Looking for new power house router

[MrMeth]

Hello

I currently have the DLink Dir 825 dual band N router that i purchase in 08-09. I have never owned any other manufactures router beside Dlinks dating back to my dir 704p. I just became so accustom to the dlink interface that it was 2nd nature to me. My dir 825 was the first time i decided to go all out on a router purchase instead of going for the cheapest model ( when i purchased the router it was 199.99+ tax ). I was really disappointed with the router because half of the options that i was excited about when i purchased either never worked or never worked properly. Share-port was just continuously crashing and i could never stream HD content with out the router lagging, and this is beside that fact that i replaced the router through rma 3 times. The final straw was today after upgrading my internet speed to 50/10 only to find out my router could only give me 33/10 So im in the market for a new router , my budget is $150-170. Im contemplating if i should jump on the ac bandwagon now even though its only draft 2.0 or hold back and get a solid N router at a lower price and then get ac later on when they have worked out all the kinks. Im leaning more towords solid N router cause there are no wireless cards for ac right now and considering that 2 out of the 3 laptops in my house are brand new and wont be upgraded for a couple of years , chances are when i actually have ac devices to work with my router it will be time to upgrade once again. So here are my list of requirements for your suggestions.

The router can be any brand once its a reliable and the company has a good rep. I would prefer if it wasn't a Dlink but if its a great deal or a really great router i would seriously consider it . Im in canada so , i only have access to newegg.ca , ncix.com , amazon.ca , canadacomputers.com and god forbid tigerdirect.ca.

Thanks in advance

reliability
budget 150-170
Dual band
USB port for Network storage
Gigabit ports

The router has to be a work hoarse these are all the devices that connect to it in my house hold.

2x8 port gigabit switches
2xPS3
4x desktop
2xprinters
3x laptops
4xsmartphones
1xtablet

 

[MrMeth]

No one has any input on my issues ?

 

[drunkducki]

ASUS RT-N65U Black Diamond Series Dual-Band Wireless-N750 Gigabit Router IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, 2 USB 3.0 SharePort
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320131

 

[MrMeth]

ASUS RT-N65U Black Diamond Series Dual-Band Wireless-N750 Gigabit Router IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, 2 USB 3.0 SharePort
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320131

I was currently looking at this model from asus.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320091
But I did watch the unboxing video on newegg for the ASUS RT-N65U. I was impressed with the fact that it had a dual core cpu and usb 3 but I would have wanted it to be N900 seeing I need as much wireless bandwidth as possible for my family. Do you have any personal experience with either models ? Are they DD-Wrt compatible ? The main issues that i am trying to avoid is an unreliable router , and something that is not going to chock my connection. ( like my Dlink Dir 825 is currently doing , only get 33mb/50 and when i connect directly through the modem I get 53mb. Open for suggestions , I would like to purchase a new router with in the next 2 weeks.

 

[MrMeth]

I was expecting more input than this! No other suggestions or personal reviews from other Toms users ? cmon guys help me out please !!!

 

[bill001g]

The Asus n66u you mentioned is very popular. Will it be more reliable...who knows they are all built in china. Asus tends to be better than some for support but if really want support you do it yourself which thing like dd-wrt.

Thoughput on routers is very hard to tell why they degrade sometimes. Seldom is it a cpu/memory issue. You can't even think to test with wireless since there are so many variables that can affect it.

Be very careful chasing all the big numbers on the boxes. Things like n900 are mostly a lie. They tend to mean it can run 450m on 2.4 and 450 on 5g at the same time. BUT there is no PC adapter than do that it can only run on one or the other. So the max you can get is 450m on a single device. On top of that 450m assume the use of 3x3 mimo. Few PC cards can even do 2x2 mimo and then it assumes you have a clean enough signal to actually do it.

Of course you likely have the largest network killer there is...old 802.11g equipment. When you run this you greatly degrade you ability to use the 802.11n features. In fact you must disable support for 802.11g to even have a chance to get the maximum speeds.

 

[dbhosttexas]

I have recently upgraded routers to a Buffalo WZR-600DHP. I haven't had it terribly long so I cannot attest to reliability, however the friend the recommended I look at them in the first place has the prior model to mine and has had it for 3 years in a 3400 sq/ft house with full WiFi coverage...

I replaced a Linksys EA2700 that was a gift to me, while I appreciated the gift, there were too many features missing on the Linksys, and that stupid Cloud Connect fiasco, followed up by vulnerable firmware they refused to fix was my last straw with them.

I would steer clear of AC. Unitl it becomes a final standard, there will be so few clients for it that it will be a huge waste of money.

If you are wanting max WiFi speed and are willing to spend 2x the price over an N600 router, the Asus RT-N66u is a VERY well regarded router. It takes DD-WRT just fine.

Check your clients. Mine are all N600 or lower. So paying the extra cost for something I can't use seems like a waste. THe DD-WRT gives me configuration / tuning options that mean that I can stream to my Android phone while sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house, with no buffering. I am using USB storage on mine with no problems so far other than I am using a very old disk for right now... (Have a 3TB disk on order waiting for delivery...). The only drawback I have with my Buffalo is USB 2.0 instead of USB 3. Not a deal killer for my application, but USB 3.0 would be nice to have...

bill001g is VERY correct in saying that your WiFi issues have more to do with mixed mode support that really, in effect means you are running at the lower spec. So your 802.11g stuff is keeping the faster stuff from talking full speed. I have one last piece of G equipment that is about to go wired which is my Wii. Once that adapter is isntalled, my G support gets turned off entirely. (Without G support my router and devices talk close to full speed, meaning my laptop and android are talking 200+ mb/s, which I am happy with). NOT something the Linksys would allow me to do. Anytime I tried setting it to N only mode the entire radio shut off...