BQ16 Pro Quad Band

[Tech9]

Does this mean Qualcomm chipsets > Broadcom chipsets

All Qualcomm based home "mesh" products I have personally tested worked trouble-free from first attempt and for long periods of time. All popular Google Nest, Amazon eero, most TP-Link Deco are Qualcomm. Most business APs are also Qualcomm based. The best AC-class home router was also Qualcomm, Netgear R7800. Unless destroyed by firmware, Qualcomm products deliver more consistent results. Usually more expensive though.

 

[L&LD]

The chips (on their own) don't make the product. The hardware/software and GUI experience do.

There may be real reasons for certain performance discrepancies because of the hardware, but usually, those are mostly theoretical. In actual real-world use, the user experience is hard to distinguish between the two.

The manufacturers using the Qualcomm chipsets I'm wary of. Glad there is Asus and Broadcom as an option. One where the user is in control of the network, not the chips(/cloud).

 

[Clark Griswald]

Post #12 has me hoping there will be a script to take advantage of this new technology "fax".
Does anyone know if the BE98U Pro is getting an RJ-11 port?

 

[Tech9]

Does anyone know if the BE98U Pro is getting an RJ-11 port?

Pro models will have 2x RJ-11 ports for Dual FAX with fail over. The new technology looks very good on paper.

 

[RTWZ80]

The chips (on their own) don't make the product. The hardware/software and GUI experience do.

There may be real reasons for certain performance discrepancies because of the hardware, but usually, those are mostly theoretical. In actual real-world use, the user experience is hard to distinguish between the two.

The manufacturers using the Qualcomm chipsets I'm wary of. Glad there is Asus and Broadcom as an option. One where the user is in control of the network, not the chips(/cloud).

I think Qualcomm tends to push their chipsets harder hence the better performance, but at the cost of more heat generated. Most of the TP-Link BE routers seem to come with internal fans for cooling as did the Asus RT-AX89X. Similarly, the Snapdragon SoCs used by most flagship smartphones also perform better than say Exynos or MediaTek ones albeit at higher temperatures.

 

[Tech9]

I think Qualcomm tends to push their chipsets harder hence the better performance

None of the Qualcomm home mesh sets has a fan. All my Wi-Fi home and business equipment is Qualcomm based, no fans. Perhaps only high performance SoC with 10GbE ports need a fan. The quality of hardware and drivers support is usually better. This is where they push harder.

 

[RTWZ80]

Does these routers give any changes or low ms in online gaming ?

You'll probably need to look at this model:

ROG Rapture GT-BE98 | Gaming networking｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

Quad-Band WiFi 6E gaming router, new 320MHz bandwidth in 6GHz band, triple 10G ports, 2.5G WAN port, Extendable WiFi with AiMesh support, RangeBoost Plus, Triple-level game acceleration and free network security

rog.asus.com

 

[RTWZ80]

Judging by the completed Tech Specs page the BQ16 Pro will be in the market for sale shortly whereas that for the ROG Rapture GT-BE98's is still missing.

ASUS ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro - Tech Specs｜Whole Home Mesh WiFi System｜ASUS Global

Detailed specification of ASUS ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro Tech Specs，Model Name:BQ16 Pro(W-2-PK)、Network Standard:IEEE 802.11a|IEEE 802.11b|IEEE 802.11g|WiFi 4 (802.11n)|WiFi 5 (802.11ac)|WiFi 6 (802.11ax)|WiFi 6E (802.11ax)|WiFi 7 (802.11be)|IPv4|IPv6、Product Segment :BE30000 ultimate BE performance ...

www.asus.com

 

[Tech9]

I would wait for a BBQ model. At least I can use it for something before Wi-Fi 7 clients arrive.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

I would wait for a BBQ model. At least I can use it for something before Wi-Fi 7 clients arrive.

I heard these new fancy grills have the GT-BE96 integrated in them... the only downside, steak gets undercooked during firmware updates.

 

[Tech9]

Oh, I want this WiFIRE technology.

 

[cputoaster]

I disagree. I think they look better than the XT12/ET12, my only concern is for mesh nodes, they seem to be very bulky (being wide enough to have a row of 5 Ethernet ports). While OK for a primary router, it makes placement of the second node more difficult.

My personal favorite design still remains the Lyra Trio.

I think that this is much more compatible with my living room than black spiders. Even at this size. Would love to see Merlin on it.

 

[sfx2000]

Does this mean Qualcomm chipsets > Broadcom chipsets and if so, why is Asus sticking with the latter? Even if AsusWRT is optimized for Broadcom hardware, they did get the Qualcomm-powered RT-AX89X working pretty well in the end after some major hiccups. (mine still works fine particularly with 10Gbps fibre broadband).

AsusWRT is interesting as they support all of the major silicon providers, not just Broadcom - you can find QC-Atheros and Mediatek devices there as well, and they are peers of Broadcom with regards to capabilities and features.

