ASUS RT-N66U - my review

[njweb]

@njweb: what is the max bandwidth you purchased from your local ISP?

My plan is officially for 15 Mbps down but I am pretty consistently getting 21 Mbps down ever since they upgraded the network some time last year.
Upload is capped at 2.09 or 2.10 Mbps

 

[geobernd]

Have you tried the build in NAS and it's performance?
(I am soo close to getting the router - just need a little more convincing )

 

[Greg_Elite]

Okay, as promised, here are some test results of my Amped R10000 wifi versus my new Asus RT-N66U:

First off, if anyone understands what (other than packet loss) could have caused the Amped to have issues displaying a random number of Netflix covers in the main page I would love to hear theories.
Certain covers would be missing, then appear and then disappear again as I scroll up and down the rows of movie titles in the UI). Some would never load if I did not scroll through the list.
This was happening with my SmartTV but not my Blu-Ray player in the same room, despite both having the same Netflix menu look and feel.


TEST RESULTS (to save time I may paste some of this directly from my two Word docs so forgive the formatting etc):
All tests are 2.4 GHz unless otherwise noted.

1. Bedroom (adjacent to router room):
Amped R10000
20 MHz setting. Wifi Adapter rnx-n2x. antennae 90 degrees.
Signal Strength = -33 dBm (100%)

Throughput in Mbps (LAN Speed Test 2.0.9):
72.353 / 65.792 (writing / reading)

blu-ray bdt210 20mhz 5 bars sig strength

Asus RT-N66U
Laptop 20/40 MHz setting rnx-n2x antennae 90 degrees sig strength = -29 dBM (100%)
Speed Test = 55 / 46.696 Mbps
Blu-ray (bdt210 model) 20MHz = 5 bars sig strength
SmartTV = 89% sig. strength wifi


2. Living Room
Amped R10000:
Laptop sig strength = -43 dBM (100%)
Speed Test: 40.549 / 46.098

blu-ray bdt210 20MHz = 5 bars sig strength


Asus RT-N66U (20/40 MHz :
laptop - rnx-n2x adapter. sig strength = -45 dBm
Speed Test = 39.723 / 30.828
(I suspect 20 MHz would be a bit better based on testing both with 20 MHz and 20 MHz / 40MHz in the last room - see below).

bdt210 bu-ray 20 MHz 5 bars

3. Family Room (opposite end of house and one floor down from router. My home office room is in the corner and I do not want to move the router, PC and cable modem to the guest room, so I am stuck with it in the corner - I can only imagine how good the scores would be if it were closer to the middle of the house.)

Amped R10000:
laptop w/ rnx-n2x adapter signal = -49 dBm (100%)
LAN Speed Test = 29.721 / 44.827

bluray 20mhz = 4 bars sig. strength (out of 5)


Asus RT-N66U (router set to 20MHz only):
Laptop sig. strength = -52dBm (96%). When set to 20MHz/40 MHz, as might be expected, it was a bit worse than the -52 dBm at 20 MHz

speed test:
32.2 / 43.2 Mbps

bdt210 Blu-Ray wifi built-in: 2.4GHz = 5 bars (better than with Amped R10000, possibly due to Asus Beam Forming which may make some devices connect at slightly slower throughput than the Amped but which helps devices tucked away in corners).
5GHz = 3 bars (impressive given the distance and better than when using the Linksys E4200 5GHz)


I have a Linksys AE1000 dual band USB adapter (got it as a hot deal), that I did not like (which is why I use the Rosewill RNX-N2X most of the time - I also used my laptop's built-in 802.11n which works well for the room I use it in) with which I could test 5 GHz.
If I do so, I will post my results here.

I hear Amped Wireless is coming out with the R10000G witch I believe is your same router only with Gigabit ports.

So, overall do you find that the RT-N66u is the better performing router? I see mixed results from your tests.

