what is the difference about these 2 asus modems other than the price

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Not necessarily "better". The signal strength and coverage is the about the same since the limitation on radio output power is the same as it has been since wireless first came out.

The difference is how much data they can put in the radio signal. This has the effect to make it transfer data faster. So it can send more data a certain signal level but the signal level (ie the number of bars as some people say) itself is not higher just because you use one data encoding protocol rather than another.

Again it likely does not matter as long as you can get more data that the DSL can provide over the wireless it likely makes no difference.
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Rookie_MIB

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Well, both are dual-band routers which means they use the 2.4ghz and 5.0ghz spectrum bands. So - if you have a lot of interference and compatible dual band wifi devices you should have very little problem with interference.

Beyond that the AC68U is compatible with the 802.11ac protocol which is 'latest and greatest' 5th generation WIFI offering better speeds and such while being backwards compatible with a/b/g/n wifi. Details here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac

The other one offers up to 802.11n (4th gen) WIFI which is backwards compatible with a/b/g wifi, allows for MIMO (multiple antennas for combining streams for higher data rates), both 2.4 and 5.0ghz bands.

Ultimately, which one would be better? That depends on the devices you have (what WIFI do they use, and what band are they capable of utilizing?), do you use a lot of inter-device transfer? Do you have a congested 2.4ghz band? How future-proof do you want to be?

Either one would probably be more than sufficient for the near future (4 years out).
 
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bill001g

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For your typical installation there likely will be no actual difference. Even if you assume you have 802.11ac nics in your devices most people just use a router to access the internet...ie they don't have home servers. Since these are DSL models and dsl is much slower than even the 802.11n radios can run. Most ADSL installs are well under 24mbit.
 
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Neonz99

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so what im really paying for is just better wifi signal/distribution.
right now im using a powerline to my pc and have another 2 people using wifi. but most of the time its just me through ethernet and one on wifi, so does this make a difference?
 
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bill001g

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Not necessarily "better". The signal strength and coverage is the about the same since the limitation on radio output power is the same as it has been since wireless first came out.

The difference is how much data they can put in the radio signal. This has the effect to make it transfer data faster. So it can send more data a certain signal level but the signal level (ie the number of bars as some people say) itself is not higher just because you use one data encoding protocol rather than another.

Again it likely does not matter as long as you can get more data that the DSL can provide over the wireless it likely makes no difference.
 
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Rookie_MIB

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Pretty much, yes. If you are using wired in any way, it's normally gigabit speeds which is best/fastest. WIFI for video streaming, even using the older 802.11g (54mbit) is faster than what I even have from comcast - which means my internal network is faster than the external network.

That's what always cracks me up about those comcast commercials and their integrated wifi solutions promoting how you can stream faster better blah blah blah. The technology from 2003 (802.11g - 54mbit) for internal networks is still faster than what most people have as a service plan (20/25/50mbit). You could have 802.11ac, 600mbit connection, but you can still only download as fast as your service plan.

Wifi in my house is provided by an older WRT54G running custom firmware (Tomato) which allows me to boost the signal output from the default of 20mw to 100mw which makes a big difference in coverage. My service plan is business class 20/4 (I run servers so I have static IPs), and I have no problems downloading/streaming/etc. On a router from more than a decade ago.

So - until ISPs start providing gigabit service, getting super-fast routers will only be useful if you do a lot of internal transfers and streaming to wireless devices.
 
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