ASUS RT-N56U or ASUS RT-N66U?

[matesmac]

Hello,
I'm really stuck. I have just little experience with routers, but I decided to buy a new one. One that would be appropriate to our networking needs. I've been doing my research on the web for a week now, but I'm still unable to make a decision. What device should I buy?

Our needs: We have a pretty small student apartment with 4 residents. That means - 1 mac, 3 laptop PCs, 4 smartphones, an iPad, PS3.

I would like to have my PS3 connected with cable. Everything else is wireless.

Also very important is the ability to connect usb hard drive. I plan to buy a NAS, but don't have enough money. So, for now we are going to share the usb disk in the apartment. Mostly for sharing some movies, music and school files.

What I want from my router? Stability and speed. That is it. Ability to access the usb disk outside the home network, or any other advanced features would be nice, but they are not necessary.

For now, my top choices are ASUS RT-N56U and ASUS RT-N66U. I'm just really unable to judge, if the possible performance differences are of any importance for my needs. If yes - I would be glad to spend the extra buck for the N66. Otherwise - the cheaper the better.

What is your opinion? I would be glad for any insight. If there is any other router, you would recommend for my needs?

Thank you very much.

 

[Astrix]

IMO between your choice: Go for RT-N66U

If you willing to spend more, go for RT-AC66U

I'm running 24/7:
- 5 IP Cameras
- 1 NAS (For IP Cam Recording and Movies..etc)
- Tablet as IP Camera Viewer

As and when, but most of the time:
- 2 Smart TV
- 1 PC
- 1 Mac
- 2 Laptop
- Multiple mobile devices

Below I just take a screen shot for 12 Clients running actively now without lag.

TapaTalking from Republic™ Of Android

 

[infodump]

Why get an AC? He would need AC adapters for all the computers and the tablets wouldn't even use it.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Think external antenna!!!

 

[stevech]

advanced MIMO... incompatible with external antennas

 

[matesmac]

Thank you for your replies.

I think, that AC is too much for our needs. We don't have any devices that could use its speed benefits. And I'm not really willing to invest in some adapters. I know, it is the future, but I would rather save some money for now and buy some AC router when it is actually a more common technology. And I'm not sure it would make any difference regarding the speed of our internet connection (60 mb/s).

 

[stevech]

Thank you for your replies.

I think, that AC is too much for our needs. We don't have any devices that could use its speed benefits. And I'm not really willing to invest in some adapters. I know, it is the future, but I would rather save some money for now and buy some AC router when it is actually a more common technology. And I'm not sure it would make any difference regarding the speed of our internet connection (60 mb/s).

good reasoning.

 

[Flak]

I've recently had the N65, N66 and AC66 in my house at the same time. Maybe I somehow got duds (I did exchange the N65 and N66 once each, so I had 2 of each in my house at a point) but they have all been returned. And these were all compared against a wndr3700v1 running Gargoyle that is slowly dieing.


In terms of wireless, all three Asus did indeed own the wndr3700v1 in terms of connection speed. However, the wndr3700v1 had the most range for me. Everything network related for me is in the basement (man cave is in the basement). Not including the basement the house is 2800sq ft. With the routers in the middle of the basement, in the usual location. I was only able to connect to the wndr3700v1 from the 2nd flr.
All wireless devices are N capable, some are 5ghz. The laptops are all intel based wireless... The phones and tablets, who knows. But it was the same for all of them.

And for the odd...
Regardless of firmware I tried, the Asus routers did not like my modem(s). Yes, I tried 3 different cable modems. I also tried very many different cables. Tried different power adapters for the routers.... In any case, the N66 and AC66 would top out 40mbps. The N65 was by far the most stable, it would top out at 65mbps and stay there where as the other two would jump around. My internet is 100mb down, the wndr3700v1 jumps straight to 100 then falls to around 70 and bounces (never going below 70) finishing in the 90s.


So take that for what you will.... Multiple firmwares were tried on each Asus router, including padavan and rmerlin's (for their respective supported routers).... Multiple power bricks, just in case it was a power issue. Different switches and switches taken out of the equation (so direct from a pc to the router). Different network cables, new network cables (everything is cat6). Varoius intel and broadcom gigabit nics (that's all I have and own).... Multiple cable modems (zoom, cisco and motorola). The performance was repeatable for all three Asus routers, both at my house and 2 others. So I guess I also tried 3 different ISPs as well.

So, take it with a grain of salt, maybe I just got 5 bad routers in terms of internet performance. Maybe they don't like how time warner, charter and uverse are setup here in WI....

So... summarize my rambling?
Wireless speeds were absolutely amazing.
Wireless range, for whatever reason was not that great. With the N65 I could connect from the 2nd flr, but couldn't actually do anything like browse the internet or connect to any of my media or file servers.
Internet was slow for me......

Which ended up being the stake in the heart. I was willing to give up 2nd flr coverage since we don't go up there much and the wireless is indeed much much faster then the wndr3700v1. But my weird experience when a modem was connected via the WAN port killed it for me.