Should I grab an AC router?

[satindemon4u]

Hey guys. For whatever reason I have been in the dark about AC routers and just stumbled upon them about a month ago. Maybe I need to come out from my rock a little more often.

In any event, I was wondering, should I get one? I know that is a pretty broad question but with tax returns coming of course I have money burning hole in my pocket...before I even have it. My current router is a Netgear WNR1000. We currently have Charter and have to 60mb package. In terms of realistic download speed I get about 2-5MB/sec depending of course. Sometimes higher. That's plugged in, not wireless.

So, will I see any performance gains with an upgrade? Or should I just stay put?

 

[Dethroy]

You won't see any performance gains. Only when shuffeling data around from one device to another in your wireless network.

 

[satindemon4u]

You won't see any performance gains. Only when shuffeling data around from one device to another in your wireless network.

That's kind of what I was thinking. I figured somewhere there would be some sort of bottleneck.

 

[fullinfusion]

Plugged in no you wont see a difference, Wireless though you'll see a huge improvement.

I had a netgear 3700 router and yeah it was ok to say the least.. I did upgrade to a TP-Link router.

Wired is the same but on both wireless bands is where it really shines through. I also have a 60MB connection and while using the Xbox one over Wi-Fi that's where the performance shows.

No more packet loss, no more re-booting the router and modem... Nothing! My speeds are full throttle on the 2.4 and 5GHz band. Also Streaming from the Xbox one to my PC to play games while the wife watches TV I have no issues of lag or anything.

The Netgear was the craps for speed, it just couldn't handle the traffic and for the $200 I paid for this thing it was the best bang for my buck in a long time.

 

[satindemon4u]

Plugged in no you wont see a difference, Wireless though you'll see a huge improvement.

I had a netgear 3700 router and yeah it was ok to say the least.. I did upgrade to a TP-Link router.

Wired is the same but on both wireless bands is where it really shines through. I also have a 60MB connection and while using the Xbox one over Wi-Fi that's where the performance shows.

No more packet loss, no more re-booting the router and modem... Nothing! My speeds are full throttle on the 2.4 and 5GHz band. Also Streaming from the Xbox one to my PC to play games while the wife watches TV I have no issues of lag or anything.

The Netgear was the craps for speed, it just couldn't handle the traffic and for the $200 I paid for this thing it was the best bang for my buck in a long time.

Well that's what drew it to me. My desktop is the only thing in the house actually plugged in. Everything else is wireless; my PS4, Laptop and a streaming DVD player/combo.

 

[newtekie1]

If your devices don't actually have wireless AC network adapters, you won't see a benefit by switching to a wireless AC router. Your laptop you may be able to upgrade with a Wireless AC adapter(even if it is USB), but I don't think it is likely you can upgrade the PS4 or DVD Player.

 

[RejZoR]

Any 802.11n router will do around 7-8MB/s so you should be fine with any non AC router. Also be aware that not many devices support AC and that range for 802.11ac signal is pathetic. In places where 11g and 11n have 4-5 bars of signal, 5GHz AC isn't even detected.

So, if it's a long distance communication, don't even bother. Only good thing about them is that they have really fast multi-core CPU's, meaning you can hammer them with P2P and they won't fail. Something cheap routers usually have problems with...

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

I have a high end ASUS RT-AC87U Wireless-AC2400. I don't have any AC adaptors to test the AC speed there is improvement in speed for my N devices because of the router extended range and processing capability to handle traffic. Other than that the speed improvement is not that much. My advise is to plug in whenever possible. Plug in is better than even an ac signal. Your ISP speed is nowhere near even saturating the wireless n router what is more an ac. My Isp is much higher (near gigabit speed) than yours but still found the speed improvement on ac router to be marginal still going to ac.

 

[remixedcat]

I would just get a solid wired router like a ubiquiti ERL or the like, and then just upgrade the APs when needed. That way it's much smoother and you have more control than consumer routers.