Advice AX11000 vs AXE1100 what to buy

[avtella]

I've also generally said the same as L&LD above in regards to dual 5Ghz on a router. Unless you have a lot of Wifi LAN work going on, a tri-band may not help for most people. When talking about spreading the load for multiple devices, that argument really only make sense if ones internet connection wasn't the actual bottle neck, aside from high LAN side wireless use previously mentioned. I usually mention this because I've seen people with like little LAN side use and with for example 100-200 Mbps ISP side, wanting to buy a try-band expecting improvements, when the device airtime contention isn't usually the bottle neck at those ISP speeds. It's good that you are assessing your usage before diving into a tri-band as you could get a dual-band for like half the price if your needs aren't that demanding.

As for what @Tech9 and @Spartan said, that's another thing that often people don't realize, most users will be not doing stuff on phones/tablets requiring extremely high speeds, at least most of us. Even streaming, the most bandwidth intensive thing most people do on phones generally requires much less than a 100 Mbps.

 

[John DeLuca]

The only real reason to upgrade is so I can get that extra 200mps I am paying for but that means I need to upgrade both the modem and router

 

[John DeLuca]

Is the 600 dollars or so plus wireless ax worth the extra 200mbps and wifi features is what It all comes down to

 

[John DeLuca]

Interesting I just did a speed test to test my network and I found on my high 5ghz band I got 250mbps but on my low 5ghz hand (I usually don’t use that band as I reserve the high 5gzh band for my devices) I got 376mbps… any logical reason for this? I have also been getting a lot of drop outs from my high 5ghz band that has been annoying and open reason to upgrade. I always assumed the higher 5ghz band would be slightly faster at close range then the lower one.

 

[avtella]

Well the other thing is if you are on a budget or not, if money is no option and you want the latest greatest/are an enthusiast, there is definitely nothing wrong with that either. But most of the replies from L&LD and others were from a practical standpoint.

I take it you are on Comcast? then its 1.4Gbps for the 1Gbps plan which is now the 1.2 Gbps plan and with Comcast's usual 15-20% or so over provisioning it's actually 1.3-1.4 Gbps.

 

[John DeLuca]

Yep that’s the one it’s so scummy what Comcast/xfinity is doing there most people have no idea they can’t get that speed. I wonder if the default devices xfintiy gives out are even able to put out 1.2gbps.

 

[L&LD]

Leave the RF 'theory' to the people designing the routers, client cards, and antennae.

Simply try every single Control Channel you have available (for an extended period) while keeping good notes for a variety of client devices used. At the end of the testing, simply pick the Control Channel that gives the least compromises for your Wi-Fi environment.

Do not use any 'app' to analyze the airspace in your area. Unless you're spending thousands on such a process, you're wasting your time.

The 'practical' testing you'll do will take everything into consideration, including surrounding Wi-Fi AP's (make sure you test long enough to allow the ones in 'Auto' mode to move off the channels you pick), Wi-Fi interference that you can anticipate (such as weather, airport and microwave ovens), and Wi-Fi interference that you can't anticipate, let alone see/test for with a mere 'app' on a handheld phone.

Additionally, the router is the one that decides what features/adjustments it makes to its signals depending on what 'it' sees, not what your hand-held device sees.

So, save your time for the work that matters when optimizing a wireless network. Good notes, manual Control Channels, and a reboot of all routers and test client devices between different Control Channels for the most 'objective' data possible for your wireless environment at the lowest cost.

(1) L&LD | SmallNetBuilder Forums (snbforums.com)

 

[Tech9]

I always assumed the higher 5ghz band would be slightly faster at close range then the lower one.

Why? The higher the frequency, the lower the range. I always had much better results on the lower band. More stable connection and higher throughput. Some people believe home routers increase Tx power on higher channels just because higher power is allowed in some contrives. No, they don't.

 

[John DeLuca]

Thank you all I am doing some testing and was able to the my second 5ghz band up to 320 changing Channels. I just posted somewhere else about QOS and higher internet speeds and I was wondering other then fq-codel, flex QOS, cake and chron jobs what other major advantages does Merlin have. Can you OC the SOC or increase the RX, TX power, I assume you can’t though but the stability from Merlin may make the AX worth it.

