Wondering if I made a mistake-- AC68 vs N66

[AtariBaby]

My router died so in a super rush I ordered a new one delivered yesterday. I got the RT-AC68. But then a little later I had an "oh yeah duh" moment. I don't have any AC devices!

Given the buggy nature of the AC68, I'm wondering if I should return it and get the N66. The price difference is about $80 which is not terribly motivating seeing as how I already configured the AC68 with port-forwarding, etc.

But if I would objectively be gaining a better router, being that AC is irrelevant to me, I should get the N66!

What would you do?

 

[RMerlin]

My router died so in a super rush I ordered a new one delivered yesterday. I got the RT-AC68. But then a little later I had an "oh yeah duh" moment. I don't have any AC devices!

Given the buggy nature of the AC68, I'm wondering if I should return it and get the N66. The price difference is about $80 which is not terribly motivating seeing as how I already configured the AC68 with port-forwarding, etc.

But if I would objectively be gaining a better router, being that AC is irrelevant to me, I should get the N66!

What would you do?

Aside from 802.11ac, the AC68U will also give you much better disk sharing performance thanks to its USB3 port. Up to you to decide if this makes it worth the extra 80$ - it's depends on your specific needs.

If you don't have any triple stream devices (very frew people actually do), I would consider the RT-AC56U as an alternative to the RT-N66U. It should be close in pricing, and sport the USB3 port that the AC68U has.

 

[canuckle]

My router died so in a super rush I ordered a new one delivered yesterday. I got the RT-AC68. But then a little later I had an "oh yeah duh" moment. I don't have any AC devices!

Given the buggy nature of the AC68, I'm wondering if I should return it and get the N66. The price difference is about $80 which is not terribly motivating seeing as how I already configured the AC68 with port-forwarding, etc.

But if I would objectively be gaining a better router, being that AC is irrelevant to me, I should get the N66!

What would you do?

Don't know whether this will help, but I just replaced an N66U with an AC68U. While I don't have any AC devices yet, I will in the near future. So far, the AC68U is rock solid on RMerlin's firmware. Also, ASUS has been knocking out the bugs pretty quickly, and RMerlin is doing a great job keeping up with the changes in his versions. If your needs are basic and you just want great wireless coverage/throughput, port forwarding, etc, AND you don't care about the $80...I'd keep it.

Netgear 7000 is the only other one in the same class AFAIK, and it does outperform the 68 in some areas. I'm staying with ASUS because I know they work, and that RMerlin continues to develop great firmware. If he quits, well, then I may have to rethink that.

All of that said, there's no question the N66U is a great piece of kit, I loved mine.

HTH.

 

[AtariBaby]

Thanks for the replies. I'm definitely going to upload RMerlin's firmware. Such a lucky thing for all that he decided to adopt this community!

 

[elpibe10]

Bought my AC68U a month ago but only deployed it recently after Asus released their .339 firmware.

After configuring the AC68U to match the settings of my N66U, I did a straight swap and everything worked perfectly (except having to disable HW Acceleration for NAT Loopback to work but that was a non-issue as my WAN connection is only 200Mbps at the moment).

WAN and LAN performance is almost identical between the 2 routers but Wireless range and throughput (both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) is definitely a notch higher for the AC68U.

I'm now getting 30+Mbps 2 floors down on the 2.4GHz band (used to be 10+Mbps). Also getting 200Mbps 1 floor down on the 802.11n 5GHz band (used to be 150+Mbps).

 

[elpibe10]

I bought mine and let it sit around until Asuswrt-Merlin support for the AC68U. (Asus, are you listening? Hire Merlin!)

Would have gone with Merlin's if it's also based on the latest .339 GPL. .205 is kind of buggy (esp. the WiFi) to me.

.339 has been great so far. WiFi really stable and fast, WAN and LAN connections as well as port forwarding (w/o HW acc) are rock solid too.