Asus RT-N66U replacement, need something with decent OpenVPN stability and performance

[RamGuy]

I need to replace a defective Asus RT-N66U for a friend of mine. He is looking for something that is better in terms of OpenVPN stability and performance.

He was running Asus Merlin 380.61 firmware on it before it went completely dead on him. He's on a 500/20mbit coax connection and was using the built-in OpenVPN Server features in order to get VPN connections to his home will travelling, being at work etc..

He wasn't too impressed with the OpenVPN connection stability and performance, it would drop-out on occasions and the download throughput was rather horrible with him typically seeing around 8 mbit down, and 15 mbit up using Ethernet at work on a 1/1Gbit fiber connection.


One thing he did enjoy was the AsusWRT GUI, the blessing that is Merlin firmware and how easy it was to get OpenVPN running on the router.


What should I recommend for him to replace the RT-N66U? Something that might ensure better OpenVPN performance and the same ease of use firmware?

 

[joegreat]

Hi,

As you come for the good but old and slow MIPS router platform, any ARM based router will have a much better VPN performance.
With the newest version of the AC68U (with 1 GHz default CPU speed) you get a good price/performance ratio...
Given the newer ARM CPU in the AC87U, I experience even ~20% more VPN throughput compared to my (broken) AC68U.

But still you will not get 100 MBit VPN performance, but up to ~40 MBit down stream and ~5 upstream with the rather small and low power consumption ARM CPUs.

With my VPN provider (AirVPN) I have rock solid VPN connection - over weeks of uptime with no issue (unless my ISP messes around and I need to reboot to get a new WAN IP).

And of course you should stay on Merlin's firmware version!

With kind regards
Joe

 

[RamGuy]

I have no real clue whether I will get getting the new revision of RT-AC68U or not as my supplier does not list revisions on hardware. But the Asus RT-AC87U isn't that much more expensive, but I remember when I had the RT-AC87U a while back and the 5.0GHz radio didn't play well with my devices. My friend is not using that many 802.11ac devices, but he got his MacBook 15-ich Retina 2015 model.

The newer models like RT-AC88 are ridiculously higher priced compared to RT-AC68 and RT-AC87 so those are simply out of his price range at the moment. I can't really see any logical reason for him to chose the RT-AC88 over the RT-AC68 either, considering the huge price difference.


On the other side I see many people recommending the Netgear Nighthawk X4S R7800, but I'm not entirely sure how the Qualcomm-Atheros SoC compares to the Broadcom SoC of the RT-AC68 and RT-AC87. And I have no real experience with Netgear firmware the past few years.

 

[joegreat]

I have no real clue whether I will get getting the new revision of RT-AC68U or not as my supplier does not list revisions on hardware. But the Asus RT-AC87U isn't that much more expensive, but I remember when I had the RT-AC87U a while back and the 5.0GHz radio didn't play well with my devices. My friend is not using that many 802.11ac devices, but he got his MacBook 15-ich Retina 2015 model.

As the new version is out now for some time it's most likely that you get it - but if not you can sill overclock the router to get the same performance!
I went thru the same thinking after my AC68U died and I have choosen the AC87U as it was just 30 bugs over the price of a new AC68U.
Lucky me I had no issues with 5G - or better after updating twice and factory resting it and therefore I am staying on .59 firmware as it plays so wonderful with all my devices (incl. iPhones).

On the other side I see many people recommending the Netgear Nighthawk X4S R7800, but I'm not entirely sure how the Qualcomm-Atheros SoC compares to the Broadcom SoC of the RT-AC68 and RT-AC87. And I have no real experience with Netgear firmware the past few years.

As there is not that great choice of firmware alternatives for Netgear as for Asus (they even cooperate with the open source firmware guys like Merlin!), I would not go for another brand at this point in time!

 

[RMerlin]

As a reference, with an OpenVPN tunnel using AES-128-CBC, an RT-N66U can achieve around 20 Mbps, while an RT-AC68U can achieve 50 Mbps. Having the newer Revision C1 might bump that to 60-65 Mbps in theory (I haven't measured that one).

So, even if you had an older B1 revision, it would still more than double his OpenVPN throughput.

But if he wants a lot more performance than that, the only solution is to have a desktop-class CPU handling OpenVPN.

 

[tdurden123]

As a reference, with an OpenVPN tunnel using AES-128-CBC, an RT-N66U can achieve around 20 Mbps, while an RT-AC68U can achieve 50 Mbps. Having the newer Revision C1 might bump that to 60-65 Mbps in theory (I haven't measured that one).

Since the RT-AC87U is running a 1GHz processor vs the 800MHz processor in the RT-AC68U, would a good estimate be that the RT-AC87U could potentially handle about 62.5 Mbps?

 

[RMerlin]

Since the RT-AC87U is running a 1GHz processor vs the 800MHz processor in the RT-AC68U, would a good estimate be that the RT-AC87U could potentially handle about 62.5 Mbps?

Probably. But you'd be gambling with the Quantenna 5 GHz radio and its inherent issues, so not a good idea IMHO. Not worth the extra 12-15 Mbps throughput.

 

[RamGuy]

He will be getting the RT-AC68, seems like the safest bet and the price for the RT-AC68U isn't all the bad.