Asus AC5300 or AC88

[PaperFriend]

I am having a hard time deciding which router will be the best for my setup in the future. Currently I am using one ac87 as a router and another ac87 as an access point. I am looking for two things speed and range. I am even open to keeping an 87 as an AP. I currently have xfinity extreme 250 which is 250 down and 30 up.

My devices are:

iMac 5k
Surface pro
3 MacBook airs - kids when they are all home
5 iPhones
Withings scale
Nest 3rd generation
3 dropcam pros
3 iPads
Rachio sprinkler
Chamberlain garage
Ooma
Synology 710+ Network hard drive
Kindle paper white
2 Xbox ones
Ps4
5 Apple tv's- all wifi
1 TIVO premiere pro
6 TIVO minis -

 

[RMerlin]

Get the RT-AC88U, and convert the RT-AC87U into an AP. It will give you pretty much the same result as an AC5300 - more radios. A single router will definitely have a shorter range than a router + an AP.

 

[PaperFriend]

Get the RT-AC88U, and convert the RT-AC87U into an AP. It will give you pretty much the same result as an AC5300 - more radios. A single router will definitely have a shorter range than a router + an AP.

Thanks for your help!

 

[jerry6]

Get the RT-AC88U, and convert the RT-AC87U into an AP. It will give you pretty much the same result as an AC5300 - more radios. A single router will definitely have a shorter range than a router + an AP.

Wouldn't the 5300 with 87 as ap be even better ? My 3200 with ac66 as ap and a media bridge is great , never get any complaints with 20 or so devices going .
Pricey but should work really well with all those devices

 

[NightOwl326]

Wouldn't the 5300 with 87 as ap be even better ? My 3200 with ac66 as ap and a media bridge is great , never get any complaints with 20 or so devices going .
Pricey but should work really well with all those devices

The why upgrade if your current works like a champ?

 

[thiggins]

Neither is likely to improve 5 GHz speed or range. Our tests showed the main improvement from the new routers is in 2.4 GHz.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...32896-will-a-new-ac-router-bring-you-wifi-joy

This is a particularly wrong time to try to "future proof" by buying an expensive top-end router. The rate of change in Wi-Fi continues to be very fast. Mesh systems are shipping soon (eero et al.) and 802.11ax is not far behind. MU-MIMO is in its teething stage, with no devices to speak of that support it.

If the RT-AC87 is working for you, leave it. Add another AP if you want to extend range. Move your slower devices to their own AP so they don't slow down the faster ones.

 

[jerry6]

The why upgrade if your current works like a champ?

I'm not upgrading , 3200 has a great signal and throughput , covers the house .

 

[ronan_zj]

I just upgrade from AC68R to AC88U, so I hope AC88 can handle VPN faster coz I have 150Mbps cable.

 

[RMerlin]

I just upgrade from AC68R to AC88U, so I hope AC88 can handle VPN faster coz I have 150Mbps cable.

You will never reach anywhere closr to 150 Mbps with a low-powered router - you need an actual desktop class of CPU for that. I'd expect a 30-40% performance gain at most with an AC88 versus an AC68.

 

[ronan_zj]

I just did the test, hmm, both AC88 and AC68 openVPN got same connection speed via PIA and TorGuard, so no performance gain through router. With the windows VPN software, connection was around 120Mbps.

 

[connorm]

RT-AC88U because there is really only 2 nonoverlapping 80MHz 5GHz channels you can use unless these newer routers actually support DFS?

this is one of the reasons i like tomato haha i can always be on a 5GHz channel that is not congested because i can use them alll

 

[PaperFriend]

How is everyone liking their new routers? I am about to pull the trigger.

 

[hackintoshsr]

My vote is 5300 only because the 88 I had something was wrong with it and I returned it. It probably got beat up on shipping since everyone else seems to like their 88.

 

[ssahnan]

How is everyone liking their new routers? I am about to pull the trigger.

Bought a new router every generation for past 5 years...the ac5300 for me personally, has been best out of the box experience out of any them. it comes ready to go to work out of the box, unlike the beta routers released last few years.

 

[sm00thpapa]

How is everyone liking their new routers? I am about to pull the trigger.

AC88U if you have a ridiculous amount of 5Ghz devices than go for the AC5300. But the AC88U should do you just fine.

 

[wouterv]

I thing thiggins was right as usual.

2.4 GHz is all settled, mainly struggling with over crowded channel usage. 802.11n is the way to go for 2.4 GHz, set to a bandwidth of 20 MHz in crowded areas and select a device with external antenna's for the best performance.

5 GHz is struggling with the 802.11ac compliance and DFS. You only get the best out of 802.11ac if both ends, the router and clients do support the same 802.11ac features (that is: bandwidth, number of streams, beamforming, MU-MIMO and more).
Further on 5 GHz struggles with shared channel usage, resulting in the requirement of DFS (google it). DFS can cause data interuptions, and you will struggle to make use of the full bandwidth (requiring more free adjacent channels).

In my opinion 5 GHz is ending. New (higher) frequencies will become availble, dedicated for wireless data communication.

Seen and reading the experiences, I believe the RT-AC88 / RT-AC3100 family (anything with broadcom chips) are the way to go if you buy a new router today.
Any other router seems like buying a fast car with low suspension, good for the race track, not for average city use.
[EDIT] Money wise the good old RT-AC68 seems still to be a good choice, the hardware upgrades indicate to me Asus will continue this winner for a while.

 

[doeboy]

Well I went for the 5300 because I got it on sale at Newegg for $320 with a $90 modem for free. So I figure that this router should last me another 3-4 years like the old N-66U did that I replaced. I had the N66U for a little over three years and decided to finally update to the new AC router because most of my house has finally updated to have AC cards inside of them. Same thing will happen in another 3-4 years when I cycle my electronics and get the latest gen stuff I will probably upgrade the router again to match the latest gen stuff. You say the 5Ghz might go away, sure it might but I doubt I will have any products carrying the new generation of freq's for another few years just like it took a long time for my house to fill up with AC devices. So to buy this now I believe that I made the right decision for my household because it has eradicated all of my dead zones that I had and works great! No need for an AP that will cut my bandwidth in half or power line adapters all over my house.

 

[Keynote]

Based on the testing that I did with Asus ac3200, Asus 88u, Asus 3100, R8500, and ac5300, the ac5300 chipset provides significantly greater range on the 5ghz band when compared to ac3200, R8000, and 88u.

This is in my test environment.

 

[thiggins]

Based on the testing that I did with Asus ac3200, Asus 88u, Asus 3100, R8500, and ac5300, the ac5300 chipset provides significantly greater range on the 5ghz band when compared to ac3200, R8000, and 88u.

This is in my test environment.

All of those except the RT-AC3200 use the same Broadcom 4x4 processor and radios.

 

[Keynote]

All of those except the RT-AC3200 use the same Broadcom 4x4 processor and radios.

R8000 has a different processor and radio as well. The antenna design and/or firmware is probably giving the advantage to the Netgear R8500 (channel 44) and Asus ac5300 over 88u and 3100. I was testing indoors with walls between the routers and the devices. All stationed in the same places and tests ran over a period of time.