Choice of up to date (2014) wired router

[Okys]

Hello guys.
First of all, sorry for my weird english, i hope the question will be understandable.
Last few weeks I am looking for a router that could satisfy my needs.
I have a 500Mbps connection. At the moment, i'm using my Windows 7 PC to share network around my house. Why? Because i want to use all the potential of my speed. After my PC there comes a 100 Mbps switch, so everything else is limited to that speed. I also have a cheap TP-Link N wireless router connected to it, to have a wireless network. In my situation, wireless network is very unimportant. All the important computers are wired with cat 5e cables.
What i want is:
Get rid of routing the network using my Windows 7 PC
Get a wired router with at least 4 LAN ports
Have minimum lag between connections. Currently my ping is 2-4 ms.
Get a wired router with at least 500-600 Mbps throughtput WAN to LAN and as much as possible throughput from LAN to LAN ports, because i often have to copy large amount of stuff through LAN.
Get maximum price/performance out of it. Prices in my country are drastically different from USA's. As an example, in USA you can buy TP-Link Archer C7 for 86.99$ on newegg, where i need to pay 110 euros (around 150$) for it. So, please orient on a price no higher than around 90 dollars. Exception is for sure, if the device ir already old, for example ASUS RT-N56U. Then the price difference will not be so high.

My problem is, that every good site or review i come up to, has only the wireless routers and wireless functionalities as a priority. Every review of a wireless router only pays attention to the wireless performance.
I only need wireless as a secondary option. It doesnt matter at all, how good will be the range and signal strength, it doesnt matter, how much packets or data will be lost or not, using wireless. The only thing that matters is the wired performance. Wireless can be as an option for the router i will be buying, but if its not there, its not a big deal, i will connect any cheap wireless router after my main one.

Thanks

 

[thiggins]

LAN to LAN throughput depends only on the speed of the switch. The router's CPU is not involved. So you need a router with Gigabit switch.

All of our router reviews cover both wired routing and wireless performance.

There are plenty of routers with > 500 Mbps routing throughput. Just use the Router Charts.

 

[Okys]

Thanks for answer, thiggins.
At the moment i have chosen 2 routers to meet my requirements and price range.
I already mentioned them above:
First one is TP-Link Archer C7
Second one is ASUS RT-N56U

About the mentioned ASUS model, there are many reviews from users, that after some period of usage, they start dropping connections, dropping settings after each restart, etc. Of course everything of that is said about wireless performance. So, is it going to affect my wired network anyhow? Also, am i going to experience any long waiting times, if there will be total of 5 PC's, SmartTV and temporararily 2-3 Android devices? The speed is only needed for 3 PC's, so the rest will be connected at a 100 Mbps switch using the 4th LAN port on router.

 

[thiggins]

If you are not using wireless, just shut it off. It shouldn't affect wired performance anyway.

 

[viasat]

@Okys
You didn't specified one important thing: what type of internet connection do you have?It's important because if you have for e.g pppoe (ftth fiber) you need good NAT hardware acceleration,and for that you'll be better with N56u or N65u.
If you have simple dhcp(with modem for e.g) you can buy cheaper tp link like 1043ND v2.
Cheers!

 

[Okys]

Hello viasat. Im not really familiar with all those connection types. All i know, i have an optic cable that goes into modem. From modem there's a Cat 5E network cable which is connected directly to my pc at the moment. Connection is very fast and always stable. Low ping, high speeds (I posted my speedtest results). After searching for some information, im now also worried about a term - jumbo frame. How can i determine, if my provider and modem supports it? If they do... do i need to buy a router, supporting jumbo frames? If my provider does, but router not... do i lose something from it?

 

[jlake]

You're going to need to get familiar with those connection types.

For example, most 500 Mbps connections in Europe are PPPoE. The SNB router charts are useless for PPPoE users because SNB doesn't test with PPPoE.

 

[jlake]

LAN to LAN throughput depends only on the speed of the switch. The router's CPU is not involved. So you need a router with Gigabit switch.

All of our router reviews cover both wired routing and wireless performance.

There are plenty of routers with > 500 Mbps routing throughput. Just use the Router Charts.

If I see a post that says "Fiber, or 300-1000Mbps, and Europe", I would assume PPPoE. Router charts won't help with PPPoE.

PPPoE is very common in Europe with fibre.

 

[thiggins]

The SNB router charts are useless for PPPoE users because SNB doesn't test with PPPoE.

Is PPPoE overhead really that significant?

 

[thiggins]

okys: Jumbo frames don't apply on the WAN connection. Their usefulness has declined on the LAN side switch with modern Gigabit Ethernet interface design.

 

[Okys]

Guys, i could be wrong, but there is no information about PPPoE related to my provider. It's just a dynamic IP. Heres my modem where fibre plugs into - Huawei HG8240 GPON Terminal. Can you find out what kind of connection its using? I really don't understand.
The process is simple. Provider's technician came with their own modem (HG8240), moved the fibre inside our appartment, plugged everything, gave us a CAT 5E cable, tested, so everything is working and left. I never have to provide any usernames or passwords. You just take the LAN cable from the modem, plug into any pc you want, and internet is up and working. Hope this helps.

