I replaced the Netgear with the Linksys the audio ran perfectly. Its seemed to be some sort of buffer overrun problem.

Stressing the routers - One test I use to see performance is to get 2 laptops, 2 ipads and an android phone, all in same room as router. Set ALL to 5.0 ghz channel and stream 1080p video. With the Smart connect on or off the Netgear after a few minutes would have a slight buffer. The Linksys in the same scenario was smooth even after a 12 minute HD video stream to all 5 clients. Can it be the processor?

Build - There is no doubt that the build quality of the Linksys is far superior than the Netgear. The Netgear fells cheaply made, those of you that have both will know what I am talking about. Linksys also has built in fan for times the router gets stressed.

Firmware - DDWRT support will come for the Netgear, Linksys is still slow in developing due to the driver information being released. Netgear would have an advantage if DDWRT firmware is your concern. Hopefully linksys will get the DDWRT as promised. Stock firmware as it stands today the Lynksys has the advantage. The Netgear smart connect is spotty and there is some sort of buffering issue going on with it.

I can't wait to see Tom's testing on the Netgear r8000. IMO for 299 dollars its just not worth it. The Linksys at 249 is reasonable for a product that at this point is more reliable, much better build quality, and has better real world performance.

Future firmware development may enhance the r8000 and the performance issues may get better but it seems to me this was rushed out to be the first on the block with 3200.

The Netgear r8000 is on its way back to Amazon, the Linksys WRT1900ac is currently running on my system with no problems.

Any comments are welcomed.

CC

Still rocking my WRT1900AC that replaced my ASUS RT-AC66U which had performance issues. 5 GHz is 100% stable and no issues with lag at all. 2.4 GHz is turned off since my Netgear WNR3500L serves that band perfectly.

 

[RMerlin]

Wrong openwrt does not have the sources, quoting:



Hi All,

We (menas Belkin) received the official open source wireless driver this week. We will be working to get it integrated into the trunk in the coming days. The ipk package was created and posted for those who wish to use it, but we are still very committed releasing a version that can be recompiled by users. For those users with reservations about using a pre-compiled component, I would recommend waiting just a bit longer for the open source version. Once we have done some spot checks on the driver, I will see if I can get approval to post it as well ( no promises ).

Thanks for the clarification. The forum post I was basing my post on wasn't all that clear as to who the poster actually was. Since he didn't identify himself as being a Belkin employee, I assumed it was an OpenWRT developer.

In any case, if Belkin does have an open source version into their hands now, it means it's pretty close to reaching the hands of the OpenWRT folks now, as the last legal hurdle has been lifted.

 

[htismaqe]

R7000 is the best unit right now, the R8000 probably needs a few month just like the R7000. The WRT 1900 costs almost twice as much as the R7000 and is still far away from a stable usable unit.

Maybe if you're running DD-WRT or Tomato. The R7000 with stock firmware struggles to get 1 or 2 days of stability before needing to be rebooted.

While the WRT1900AC does have GUI-related issues, mine has been up and running for 49 days, 17 hours without so much as a slowdown or hiccup.

 

[azazel1024]

I have no idea, but I'd half guess that the occasional pauses in both video and audio streaming might be the R8000 switching a client(s) between the 5GHz radios. Unless of course you did, it is too bad you didn't dig deeper to see what channels the clients were assigned pre and post pause and/or set up the 5GHz radios for distinct bands and not smart connect (or whatever it is called) managing where each one goes.

I am just curious if it is a defect in the way it is changing around clients between 5GHz radios or if it is something else going on with the router.

 

[thiggins]

I have no idea, but I'd half guess that the occasional pauses in both video and audio streaming might be the R8000 switching a client(s) between the 5GHz radios. Unless of course you did, it is too bad you didn't dig deeper to see what channels the clients were assigned pre and post pause and/or set up the 5GHz radios for distinct bands and not smart connect (or whatever it is called) managing where each one goes.

I am just curious if it is a defect in the way it is changing around clients between 5GHz radios or if it is something else going on with the router.

I noted in another thread that NETGEAR told me that radio assignment is done only when clients associate. Devices are not moved between radios dynamically. They said the reason is that some devices don't like being moved.

 

[azazel1024]

Ah, I thought you had mentioned that it would move them around during idle periods. I was wondering if maybe the issue was that the router was not correctly identifying a client being idle.

 

[cc666]

Review

This is not correct.

As I described in the article, each radio has its own CPU and memory.

Tim I am a little surprised this router has not been reviewed yet. Have you been sent a unit for review? If not I am thinking in Netgear knows the router is not ready for prime time and may be afraid to what your tests would reveal.
Any comments

CC

 

[thiggins]

Tim I am a little surprised this router has not been reviewed yet. Have you been sent a unit for review? If not I am thinking in Netgear knows the router is not ready for prime time and may be afraid to what your tests would reveal.
Any comments

I have both routers. I have not touched the ASUS yet because I am waiting for firmware out this week that is supposed to improve storage performance. Working on the R8000 now for initial tests.

You guys are too quick to jump on these science experiments...