Benchmark Results: PerformanceTest TCP
Can our Zap numbers be trusted? Well, the two tests agree on ZyXEL’s fair but unexceptional turn-out. The Asus N13U doesn’t quite pop out the same way here, although it still leaves one wondering, “Why exactly am I paying 60% more forthe N16? Ah, right—the GbE ports. And the extra antenna. Why exactly do I need the extra antenna?” That remains a very good question.
D-Link and the N1 Vision still mystify, looking far worse at distance tests here than they did with Zap. Linksys and Netgear’s WNDR3700 once more shine brightest. We keep wanting to praise the location 1 performance of TRENDnet’s 671BR, but those dang distance tests keep spoiling the fun.
Now, just for giggles, we also recorded PerformanceTest’s CPU utilization scores, not really expecting to see anything other than a direct correlation between speed and CPU usage since more packets means more processing. Interestingly, this isn’t always the case. Look how Netgear’s WNDR2000v2 has the lowest speed but highest CPU utilization at location 2, topping the chart at a whopping 29 percent. We’re intrigued by the resource efficiency of ZyXEL, Linksys, and the Asus N16. This may be something to keep in mind if you’re running other resource-heavy tasks alongside your networking app(s).