 

[Geraner]

I just made a new test this morning, while sitting in the kitchen with my laptop.
(About 30 meters distance to the router with 2 thin walls and one thicker wall between.)
Running a test against www.bredbandsbolaget.se on the 5 GHz WLAN.
Downlink: 73,82 Mbit/s
Uplink: 67,78 Mbit/s

 

[KeithKman]

Got an email from Amazon tonight saying my RT-N66U will be arriving January 23.

 

[dinko]

Awesome speeds

Hello,

I just wanted to post a few numbers that I measured this evening (hopefully more detailed numbers this week-end).

My router is located on the ground floor of my townhouse in a corner (yes, not the best location but that's where the office and the NAS is). When I am on the first floor in the living room about 10 m from the router and through a wall and a floor, I get the following speeds (as tested by iperf):

Between the NAS (connected directly to the router via Gigabit ethernet) and my laptop:
2.4 GHz 20MHz channel: 30 Mbps
5 GHz 40 MHz channel: 96 Mbps

Between my laptop and another desktop also in the living room connected via 5 GHz wireless:
2.4 GHz 20MHz channel: 35 Mbps
5.0 GHz 40MHz channel: 40 Mbps

Results are not completely scientific but are a pretty good indication that this router seriously rocks. Also, I did a simple test LAN-LAN and got over 950 Mbps so really good.

Final note though, it seems the QoS setting also throttles WLAN to LAN or WLAN to WLAN. Originally, I had set QoS to 'On' and set the bandwidth limits to the limits for my WAN connection (25/25 Mbps) and the WLAN to LAN speeds were significantly affected (i.e.: I only got 25 Mbps). I turned off QoS and got the numbers above. Maybe I don't understand how QoS is supposed to work but I was under the impression that it was mostly to try to throttle WAN traffic.

Romain

 

[njweb]

I hear Amped Wireless is coming out with the R10000G witch I believe is your same router only with Gigabit ports.

So, overall do you find that the RT-N66u is the better performing router? I see mixed results from your tests.

Yes, I noticed Amped is releasing the gigabit version next week.

Given the addition of gigabit ports, IPv6, 5GHz, USB ports (in case I ever need them), faster CPU and higher amount of RAM ensuring it can handle loads and multiple connnections with ease (if needed), easier firewall settings (although the Amped did pass GRC Shields Up) and apparent amazing build quality of the RT-N66U, along with the fact that it may have fixed my Netflix issue, the RT-N66U was an easy choice over the Amped for my needs and desires.

From a pure wifi performance standpoint, the results of the RT-N66U exceeded my expectations (especially given the transmit power setting concerns I had and how great the Amped R10000 wifi performance already was compared to the E4200). They were indeed somewhat mixed when compared to the Amped.
That being said, they were close most of the time and the RT-N66U performance was great - signal strength was great throughout the house and throughput was decent enough.
The biggest good thing about the RT-N66U: My Blu-Ray player in the far opposite corner of the house one floor down is getting a 5 bar wifi signal (out of 5) from the RT-N66U which impressed me. I suspect their AI Beam Forming helped it beat the Amped in this particular test (with my laptop tests in the same room, but not tucked away in a corner like the Blu-Ray player, the Amped was better)... So overall I prefer the RT-N66U wifi (can only compare 2.4 GHz) since it seems to provide slightly better/ stronger 'directed' coverage in the furthest locations of my home than the already-amazing Amped which blasts the signal all around. 5GHz was also impressive (only tested signal strength) on the RT-N66U compared to my E4200 (the Amped is single band so I can't compare it to the other two routers.
The biggest surprise in a not so good way was the lower throughput in the adjacent bedroom when using the RT-N66U as opposed to the Amped. I did test them a day apart though so who knows if something else was playing a role (however, I did confirm my internet speed both days first, left the laptop and any running apps in the same state and put the laptop and adapter in the same exact spots in each of the three test locations).

I suppose for cases where budget is a factor, the Amped R10000 may fit many users' needs. The caveats being IPv6 may not ever be supported by it (not sure what their plans are) and that weird Netflix covers issue may indicate an obscure issue (I would need to confirm it by trying Amped again - maybe it just needed a reboot or something).
Mfr. Refurbished E4200 v1's for only $99.xx shipped with mfr warranty may also work for many users' needs.

