3 months later...AC87U or AC68U to replace N66U

[neil0311]

Let me say that my RT-N66U is still working fine. It's stable and throughput on wireless exceeds my 105Mb connection to Comcast.

Having said that, with the normal refresh cycle, most of the devices in my home (family of 5) now support 802.11ac. Given that and some of the inherent range and CPU upgrades in newer 802.11ac routers, I'm considering an upgrade.

Back in Aug, I picked up the RT-AC87R at Bestbuy but returned it after a week as it was just not working (disconnects, reboots, etc). Now that some updates to firmware have been released, I'm again considering the AC87, but I'm leaning more towards a more stable model (cheaper too), like the RT-AC68U, especially given the lack of MU-MIMO clients.

So...the question for everyone...forgetting price, do you recommend an upgrade to the RT-AC87U or the RT-AC68U?

 

[FunkyTown]

Hi there,

I recommend the AC68U over the AC87U. I bought an AC87U last month and had several issues with it dropping speed with the wireless signal 5 GHz after it was on and running for a few hours. A reboot would fix it. I decided to factory reset the router and after re-entering the settings manually it was the same behaviour. I decided to configure the router so that it would be an access point instead of a gateway to the Internet. I used a different router for my Internet gateway. In this mode I had a different problem with the 5 GHz signal. I could not access any LAN device while using the 5 GHz band. I could not access my main router, I could not access any of my security cameras, and I could not access my Asterisk PBX or voip phones. Switching to the 2.4 GHz made a difference. Everything worked using the 2.4 GHz band. I decided to return this router as there are obvious issues with it. I paid over $300 for that router so I was expecting more.

I ended up purchasing the AC68U instead. So far I have been very pleased with this router! Last week I discovered that I could install Tomato firmware onto this router. Wow! I have not rebooted the router in a week and there is not a thing wrong with it. The signal is strong in every room of my house, the speed is terrific, and I have so many settings while using the Tomato firmware that it was like purchasing a $600 router.

I think that the AC87U router will be a good router once the firmware has been updated to fix all of the bugs (particularly with the 5 GHz band while in access point mode). It is a lot of money though, and the 68 router does everything. The 68 model gets warm while the 87 model gets hot which means it probably uses more electricity.

 

[waltersmith]

Why are you limiting options to ASUS routers? I did the same thing for years and just recently purchased my first non-ASUS router in a long time. It is so much better than any ASUS product on the software side. Make yourself happy and impressed, try the competition. Let's face it, ASUS has fallen far behind on the software/firmware side of things. I'll never buy again personally after my latest great experience with the competition.

 

[hggomes]

Share with us about it, are you talking about what product?

 

[FunkyTown]

I have a Cisco router I'm pleased with - the RV042G. I used to love Netgear but whatever they are doing these days I will no longer buy anything from Netgear. The quality is out the window with their networking gear and there's some person on their forum who replies in broken English to every single complaint that anyone makes and he/she never gives a solution other than call Netgear support. I may as well call my cats. I switched to ASUS after a lot of trouble with "other" routers. So far, I'm extremely pleased with the AC68U. Especially now that it has Tomato firmware on it. It's rock solid and the wireless range is excellent. Their latest router AC87U does not impress me. I've gone through many routers than most people because I've been searching for one that works well with VoIP and most routers I've purchased and then sold have had issues. It's extremely difficult to find a router that just works well in every aspect. Some don't have good wireless signal. Others are full of bugs and need to be rebooted constantly. Some have logging options that do not work. My last purchase would not allow me to access my LAN devices while in AP mode. It's one problem after the other with every single router I bought until I landed on the AC68U and Tomato firmware.

If you have a better router in mind, tell us what the router is. Don't just say ASUS is not good and move on to something better like you did. There are dozens of router manufacturers out there and I can assure you that ASUS is not at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to quality. There are far worse. You should give us more details to back up what you are saying to avoid communication issues.

 

[neil0311]

Why are you limiting options to ASUS routers? I did the same thing for years and just recently purchased my first non-ASUS router in a long time. It is so much better than any ASUS product on the software side. Make yourself happy and impressed, try the competition. Let's face it, ASUS has fallen far behind on the software/firmware side of things. I'll never buy again personally after my latest great experience with the competition.

I'm not limiting myself, and have been keeping an eye on the Netgear R8000 and R7500, but this is a forum for discussion on Asus routers...right?

My previous experience with my Cisco/Linksys and Netgear routers was that neither did a good job with firmware, whereas Asus and folks like Merlin do a pretty good...dare I say excellent job...with Asus firmware.

In my monitoring of the Netgear forums, there has been one beta release for the R8000 in the last 2 months. People are still having issues. Please correct that perception if your experience has been different.

 

[drabisan]

What I learned until now is that Asus needs ~6-9 months to build a stable firmware.
Is not something Asus does better or worst than other companies. They buys chipsets, get access to some SDK and try to do the best out of it. It's a learning curve plus listen to their customers.
Merlin pays lots of attention and he address it in his releases...But he also needs to rely on drivers and sometimes poorly documented SDK.

AC68U I would say is stable now as router+AP. Is not at its the best on additional services like samba or torrent station. And definitely has a problem with USB connected drives (part is exceeding expectations from users, part is hardware design).

AC87U is on it's way to become a strong router. Almost there but not there yet...

I won't invest in AC87U as my clients are 2x2 and there are low chances to get a new client with a better wireless in near future.
Future proof investment? I believe "investment" vs "home routers" is worst than "investment" vs "cars". Although you can return a router in 30 days and get your money back

If you can: buy an AC87U, see for a week or 2 if it fits your needs at the quality you are expecting and if not, return it and get an AC68U.

