Upgrade from ASUS N56U

[maiky76]

Hi,


It is time for me to upgrade my Asus N56U router after 4 years of good services.
I am happy with this router but all my new gear is now under AC standard.
Here is the list of the clients:

Macbook Air: AC867
Macbook Pro: AC1300
Iphone 6: AC433
Iphone 6s plus: AC433
Sony Android TV: n or AC
Ipad 2: n
Ipad Air: n
Apple TV 3A: n
Raspberry Pi: n
BD player: n
PS3: g
Wii: g
soon to joined by a NAS

The N56U did a great job at being rock solid I probably rebooted it less than 10 times including the FW updates.
The issue are that the 5G performance is not good at any location including 1m away and it fried a 2T USB HDD attached to it (I should have known that 24/7 for a USB drive is not OK…).

I am contemplating a AC68U, R7000 or AC88U with a bias towards Asus stuff because of the stability and user friendliness of the UI.

I will keep the thing for a similar amount of time (4 years) so having the fastest current standard per band is attractive (to me at least).
1. Is AC88U worth it or not?

I may be interested in having the time machine on the router if they are cable of automatically powering down the USB HDD when not used.

2. Anyone can feedback on the time machine + auto-power-down with Merlin FW?

3. Being in China VPN is a must have, is there a router able to select the clients that go through the VPN the ones that don't?

BTW I can survive a bit longer without updating


Thanks

M

 

[maiky76]

no one?
M

 

[L&LD]

Many threads similar to yours. Please search. (I even think one was almost identical, i.e. coming from an RT-N56U).

From your criteria and without backing my statements up by searching for links for you; yes, I think the RT-AC88U is the router I would be considering in your shoes.

 

[RogerSC]

Just a quick reply...I'd recommend the Netgear R7000 for you. Nice upgrade, and can run lots of different firmware. One of the top rated wireless routers here, and one that works really well for me. I've been enjoying it using Kong's dd-wrt firmware. Strong wireless, fast, and stable. You can also use Shibby's tomato ARM (or Advanced Tomato) or XVortex (port of RMerlin's firmware to the R7000). Great choice of firmware.

My second choice would be an RT-AC68U or RT-AC68P. Nice router, I'd use RMerlin's firmware. Not quite as strong wireless, stable, but not quite as fast as the R7000.

I have both the R7000 and an RT-AC68, and I find the R7000 better here. But both are very capable and functional, either would work for you.

 

[maiky76]

Hi,

I did search but did not find answers (at least recent ones) regarding my specific question #2 and #3 hence the post...
Thanks!

given the ugliness of the AC88U I would probably go for a AC3100.
BTW my internet speed is 100Mb/s according to http://www.speedtest.net/

M

 

[NightOwl326]

Hi,

I did search but did not find answers (at least recent ones) regarding my specific question #2 and #3 hence the post...
Thanks!

given the ugliness of the AC88U I would probably go for a AC3100.
BTW my internet speed is 100Mb/s according to http://www.speedtest.net/

M

This site has the most detailed reviews and rankings of any site on the net. Have some fun and a learning experience rather than requesting a spoon fed answer. There is many routers that will serve your purpose. Read and learn and make an informed choice.

 

[stevech]

Does your ISP-provided speed warrant the cost and PITA in upgrading the router just for 11ac?
Handheld WiFi devices rarely demand a lot of speed.

But, 4 years is a long time and many of us like to fiddle, me included. I've been happy with the last two ASUS WiFi routers I've owned. I don't worry with 11ac as the iPad in this house is the big WiFi user and it doesn't need anywhere near the current ISP speed I have.

 

[maiky76]

Hi,

I am not sure about the ISP (optical fiber) since I have no Ethernet capable PC to run the speedtest directly on the box...
but if the figures I get are correct that's about half of the speed I am paying for and it is just about the max potential of the N56U.

According to the charts the only upgrade in my case would be the R7000 for a 15% increase in speed which is indeed underwhelming.

However as I mentioned 5G is not working well plus I do a lot of streaming (mainly 720p) on my smart TV.
I thought I could segregate the TV (about 3m away from the router) and maybe my wife 6s+ on the 5G.
So having a working dual band/dual CPU is attractive to me.

Plus given the fact that we have only Macs I wanted to have the Time Machine on the router if the spool-down worked correctly this time.

M