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ASUS Announces RT-AC87U AC2400 Dual-Band Gigabit Wireless Router

btarunr

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ASUS today announced RT-AC87U, the world's first AC2400-class dual-band 802.11ac wireless router with a four-transmit, four-receive (4×4) antenna configuration. This stunningly-designed, easy-to-use router is also the first in the world to employ multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) technology. Combined with ASUS AiRadar universal beamforming, adaptive Quality-of-Service (QoS), plus AiProtection with exclusive Trend Micro security, RT-AC87U is expertly-engineered for outstanding performance and coverage in today's multi-device households. Offering 5GHz speeds that are faster than wired Gigabit Ethernet, along with class-leading 2.4GHz speeds and reliable multi-floor coverage, RT-AC87U is the perfect choice for discerning users with busy multi-device home networks who need extreme coverage, lightning-fast performance, rock-solid stability and total peace of mind.



Advanced wireless technology for faster-than-wired speeds
The AC2400-class RT-AC87U has blistering 1734Mbit/s 802.11ac speeds on the 5GHz frequency band - faster than wired Gigabit Ethernet - and uses Broadcom TurboQAM to boost 802.11n 2.4GHz performance from 450Mbit/s to 600Mbit/s with compatible devices such as ASUS PCE-AC681. This gives RT-AC87U an amazing combined maximum concurrent data rate of up to 2334Mbit/s.

Maximum coverage, with no dead spots
The explosive growth in smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart TVs and other Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets means that in a modern household the available wireless bandwidth is often shared between many devices. In standard routers, as more devices are connected the network can become overloaded, leading to instability, lags and slowdowns. RT-AC87U uses four high-performance antennas, four separate spatial data streams, ASUS AiRadar, MU-MIMO and adaptive QoS technology to solve these problems. The 4×4 antennas improve coverage by up to 33% compared to standard 3×3 models, and typically RT-AC87U can effortlessly cover an area up to 465m2, making it ideal for eliminating 'dead spots' in large or multi-floor environments.

Supercharged performance with two dual-core processors
At the heart of RT-AC87U is the latest Quantenna system-on-a-chip (SoC), featuring its own powerful dedicated dual-core processor that handles all 802.11ac Wi-Fi-related computations. This frees up RT-AC87U's 1GHz dual-core CPU to perform other processor-intensive system tasks - such as media streaming - much more efficiently. The result is a superb multitasking capability that can easily handle the simultaneous demands of all connected devices, giving an outstandingly-responsive network and also improving USB storage performance.

In our tests using three wired and two wireless PCs to simulate a busy multi-client network, RT-AC87U delivered up to 50% more total throughput (combined 2.4GHz, 5GHz and NAT performance) compared to a typical router with a single 1.2GHz dual-core processor2. USB file transfer performance over Wi-Fi is also improved dramatically - when transferring files to and from SuperSpeed USB 3.0 devices over 802.11ac Wi-Fi, RT-AC87U can perform up to twice as fast as a router with a single 1.2GHz dual-core processor.

The best-ever internet experience, for all devices
AiRadar uses universal beamforming, which detects the location of devices and individually focuses the wireless signal towards them for optimum reception. This feature even works with previous-generation Wi-Fi devices. The revolutionary and future-proof MU-MIMO technology means that RT-AC87U will be able to connect to multiple MU-MIMO-compatible clients at each device's maximum speed simultaneously, unlike standard single-user MIMO where individual devices have to wait for sequential data transmissions. This means that as users add more MU-MIMO-enabled devices, the router's capacity actually increases, giving all users the best possible internet experience.

Adaptive QoS is a feature that intelligently and automatically prioritizes and allocates available bandwidth to devices and applications as they need it, ensuring smoothly-streaming HD videos, lag-free online gaming, crystal-clear VoIP calls and uninterrupted web browsing.

