R7800 SmallNetBuilder Review

[ulaganath]

I have one quick query. When this router is set to enable MU-MIMO as far the review from SNB on mu-mimo this holds 1st postion to atleast implement a decent mu-mimo transfer rate.

When wirelessly bridged with same router. Does the bridged router will act as a mu-mimo client or normal only.

 

[thiggins]

I have one quick query. When this router is set to enable MU-MIMO as far the review from SNB on mu-mimo this holds 1st postion to atleast implement a decent mu-mimo transfer rate.

When wirelessly bridged with same router. Does the bridged router will act as a mu-mimo client or normal only.

MU-MIMO offers no advantage in a bridge situation. Most you would get is two stream MU-MIMO vs. 4 stream SU.

 

[ulaganath]

what if i connect a 3x3 stream mu-mimo in bridge will it get max bandwidth . Say near to 80% traffic of 1300mbps.

I know the 1300 is mere number's even though only half the throughput possible. As i was able to achieve only upto 540mbps transfer but via usb connected flash ultra drive from sandisk,

I wanted to know if i can give 2 devices wired to 3x3 mu-mimo router to serve 100mbps and 1gbps client simultaneously.

I know bridging works fine . but when mu-mimo router is associate as client does this feature works. Atleast even 2x2 is good speed.

 

[thiggins]

There is no such thing as a 3x3 MU-MIMO stream. At most 2x2 MU-MIMO is supported.

I suspect the bridge will connect as 4x4 SU. The most the QCA9984 will support is two, two stream MU-MIMO connections. But they must be to different BSSIDs, i.e. two routers.

 

[Maestro]

Hello peeps

I'm new on here and hope I'll get a warm welcome. I love reading SNB reviews (truly exhilarating).

After some research (bearing in mind I'm no techie) I've decided to purchase Netgear x4s (R7800).

I narrowed my list from the following other models (but really wanted Asus) :
Asus AC88U (was expensive and reviews mentioned something about 5ghz not being the best over long distance - from memory)

AC87U - basically from what I read R7800 was better?

C5400 - amazon reviews mentioned weak signal.

RT2600AC - Something about the company being new to making routers or relatively newish?

R7000(including P) - decided to go for R7800 because not too much difference in the price when I made purchase.

X10 - too much jazz.

And pretty much all of the others written about on here on the rankings.

I live in a 2 bedroom house - weak signal when I go upstairs to the bedroom etc. On ground floor it's perfect but not so much on the first floor. I just have ground and first floor (no basement). My original set up whereby I was experiencing these problems was Virgin Media Super Hub 3 connected with AC51U router. Believe it or not the super hub provided by isp gave better signal than the AC51U I had recently purchased. I don't like WiFi extenders because you only get 50% or so of the speed your paying for pinged back to you. Power adapter would have been the obvious choice but would require a very very long ethernet cable and too much drilling holes to get it to where signal is weak which is just upstairs in the bedrooms.

Anyway enough harping on from me. Was the r7800 the right choice? I wanted easy option to ad block from the ui but don't think it's available. Which router offers easy to select ad blocking option from the user interface? I quite enjoyed using the ui on the AC51U. just shame about the lame performance from it - embarrassing that isp provided box was better.

Why can't router ranking be done under a separate category of best WiFi signal strength?

What are active antennas? Will it make much difference to signal strength on the r7800 which doesn't have it?

Oh I'm paying for fibre broadband 100mb. Usually get 103mb but it fluctuates badly throughout the day.

Would a media converter adapter from the modem to the router help with the set up?

Speak soon.

 

[avtella]

Get the R7800, active antennas seem kinda gimmicky. The R9000 has "Active Antennas" yet the R7800 which uses the same WiFi chip outperforms it in range/performance in 5Ghz, probably the best in the consumer space for 5Ghz from reviews I have seen at CNET etc. The RTAC2600 uses the same hardware CPU/WiFi chipset as the R7800.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Yep the R7800 hands down is a proven performer. The R7800 put my AC88U into retirement.

 

[thiggins]

Signal strength is not included in rankings because it is not reported consistently from product to product. Same for link rate.

The thing that moves the bits is throughput, which is why benchmarks and rankings use it.

 

[Maestro]

Thanks for all your replies - purchased the R7800 from Amazon Warehouse (£130). Its doing really good plus its wall mountable which is absolutely stellar! I just wish the ports were on the opposite side so cables hang down rather than hang down from the upside if you know what I mean...

