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Netgear X10 R9000 or X8 R8500?

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Crocodil

New Around Here
Hi :)

I know this might be a strange question but I'm trying to choose between the two routers. My priority is WiFi speed and range (the signal has to go through 2 very solid walls). I'm using a variety of hardware - 2 notebooks, a TV box, smart TV, mobiles and a PC with Asus PCE-AC88 network card.

I know that R9000 is newer and has better hardware but I wouldn't be able to use most of its advanced features like the AD radio and 10Gbit ethernet.

On the other hand R8500 has lesser hardware (CPU, RAM, flash) but it has 3 useful bands and at least in theory it has higher speeds (2167 Mbps + 1000 Mbps be 1734 Mbps + 800 Mbps). I have read though that Broadcom's chips have some issues.

Both routers use Netgear's "active antennas" and birth have some nice features...

I would be very grateful for any suggestions.

Best regards,
Crocodil
 
I have used and own the R8500 and R9000 but the R7800 was always my preferred unit among AC routers. So the following is from my own experience:

I haven’t found anything meaningful in terms of performance with “active antennas”. Infact the R7800 uses the same Qualcomm 2.4/5Ghz radios as the R9000 and out performs it, at least in my testing and it has “standard” antennas.

I would actually buy the R7800 rather than the R9000 or R8500 as you won’t gain anything extra in terms of WiFi performance. The R7800 will be the best of the three WiFi performance/range wise. Also I doubt you’d notice much of a benefit with having an extra 5Ghz band on the R8500. Both the R7800 and R9000 support HT160 so it may be useful if you have laptops with the Intel 9260ac or it’s rebrand the Killer 1550, or the newer Intel AX200/Killer AX1650.

I would choose the R9000 or R8500 if you really need link aggregation. And If you do, if priced similarly the R9000 would be the better option as it has a better/more advanced 2.4/5 GHz radio. Additionally it has a 10Gbps SFP port as well. The R9000 and R7800 can both do much higher speeds with VPN than the R8500 due to having much better CPUs, which for the R9000 it also allows it to be a PLEX server.
 
Last edited:
@avtella: Thank you very much for your answer. Yes, I have read a lot of great things about R7800. The thing is I had a chance to buy either the R9000 or R8500 with a yearly warranty at a price lower than R7800.

I have chosen R9000 and luckily, I will have 14 days to test it and return it if for some reason it doesn't suit me :)
 

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