Broadcom vs. Qualcomm - I would say they're roughly the same, both are good. I work more with QCA chipsets, but I have a healthy respect for Broadcom and the capabilities they offer.

FWIW - Mediatek is getting better over time, and they seem to be more open with regards to their drivers and firmware with WiFi5/6 at least, and I don't expect they will be any different with WiFi7.

 

[RTWZ80]

AsusWRT is interesting as they support all of the major silicon providers, not just Broadcom - you can find QC-Atheros and Mediatek devices there as well, and they are peers of Broadcom with regards to capabilities and features.

Broadcom vs. Qualcomm - I would say they're roughly the same, both are good. I work more with QCA chipsets, but I have a healthy respect for Broadcom and the capabilities they offer.

FWIW - Mediatek is getting better over time, and they seem to be more open with regards to their drivers and firmware with WiFi5/6 at least, and I don't expect they will be any different with WiFi7.

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong but I remember reading somewhere that AsusWRT in the early days worked better with Broadcom chipsets and that's where they continued to develop and optimize for from then on. And Asus' use of Qualcomm chipsets seems a tad sparse these few years. Don't know if it's something to do with Broadcom's botched attempts to acquire Qualcomm or simply an issue with price as mentioned by Tech9 above....

 

[sfx2000]

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong but I remember reading somewhere that AsusWRT in the early days worked better with Broadcom chipsets and that's where they continued to develop and optimize for from then on. And Asus' use of Qualcomm chipsets seems a tad sparse these few years. Don't know if it's something to do with Broadcom's botched attempts to acquire Qualcomm or simply an issue with price as mentioned by Tech9 above....

Ok, you're wrong, and I'm correcting you

The community here is Broadcom centric, mostly because of @RMerlin and his efforts along with an active scripting community.

BTW - one cannot really discuss pricing as this is all confidential information between the vendors and their customers.

 

[sfx2000]

None of the Qualcomm home mesh sets has a fan. All my Wi-Fi home and business equipment is Qualcomm based, no fans.

I have a aingle QCA device that has a fan, and that's because the form factor is not large enough to support a proper heat sink - but that could have easily been any vendor, so it's not specific to QCA.

That being said - I've got more than a few devices across QCA, Mediatek, and Broadcom - there's hardly a difference between them - if one squints really hard, QCA and Broadcom are very similar, and Mediatek is close behind and getting better...

From a developer perspective - I've found that QCA and Mediatek BSP's are very similar in that they've both forked OpenWRT - mostly so that they can support multiple chipsets and platforms with the same BSP and build environments. They're fairly modular, and if one is used to working with OpenWRT, the ramp up time is fairly quick - I've seen some vendor implementations with QCA that are skinned versions of the QSDK directly in production code from Netgear and others...

Broadcom I can't comment on much, but I've been told that the newer HND software developer kits are easier to work with compared to earlier chipsets...

 

[Tech9]

I don't know many Broadcom based business products. Must be some reason behind it.

 

[sfx2000]

I don't know many Broadcom based business products. Must be some reason behind it.

I would not make anything of that - Residential is always higher volume that enterprise, and there I see a lot of Broadcom - in the enterprise space, QCA does tend to be more common, mostly because of the long term relationships...

Oddly enough, based on recent wireless surveys - Quantenna was very common early on in the WiFi6 space with carrier provided equipment, but most of those have been replaced by Residential Gateways that are either QCA or Broadcom (there it's about a 75/25 percent split in favor of QCA)

I've seen a lot of Mediatek lately over in 5G-FWA, early on it was Qualcomm on the 5G side and QCA ath11k on the WLAN - but T-Mobile has put a lot of emphasis on Mediatek based solutions with the Arcaydian and Sagemencom gateways...

 

[RTWZ80]

I don't know many Broadcom based business products. Must be some reason behind it.

I suspect it's because Broadcom's historically more Asia-centric by design. I follow the M&A circles and the reason why it relocated corporate headquarters from Singapore to California is that the previous US administration shot down its attempted takeovers of QCA on national security concerns (it does business with PRC clients including Huawei). Hence BCM's got more pull with APAC-based clients on the consumer (eg. Asus) as well as enterprise (eg. FS.com) sides.

 

[sfx2000]

I suspect it's because Broadcom's historically more Asia-centric by design. I follow the M&A circles and the reason why it relocated corporate headquarters from Singapore to California is that the previous US administration shot down its attempted takeovers of QCA on national security concerns (it does business with PRC clients including Huawei). Hence BCM's got more pull with APAC-based clients on the consumer (eg. Asus) as well as enterprise (eg. FS.com) sides.

We're getting way off-topic here - the Broadcom vs. Qualcomm thing - as a Qualcomm shareholder at the time, it was a hell of a proxy fight between Hock Tan and Qualcomm's board of directors...

You say you "follow the M&A circles", but you're showing that you are not aware of the specifics here...