 

[thiggins]

My wired client's shared drive was used for the reading and writing tests, running LAN Speed Test on a wifi-equipped laptop.

So "writing" is testing uplink speed and "reading" is testing downlink. Thanks.

 

[sirozha]

Can RT-N66U provide wireless bandwidth exceeding 100 Mbps?

The advertised bandwidth of RT-N66U is 450 Mbps + 450 Mbps, but we all know it's not attainable in the real world. However, one would presume that going above 100 Mbps should be realistic. I am seeing reports here showing that the bandwidth does not exceed 100 Mbps. This begs a question, Is there any need in upgrading remaining wired switching infrastructure from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps?

I have a Cisco 3560 POE switch at the central location that connects CAT5 drops in all the rooms in the house and also supplies POE to IP phones connected to some of those CAT5 drops. This switch is 100 Mbps, and that's where my servers are also connected. I was thinking of replacing this switch with a Cisco Small Business SG300 POE switch to bump the LAN bandwidth from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps. I am starting to doubt such an upgrade would give me any improvement in the bandwidth from Wi-Fi clients to the servers. For instance, I would like to improve the speed of Time Machine backups from my Macs. If the bandwidth between my Macs and the NAS hostin Time Machine backups cannot exceed 100 Mbps, there is no reason for me to purchase a new POE switch and I will continue using the one I already have.

 

[thiggins]

Three-stream N products can provide aggregate bandwidth > 100 Mbps. See TRENDnet TEW-680MB 450Mbps Dual Band Wireless N HD Media Bridge Reviewed.

 

[dinko]

Speeds above 100 Mbps

Yes, I believe you can attain speeds above 100 Mbps. My tests above were for my MBP which only has 2 streams. In the 5 GHz band, I was able to reach very close to 100 Mbps and it was also not right up close to the router. I'll try doing some more tests over the week-end.

 

[phila]

Let us know if shibby's tomato firmware allows both 2.4ghz and 5ghz. I am still waiting for mine to arrive today to test it.

It does work for me, I did not do any perf measurments though. I rolled back to Asus FW, because the QoS on that build is broken(at least is does not do what I want to do).

 

[sirozha]

Yes, I believe you can attain speeds above 100 Mbps. My tests above were for my MBP which only has 2 streams. In the 5 GHz band, I was able to reach very close to 100 Mbps and it was also not right up close to the router. I'll try doing some more tests over the week-end.

I had been using an older 802.11a/b/g Cisco 1131 access point for six years before buying the RT-N66U. So, I was never expecting to approach 100 Mbps over Wi-Fi. Now that I own RT-N66U, I'm trying to reevaluate my routing and switching equipment to see if I can boost LAN bandwidth beyond 100 Mbps. This would require some serious investment, and since it appears that my Macs do not support three streams, the ROI would probably be minimal and not worth it. It seems that Macbook Pros released in October 2011 have 3x3 Wi-Fi adapters, but the ones released before October 2011 only have 2x2 Wi-Fi adapters.

 

[darksamus]

It does work for me, I did not do any perf measurments though. I rolled back to Asus FW, because the QoS on that build is broken(at least is does not do what I want to do).

I got it working with tomato firmware. I'm thinking of going back to stock firmware. Did you have to put the router into recovery mode to put the Asus stock firmware or can you just upload the firmware within tomato?

 

[Greg_Elite]

Yes, I noticed Amped is releasing the gigabit version next week.

Given the addition of gigabit ports, IPv6, 5GHz, USB ports (in case I ever need them), faster CPU and higher amount of RAM ensuring it can handle loads and multiple connnections with ease (if needed), easier firewall settings (although the Amped did pass GRC Shields Up) and apparent amazing build quality of the RT-N66U, along with the fact that it may have fixed my Netflix issue, the RT-N66U was an easy choice over the Amped for my needs and desires.

