Brand New RT-N16 Or Refurb N66U?

[hyelton]

Wireless is not the main concern here. Just have a ton of devices either mostly wired or connected via access point.

Which would be better for routing, Stability, etc.

I can get a BRAND new RT-N16 with $10 rebate. OR a Referb for about the same price as the N16 without a rebate.

I`d also plan to be running DD-WRT or Tomato as well if that might play a role in choosing.

 

[azazel1024]

The N66u is going to have a much more capable processor in it. Though, no idea if your setup would bring a N16 to its knees or not.

As I have found, even if things are working fine, a newer/faster router can still improve things. My old Netgear 3500L I was using as a router was just fine, hitting nice 83/38Mbps numbers on my 75/35 connection. Pretty good wireless throughput and so on. Just replaced it with a couple of year newer TP-Link WDR3600 last night. Wireless is improved a hair (but only a hair)...which I expected as I replaced my AP, which was also a Netgear 3500L with a WDR3600 a few weeks ago. However, page loads and latency are way down.

On my desktop (wired) page loads are almost instantaneous with a very small number of exceptions, compared to a second or two of waiting before a page would load. Speed is the same, but my average latency to the nearest location with speed test went from around 20ms, to 13ms.

So newer/more capable routers can sometimes have nice effects on the performance of your network, even if the older/less capable one isn't being "brought to its knees".

 

[pete y testing]

Wireless is not the main concern here. Just have a ton of devices either mostly wired or connected via access point.

Which would be better for routing, Stability, etc.

I can get a BRAND new RT-N16 with $10 rebate. OR a Referb for about the same price as the N16 without a rebate.

I`d also plan to be running DD-WRT or Tomato as well if that might play a role in choosing.

i agree with the above comments totally

i would also wonder where you would find a brand new N16 as i dont think they have been available for sale for quite some time , well they certainly havnt been available here in Australia for quite some time

what are you plans for using ddwrt and what do you expect to achieve by using ddwrt as the days of dd wrt massively increasing router and wireless performance is long past and it really comes down to if your going to use one of dd wrt extra features like client or repeater bridge

 

[hyelton]

i agree with the above comments totally

i would also wonder where you would find a brand new N16 as i dont think they have been available for sale for quite some time , well they certainly havnt been available here in Australia for quite some time

what are you plans for using ddwrt and what do you expect to achieve by using ddwrt as the days of dd wrt massively increasing router and wireless performance is long past and it really comes down to if your going to use one of dd wrt extra features like client or repeater bridge

Amazon & Newegg sell the N16 all day and everyday for several years lol they have even changed the outside packing etc