Total peace of mind - AiProtection with Trend Micro security
Recognizing the increasing complexity and diversity of home networks, and the difficulty of ensuring effective network-wide security, RT-AC87U introduces the powerful new AiProtection feature, with exclusive Trend Micro technology. This employs a three-pronged approach to security - prevention, protection and mitigation - that assures total peace of mind. Its state-of-the-art protection continuously safeguards users and all connected devices from malware, malicious websites and other cyber-threats, while safeguarding user privacy and keeping a constant check on network security status. Alerts are raised whenever an infected device or other potential security problems, such as insecure passwords, are found.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
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Oh well at least it don't got macafee built in... *shrug*
 
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looking very sexy, but probably will be expensive as well
 
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and yah pay alot to be a beta tester
 
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And since they're gonna price it something like $250 at least, they really should've included 2 x USB3.0 ports with SMB/FTP, torrent box and Print sharing capabilities...

Too bad 802.11 AC support is still dismal in Linux and practically non-existent in FreeBSD so we're pretty much doomed to such trinkets.
 
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I'd want a really powerful CPU router to use TomatoRAF on it. Don't really care about wireless beyond G standard as the range prevents me from using any of it (N network doesn't even get detected in my living room 10m away, one floor up). What i care is super fast packet processing for QoS. My Qualcomm overclocked from 480MHz to 533MHz feels like it's struggling a bit on my E4200. Works great but i think a fast dual core CPU would help a lot.

But all these cost a fortune just because of N and AC nonsense i don't even need. All they do tehse days is make them faster and lower the range. Why no one is bothering to make routers that offer faster speeds at longer ranges than all these N/AC routers?
 
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I don't even care about wireless, I just want superior QoS performance at wired Gbit speeds with tons of simultaneous connections. Any suggestions?

I don't mind paying the premium for this router if it's really the best option.
 

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I don't even care about wireless, I just want superior QoS performance at wired Gbit speeds with tons of simultaneous connections. Any suggestions?

I don't mind paying the premium for this router if it's really the best option.
Build a gateway. Mine is powered by a Phenom II 960T and does a lot more than just routing and running a firewall.
 
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Build a gateway. Mine is powered by a Phenom II 960T and does a lot more than just routing and running a firewall.

I am going to read more about building a custom router like that, it seems more like my kind of thing. Maybe I can even use my current server with barely an extra expense and way better performance than these 1 Ghz dual-cores.
 

Aquinus

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I am going to read more about building a custom router like that, it seems more like my kind of thing. Maybe I can even use my current server with barely an extra expense and way better performance than these 1 Ghz dual-cores.

If you live in the US, you can get a 2 port Intel lan card for ~45 dollars and a 4 port for about 120.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Intel PT&tag=tec06d-20

I have one of these in my gateway and it works fairly well along with the dual LAN on the board.
 
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Benchmark Scores meh... feel me on the battle field!
I saw these in best buy for $279 usd..... about a week or two ago.....wonder if they accidently put them out early
 
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Instead of my 802.11.ac amped RTA15 I use my enterprise grade Cisco Meraki z1. Solid feature set and awesome VLAN implementation and QoS features. Also has very detailed client and connectivity stats and all kinda goodies.
 
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I just extend the coverage of the z1 with two Aruba rap109s and a Meraki mr12 AP.
 
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I saw these in Best Buy two weeks ago...

Priced with the Best Buy Guaranteed Markup (TM 2001) of course.
 
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Asus also is in it w best buy too. They make it an r instead of a u so no price matching or what not.
 
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Im still waiting for the 3200 model.
 
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No USB 3.0 ? So this is actually an downgrade from the AC68U??
 
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USB speeds suck on those routers anyways... so why bother?
 
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That is a beautiful looking router.
 
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USB speeds suck on those routers anyways... so why bother?

Yes it sucks, but still performs double the speed of USB 2.0 on those routers.
 
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I own this router. Received last week.
It was installed...and then unistalled (twice).
This router with the latest firmware "hangs up". Literally: after a day working out, suddenly the 2.4G led blinks fast and 5G led blinks slow...it is the signal that the router has said...bye bye...
You switch off and on again...and still the same.
And no way to access to the router...so you need to do a reset and...set up again...

But when it works, it is a good router (gettin warm soon...but a good router). But this...when it works.

Hope soon they fix these issues, because at the moment after a day you have 0 Mbps speed...because it is not working.
 
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Get the Merlin firmware.
 
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