From a pure wifi performance standpoint, the results of the RT-N66U exceeded my expectations (especially given the transmit power setting concerns I had and how great the Amped R10000 wifi performance already was compared to the E4200). They were indeed somewhat mixed when compared to the Amped.
That being said, they were close most of the time and the RT-N66U performance was great - signal strength was great throughout the house and throughput was decent enough.
The biggest good thing about the RT-N66U: My Blu-Ray player in the far opposite corner of the house one floor down is getting a 5 bar wifi signal (out of 5) from the RT-N66U which impressed me. I suspect their AI Beam Forming helped it beat the Amped in this particular test (with my laptop tests in the same room, but not tucked away in a corner like the Blu-Ray player, the Amped was better)... So overall I prefer the RT-N66U wifi (can only compare 2.4 GHz) since it seems to provide slightly better/ stronger 'directed' coverage in the furthest locations of my home than the already-amazing Amped which blasts the signal all around. 5GHz was also impressive (only tested signal strength) on the RT-N66U compared to my E4200 (the Amped is single band so I can't compare it to the other two routers.
The biggest surprise in a not so good way was the lower throughput in the adjacent bedroom when using the RT-N66U as opposed to the Amped. I did test them a day apart though so who knows if something else was playing a role (however, I did confirm my internet speed both days first, left the laptop and any running apps in the same state and put the laptop and adapter in the same exact spots in each of the three test locations).

I suppose for cases where budget is a factor, the Amped R10000 may fit many users' needs. The caveats being IPv6 may not ever be supported by it (not sure what their plans are) and that weird Netflix covers issue may indicate an obscure issue (I would need to confirm it by trying Amped again - maybe it just needed a reboot or something).
Mfr. Refurbished E4200 v1's for only $99.xx shipped with mfr warranty may also work for many users' needs.

Yea I might seriously consider buying one (rt-n66u) now.
Did you run a speed test from speedtest.net from one of the wired ports? Were you getting your advertised speeds (maybe off peak)?
Are those thin eithernet wires really so cool?

 

[beaglestorm]

For those waiting on an order from Amazon, they just shipped my RT-N66U today. I ordered on January 2.

 

[thiggins]

Greg_Elite and everyone else: Please keep posts on topic. Further OT posts will be deleted as was your previous post.

 

[KeithKman]

For those waiting on an order from Amazon, they just shipped my RT-N66U today. I ordered on January 2.

Thank you for posting this. I just checked my e-mail again and saw that mine did ship today also. I will have it tomorrow (1 day Prime shipping was $3.99).

Curious if the RT-N66U shipped from Amazon will have the latest, non-broken firmware? I'll report my findings.

 

[njweb]

Yea I might seriously consider buying one (rt-n66u) now.
Did you run a speed test from speedtest.net from one of the wired ports? Were you getting your advertised speeds (maybe off peak)?
Are those thin eithernet wires really so cool?

Yes, I ran an internet speed test yesterday on my hard-wired desktop after hooking up the Asus router.
I actually got more than my advertised download speed (21 Mbps down whereas advertised is 15 Mbps).
Upload is capped at 2.09 / 2.10 Mbps (never got higher than this with any router and also never lower except during occasional issues with the outside lines once in a blue moon).
I was getting the same with my E4200v1 and Amped.

When I ran the speedtest.net test from my wireless laptop using the RT-N66U I got roughly the same numbers too (this was on the far opposite side of my home and one floor down from the router which is in located in my home 'office').

I also ran pingtest.net right afterwards (yesterday) and got no packet loss and low jitter etc. (grade was an A).

No wifi disconnects yet (uptime has been about 30 hours now).

 

[phila]

I got it working with tomato firmware. I'm thinking of going back to stock firmware. Did you have to put the router into recovery mode to put the Asus stock firmware or can you just upload the firmware within tomato?

I just did an upgrade in Tomato with checking the box to wipe the settings/nvram. After the upgrade/reboot, restored my original FW config that I have save. Router is working like it did before.