My personal view

 

[waltersmith]

What I learned until now is that Asus needs ~6-9 months to build a stable firmware.
...
My personal view

Not so fast. I have the AC68U for years now and ASUS has still not released a stable firmware to cover all the advertised features. It is now demoted to AP mode, along with the old N66U which is a wireless bridge.

In trying dozens of firmwares released over years, the AC68U never could serve as a reliable dual WAN fail over solution, despite continuing to advertise Dual WAN fail over features in its product spec. There were other issues too including instability and speeds slowing until reboot. This lasted years. The Peplink router I now use for routing just plugs and provides rock solid everything including dual wan fail over with 4G modem with multiple hot or cold stand-by options.

 

[IAAI]

Currently running ac68u and its running fine most of the time . had the chance to play with ac87r when it came out and did not really like it at all.

I advise you to wait for ac3200 and compare it to ac68 performance then buy the one you like

 

[FunkyTown]

I never need to reboot my AC68U router anymore. I used to due to dramatic slow speeds almost daily. After installing Shibby's Tomato firmware that all went away.

 

[System Error Message]

I use an asus ac68u with merlin firmware. To make it more useful i've overclocked the CPU to 1.4Ghz and stuck a usb fan behind it. After doing some stress testing it has been stable for days and the benchmarks and processor info show a linear increase based on CPU speed.

I'd like to try other firmwares for the router but i cant find a comparison. The most important i need is stable and fast wireless.

 

[bbb0777]

OK, forgetting price...hm...

I think...AC68U, because:

1. People have worked out how to (easily) increase the output power: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=19262. Via that, I was able to even achieve significantly higher Wireless-N download speeds in my less-than-ideal zones that I was able to do with the gold standard - an N66U running SDK5 firmware. It makes the router insanely versatile.
   
2. More general user reviews (i.e Amazon & Newegg). There are enough of those to know the AC68U is pretty good and consistent. The AC87U doesn't have enough reviews to be confident, for me.
   
3. Among knowledgeable users, there seem to have been less extreme "this thing sucks" reviews with the 68 than the 87.
   
4. Vaguely, it seems as if the 68u runs cooler. That's good in terms of component life, I imagine.
   

.

So four real advantages or the 68u, while I can't think of any practical advantages for the 87u. The only advantages I can think of are:

1. Faster internals. But...honestly a cheap router/modem combo from an ISP is fast enough for most people's uses. OK so bump up to an N66u - should be great. Take a huge bump up to an AC68U - overkill already. I really doubt the extra speed in the 87u is useful for anyone outside of a minority of users.
   
2. AC2400...but kinda seems like it's just a number, and I'll never have receivers able to take advantage of it. I kinda doubt I'll ever have receivers ever able to take advantage of AC1900, actually.

It's kinda hard, to think of them ignoring cost. But I think if the same price - I'd go for AC68.

Edit: Though, if USB speeds were important, I believe the AC68, for a high-end router, sucks. So someone for whom those did matter a lot...well, and factoring price *back* into it, maybe the Netgear R7000, actually. If price didn't matter, I don't even know.

 

[System Error Message]

compared to the AC87 the AC68 runs hotter and has slower internals. However you can easily get a cheap usb fan and tape it on the router to blow air out to keep it cool. the AC87 CPU runs at 1Ghz compared to the AC68 which runs at 800Mhz. Both use the same internals mostly but are at different frequencies and speeds. Im not fully sure myself at the temperature of the AC87 although asus might've improved the thermal designs but unless you plan to do wireless bridging you dont need all those channels if none of your devices utilise more than 3 streams.

Without the fan my asus ac68u runs between 80-90 degrees at stock speed.

 

[hggomes]

I'm still astonished with people setting active cooling on their routers because of "high" temperatures on the CPU when they have a TJMAX of 125º.

70-90º are the most common temperatures seen on these routers and they are perfectly fine.

 

[FunkyTown]

My AC68U router is barely warm when I feel the front and back of it. When I had the AC87U I felt much more heat when I touched the top of it. It was borderline hot. My wooden desk is 1" thick and I could feel the heat under the desk. Without visually knowing where the router was on the desk, you could feel it underneath. The same is not true for the AC68U.

 

[LoneWolf]

Neither. Which sounds cryptic, but that's because I'd actually seek out the ASUS RT-AC68P, which appears from what I've been reading to be an updated version of the RT-AC68U, equipped with the newer dual-core 1GHz Broadcom BCM4709 that is used in the RT-AC87U.

The biggest selling point of the 87U is the newer, faster processor. Features in the firmware are being back-ported to the 68 series (adaptive QoS, AiProtection, etc.). The MU-MIMO feature of the AC-87 is of little or no use until future notice, as there aren't any matching client adapters that can use it. Also, the Quantenna radio setup means longer boot times. The AC-68's firmware is relatively mature. All of this means that there is little reason to purchase an 87U over a 68P.

I can say that if the RT-AC68P was available at the time I purchased the RT-AC87R, I'd have likely made a different choice. My router works fine, but I'd have saved some money without sacrificing any of the features I currently use. And by the time MU-MIMO becomes a factor, ASUS will likely have a replacement for the RT-AC87 on the market.

 

[hggomes]

Verify the temperatures on both routers through:

http://192.168.1.1/Advanced_PerformanceTuning_Content.asp

You will notice RT-AC68U with higher temperatures than RT-AC87U, this one has a better independent heatsink design.