Signal strength ratings would help less technical minded people such as myself even if it was based on something approximate rather than exact science. Anyone know what DBI strength the antennas on R7800 are? Also anyway to block ads via router settings? Ive read somewhere that there is custom firmware that is able to do it but would need more of a step by step description if I was to perform it. I watched a youtube video where the guy changes the country code from GB to USA and his signal went through the roof although he mentioned it was illegal to do it... Sounds appealing but he used a command prompt on a Linksys Router - way over my head.... wouldn't know where to start otherwise would have cheekily followed suit. In some countries like the Czech republic, they can get 500+mbps speed for peanuts but sadly anywhere near that speed in UK would cost a packet. We enjoy third world country speeds lol

 

[thiggins]

Signal strength ratings would help less technical minded people such as myself even if it was based on something approximate rather than exact science

The problem is not that they are approximate. It is that it's not a reliable indicator of performance.

 

[avtella]

I can change the country mode, at least on my engineering sample, it be set to global after a telnet command but not sure retail versions allow the telnet option to do it.

 

[Maestro]

The problem is not that they are approximate. It is that it's not a reliable indicator of performance.

Fair enough... Learnt something new. Is there a dedicated thread for the R7800 or is this it? The netgear UI is very bland in terms of the advanced feature options compared to Asus (imho). Are there modem routers that you can hook up to fibre broadband whereby it has a port at the back for the fibre cable to plug into? Would be nice to have just the one box rather than two. Would welcome any tips on how I can set the router to block ads. I've come across phrases such as openwrt and voxel but don't have a clue what they really mean - other than an inkling that they're referring to custom firmware. The problem with custom firmware is that it could perhaps render the router obsolete? Like when flashing android phones - if incorrectly done they become paper weights. Plus not knowing how to flash back to the factory firmware means best for me to steer clear. Open vpn - you have to pay for the service right? Any recommendations? Whenever I've used hot-spot shield on my computer it prevented me from downloading torrents. I'm guessing open vpn is similar to hot-spot shield..? Need to do more reading.

Sent from my Lenovo P1a42 using Tapatalk

 

[Maestro]

Shame setting up open vpn on this router has to be done on each individual client. I was thinking about signing up to express vpn but the fact that I can't set up an open vpn on the R7800 router is a bit of a downer.

 

[sfx2000]

The netgear UI is very bland in terms of the advanced feature options compared to Asus (imho)

As long as it works...

 

[Maestro]

As long as it works...

True - but where's your sense of adventure?

 

[sfx2000]

MU-MIMO offers no advantage in a bridge situation. Most you would get is two stream MU-MIMO vs. 4 stream SU.

Corner case - multiple bridges - and the multicast traffic could go MU... depends on the application.

Can't say that any vendors firmware could do that...

 

[sfx2000]

True - but where's your sense of adventure?

I have enough adventure with my own BSP these days - supporting 4 different chips across three SoC vendors and two different architectures is more than enough - and that's HW and SW...

The BSP - We're well beyond the red-line of embedded OS's like the various WRT's out there... I've got two OEM's involved for production - which adds yet another level of "interesting"...

It's been a primary project, but soon to be a side gig - I'm taking on a new job/role shortly...

 

[Maestro]

I have enough adventure with my own BSP these days - supporting 4 different chips across three SoC vendors and two different architectures is more than enough - and that's HW and SW...

The BSP - We're well beyond the red-line of embedded OS's like the various WRT's out there... I've got two OEM's involved for production - which adds yet another level of "interesting"...

It's been a primary project, but soon to be a side gig - I'm taking on a new job/role shortly...

Enough said. That's quite an adventure - point taken.

 

[avtella]

Maestro, they are working on a new UI, its much better but I and another guy made some suggestions with UI samples (more like cool stuff I found from others and pointed them in that general direction), about changing it further along with some others. They paused the UI beta test as they make further changes, so it's still an ongoing process. Not sure when it will be out but it's being tested on one of the current Broadcom models. Asus definitely has done a much better job vs the currently implemented Netgear UI, not to mention more settings.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

" they are working on a new UI"

I hope they address how cumbersome assigning IP's is to clients for DHCP reserved addresses. Forgotten how cumbersome that is compared to RMerlin's work for ASUS routers.