Asus RT-AC66U vs Netgear R7000

[htismaqe]

I'm also very unhappy with the rumors that Linksys has dropped support for the WRT1900AC v1 already, which steers me away from Linksys big time.

The rumors are based on the fact that a V2/1200AC firmware update was released on 6/18 and the V1 hasn't gotten anything yet. It's just speculation and probably faulty at that, considering this:

http://community.linksys.com/t5/Wir...T1900AC-V1-ver1-1-9-166760/td-p/940253/page/5

According to that, Chadster was testing a V1 beta firmware AFTER the V2/1200AC release. If they've abandoned support, why would they still have beta testers spending time on it?

 

[sefrcoko]

I have all 3 routers, the WRT1900AC v1, RT-AC68P, and R7000. Of these the WRT1900AC can perform the best, but there's currently not any firmware out there generally available that makes me happy, so I don't use it much. I'm also very unhappy with the rumors that Linksys has dropped support for the WRT1900AC v1 already, which steers me away from Linksys bigtime. And the price differential, Linksys has apparently gone to luxury pricing, isn't worth the difference in performance (or having to put up with firmware that is lame for a higher price) to me.

I picked the R7000 over 1.5 years ago, and while the firmware has been a bumpy road, you now have stock, tomato ARM (that's what I'm using), dd-wrt, and RMerlin on the R7000 all available and mature. All good choices with different strong points.

I have found the RT-AC68P not to stand out in any category at my place, other than RMerlin's firmware...the wireless is not as good as either the WRT1900AC or R7000. So the router that I usually use is the R7000...great performance. And the IPv6 works well with stock, dd-wrt, and tomato ARM firmware, not with RMerlin on the R7000 for me, but it works for others. My IPv6 here tends to be a pathological case, difficult for firmware developers to get working correctly. IPv6 has been working on the stock firmware for some months...I haven't tested the latest stock firmware, but I'm hearing that they've fixed their icmpv6 packet filtering problem as well.

Anyways, I'd strongly recommend the R7000 of these 3 routers from my experience.

Just wanted to clarify that Linksys is continuing to support firmware updates for both v1 and v2 of the wrt1900ac, as confirmed in either the dd-wrt forum or the open-wrt forum (can't remember which one right now). The confusion started when they released the v2 firmware on their site and mistakenly took down the v1 firmware for a short time. They quickly re-posted the v1 firmware and confirmed they were continuing support for both versions of the hardware. Also, Kong's dd-wrt for the WRT1900AC is in closed-testing beta right now so good chance we'll have custom firmware in the future.

I tested all three routers discussed here and the Asus AC68U (haven't tried the AC68P) just felt like older hardware to me, with slower usb 3.0 speeds as well. Not bad overall, but didn't really feel like a big upgrade in my case. The r7000 on the other hand was great and had faster usb performance too, but I wasn't a fan of the front-facing usb 3.0 port to be honest. In the end I went with the linksys and am very satisfied since I don't immediately need all the advanced options of custom firmware and it's been rock-solid in terms of performance, reliability and build quality. Not really much extra over the Netgear for the price though, so overall the r7000 is probably the best value per dollar of the bunch.

 

[RogerSC]

Not to hijack the thread, but that's nice to hear that Tomato is finally stable on ARM-based stuff Roger. Just curious if you've been able to find any benchmarks on max WAN-LAN throughput? Thx for any insight there.

Just a quick off-topic reply *smile*. I can't test this myself in any meaningful way, but I've seen postings that indicate that CTF is working with tomato ARM now. That indicates that it would be suitable for a 1Gb connection *sigh*. I've been using v130 for some time, stable, performs well, IPv6 gets 19/20 on the online test. I'm happy with it.

 

[RogerSC]

I've learned not to count my firmware until it's hatched, especially with the 5 or 6 months apart WRT1900AC v1 firmware releases...when I see actual general firmware releases (including Kong's), then there's something to do more than speculate about *smile*.

Time will tell.

 

[sefrcoko]

I've learned not to count my firmware until it's hatched, especially with the 5 or 6 months apart WRT1900AC v1 firmware releases...when I see actual general firmware releases (including Kong's), then there's something to do more than speculate about *smile*.

Time will tell.

I fully agree. If custom firmware is a must-have, then it is always best to make a purchase based on what is currently available. Just saying that if it's only a nice-to-have, then hey, something is in the works