Linksys wrt1900ac vs Asus RT-AC87U (Router showdown!)

[walachewaka]

hello, at this point im really not sure which router to buy, both of them seem to be head to head! im more for the asus but linksys is based off the legendary wrt54g which i own at this moment! its becoming to slow for what i need and just slowly fading away.

which router do you think is better?

 

[bill001g]

The main difference will likely be the user interface you like better. Most the performance increases are for things like 4x4 mimo that assumes you can get 4 overlapping signals to work with no neighbors stomping on you. Then their is even the larger problem of finding a nic card that supports 4x4 mimo its hard enough to find one that does 3x3. In your case if you have old 802.11g cards in your end devices these brand new routers will just run at 802.11g and you will get no benifit.

I really don't know about buying these 802.11ac devices or some of the other ones you see on the market that have even more antenna and modes they run in.

The new standard for 802.11ac that they are calling wave2 was suppose to be done this year haven't heard much. If you buy now you may be out of date again in 6-9months so buy the high end equipment is a gamble. The ability to run 160mhz of bandwidth should give much more actual performance increase than running more overlapping streams even though they will likely use 160mhz and 4x4 mimo on some routers eventually.

 

[walachewaka]

The main difference will likely be the user interface you like better. Most the performance increases are for things like 4x4 mimo that assumes you can get 4 overlapping signals to work with no neighbors stomping on you. Then their is even the larger problem of finding a nic card that supports 4x4 mimo its hard enough to find one that does 3x3. In your case if you have old 802.11g cards in your end devices these brand new routers will just run at 802.11g and you will get no benifit.

I really don't know about buying these 802.11ac devices or some of the other ones you see on the market that have even more antenna and modes they run in.

The new standard for 802.11ac that they are calling wave2 was suppose to be done this year haven't heard much. If you buy now you may be out of date again in 6-9months so buy the high end equipment is a gamble. The ability to run 160mhz of bandwidth should give much more actual performance increase than running more overlapping streams even though they will likely use 160mhz and 4x4 mimo on some routers eventually.

 

[walachewaka]

a ok, it is true their power is kind of unachievable without extreme gear...

 

[bill001g]

I suspect you will get ok results with the 802.11ac that say 1200 or 1300 and you will save a lot of money.

 

[walachewaka]

I suspect you will get ok results with the 802.11ac that say 1200 or 1300 and you will save a lot of money.

so then u suggest the linksys wrt1900ac router i presume?

 

[bill001g]

It depends if you NEED a router or you WANT a router. If you feel your current configuration is ok say to first part of next year I would wait and buy the new 802.11ac wave2 technology. If you just want a new toy then its up to you how much money you go to. They have 802.11ac routers now that are well under $100 that can get actual throughput ratings over 200m. If you have a need for more than that then it may be worth buying somethings faster.
This site has a lot of information about the difference between routers but I am not sure they have tested the ones you mention yet. Reading how they get the numbers for these is very informative as to how much smoke and mirrors there really is in the numbers quoted by vendors.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/bar/113-5-ghz-dn-c

 

[christinebcw]

Thanks to some kind person here, I've been working on this WikiDevi page about the 801.11ac 'radio chipsets'.

Starting about a third-the-way down this long LONG page, there is alpha-chart of AC devices.

ASUS 87U is using a Broadcom BCM4709A0 chipset then a mix of Quantenna & Broadcoms. The Linksys WRT1900ac router is using Marvell chips thru-out.

In Bill's above post, his SMALL NET BUILDER strikes the odd blow for a little guy by showing the $100 TP-Link 1750ac with a thru-put that's a 'mere' 25% less but $150 (and 150%) cheaper than the LinkSys WRT1900. To me, that's the definition of "value".

And don't forget that the adapter to reach these max performances is the $100 Asus, by the way. Not much competition out there in the adapter field at this point.

This incredibly slow appearance of adapters following all of these leaps in Routers is strange. It makes Bill's cautions about Wave2 technology sound like a wise consideration - when the industry is only jumping ahead in routers, then dragging their feet on the other needed half - why?