 

[Tech9]

I was wondering other then fq-codel, flex QOS, cake and chron jobs what other major advantages does Merlin have.

If you're asking this question, you perhaps don't need Asuswrt-Merlin on your router.

Can you OC the SOC or increase the RX, TX power

No.

 

[John DeLuca]

I have been out of the third party firmware game for a few years since I got my gt-a5300, before that I was running vorxel on a r9000 and before that dd-wrt on a x8. I haven’t looked into Merlin that much tbh I know I just don’t like running stock firmware because of the restrictions.

 

[Tech9]

I just don’t like running stock firmware because of the restrictions.

What restrictions, if you don't use anything extra in Asuswrt-Merlin? Current Asuswrt code is actually newer than current Asuswrt-Merlin.

 

[John DeLuca]

That probably applies to more of Netgear and DD-WRT then because you were able to unlock a lot more features with that then what was stock.

 

[Tech9]

You can't "unlock" anything hardware related in Asuswrt-Merlin, if it's not available in corresponding Asuswrt. You have more configuration options, extra firmware features, custom scripts. If you don't need/use any of that, stock Asuswrt is already enough feature rich and stable firmware.

 

[L&LD]

AsusWRT is not feature-rich or stable firmware (overall). But it is a great base to build on.

RMerlin doesn't use his skills and countless hours of his time for no reason fixing all the little bugs and glitches stock firmware has.

Using stock firmware on an Asus router that RMerlin supports is not getting all the security, performance, and features you expected when it was bought.

 

[John DeLuca]

That's what I thought that in my case it's more of the stability of merlin Vrs extra features that would make it worth it for me. I was going to use cake or fq_codel for QOS but from what I am understanding at 1gbps+ QOS is pretty much useless. I may attach a HDD or SSD at some point and use the router as a NAS if I have any need for such things. I also may want to try OpenVPN and DDNS on the router as I have not messed around with that in a while. I'll probably find some other fun things that either work better with merlin or cant be done without it but I respect merlin's philosophy of not bloating down the firmware with features as that's kinda what dd-wrt did. Don't get me wrong I love my Netgear routers with dd-wrt but they were definitely less stable than default Netgear unlike the situation with AsusWRT vs RMerlin. I honestly haven't done my homework on merlin yet but I know I would take merlin over stock any day given the limited info I have.

 

[Tech9]

in my case it's more of the stability of merlin

In most cases, If something is "unstable" in Asuswrt, it's the same way "unstable" in Asuswrt-Merlin. I would also prefer Asuswrt-Merlin, but I found mixing and matching routers in AiMesh 2.0 works better on Asuswrt, even with the same code base. Also, see this thread as an example, and another one. You have to decide for yourself what do you want. Both firmware versions are stable enough for daily use, far better than DD-WRT mess at the moment.

I may attach a HDD or SSD at some point and use the router as a NAS if I have any need for such things.

Please, don't. It's not working properly and may impact your router's performance. Use the router for routing.

 

[Clark Griswald]

I was going to use cake or fq_codel for QOS but from what I am understanding at 1gbps+ QOS is pretty much useless.

Correct.

I may attach a HDD or SSD at some point and use the router as a NAS if I have any need for such things.

A NAS should be attached via ethernet, and not usb.
I use an ssd in a usb enclosure for my scripts.

 

[Paliv]

Yep that’s the one it’s so scummy what Comcast/xfinity is doing there most people have no idea they can’t get that speed. I wonder if the default devices xfintiy gives out are even able to put out 1.2gbps.

For the record, yes their new gateway has a 2.5GbE port and my PC with a 2.5Gb NIC was able to get about 1450 from a speed test. The only service that I found would go over a gigabit was Steam.

 

[ulaganath]

So if you were to use LAG on WAN you can theoretically get 2gbps but no device would get over 1gbps even if it's using a 2.5gbps port?

No its may not be true yes there are limitation on how much a device handles rather ISP cant be controlling what device gets whats. Its router which deliver's the speed even if ISP router if it has 2.5gbe wan and lan it could deliver close to 95% at avg if the device is able to handle such speed.

Speed test is one aspect but a single client on wired can easily hit beyond 1gig and may even saturate a 2gbps if source can deliver that speed and device receiving can process it