 

[jlake]

Is PPPoE overhead really that significant?

It's significant because certain chipsets and their NAT acceleration driver doesn't do well with PPPoE

Broadcom doesn't do well with PPPoE except for maybe their latest stuff. Broadcom and Asus have tried to improve it. But I don't even think Linksys and Broadcom have tried to work on it.

It's possible that the latest Broadcom stuff from Asus and Linksys, for example, AC68,AC56, EA6700, EA6900 might be able to deal with a really fast PPPoE connection. But routers like Linksys EA2700 with Broadcom chipset won't even give you 100 Mbps WAN to LAN with PPPoE. An EA4500 with Marvell chipset can give you 192 Mbps max WAN to LAN with PPPoE, but an EA6500 with Broadcom won't even give that. I think Atheros or Ralink generally do well and Marvell probably does well based on the EA4500 example since it's max WAN to LAN is 250ish and the overhead doesn't seem to bother it too much.

Many people from Europe have reported disappointing slow PPPoE with N66U and AC66U. (Broadcom)

TP link routers seem to have NAT acceleration that does gigabit PPPoE. Not sure which chipsets. But several people have reported that a $40 TP-link can do 800+Mbps PPPoE WAN to LAN whereas $150 linksys or asus with Broadcom couldn't even come remotely close to that.

It's probably a combination of chipset,firmware NAT acceleration, and even in some linksys cases,they are too lazy to update their PPPoE library and use an old one. But for the most part, I don't think it's a PPPoE compatibility issue. I think it's a PPPoE/NAT acceleration issue depending on the chipset e.g. Broadcom.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12973

 

[azazel1024]

I don't have a solution, but I did want to say thank you for starting the thread and jlake for the info. It prompted me to look in to my situation as I am on Verizon FIOS. I figured I was on DHCP, but according to Verizon's webpage, for my area, I am "probably" on PPPoE (apparently most/all of Maryland is, but they are ambigous).

I sadly don't have nearly that fast a connection and my old Netgear 3500L can handle my 75/35 connection easily (pushing 81/36 just fine). It is very informative moving foward as I'd like to keep whatever router I use for a few years as I am on the cusp of ditching my 3500Ls (I have 2, one as a router/AP and one as an AP) and moving toward 11ac gear.

I don't know Verizon's future plans, or mine exactly, but I'd at least like something that could easily push 150Mbps and probably more like 300Mbps moving in to the future. So it sounds like TP-Link might be what I should eye up (I was already looking at their C7 Archer and maybe the C5 Archer which looks like it might debut with/after CeBIT).

 

[Okys]

Guys, there's nothing to do with PPPoE or PPPoA on my provider. Im using a DHCP, thats 100% sure, because i know it. It's no wonder i never heard of PPPoE, its just not actual here and i never used it. So, when we know this, can I expect those speeds to be somewhere around those tested on SNB?

 

[azazel1024]

Yes, give or take a bit for sample variation, they should be very close to what SNB has in their tests if it is just DHCP WAN.

 

[PaPaTheGMan]

Hello guys.
First of all, sorry for my weird english, i hope the question will be understandable.
Last few weeks I am looking for a router that could satisfy my needs.
I have a 500Mbps connection. At the moment, i'm using my Windows 7 PC to share network around my house. Why? Because i want to use all the potential of my speed. After my PC there comes a 100 Mbps switch, so everything else is limited to that speed. I also have a cheap TP-Link N wireless router connected to it, to have a wireless network. In my situation, wireless network is very unimportant. All the important computers are wired with cat 5e cables.
What i want is:
Get rid of routing the network using my Windows 7 PC
Get a wired router with at least 4 LAN ports
Have minimum lag between connections. Currently my ping is 2-4 ms.
Get a wired router with at least 500-600 Mbps throughtput WAN to LAN and as much as possible throughput from LAN to LAN ports, because i often have to copy large amount of stuff through LAN.
Get maximum price/performance out of it. Prices in my country are drastically different from USA's. As an example, in USA you can buy TP-Link Archer C7 for 86.99$ on newegg, where i need to pay 110 euros (around 150$) for it. So, please orient on a price no higher than around 90 dollars. Exception is for sure, if the device ir already old, for example ASUS RT-N56U. Then the price difference will not be so high.

My problem is, that every good site or review i come up to, has only the wireless routers and wireless functionalities as a priority. Every review of a wireless router only pays attention to the wireless performance.
I only need wireless as a secondary option. It doesnt matter at all, how good will be the range and signal strength, it doesnt matter, how much packets or data will be lost or not, using wireless. The only thing that matters is the wired performance. Wireless can be as an option for the router i will be buying, but if its not there, its not a big deal, i will connect any cheap wireless router after my main one.

Thanks

I use a TP-Link TL-R600VPN and am very happy. 1 Gigabit WAN port and 4 Gigabit LAN ports. Been humming away for months with no issues. My ISP package speed is 100/20mbps and I consistently get 100/30.

 

[Cloud200]

This spreadsheet has every router on SNB that does at least 500 up, down, simultaneous and 10k connections.
Google Docs spreadsheet

Its just a copy and paste from SNB that I use for a slightly easier to parse format.

Odds are pretty much anything in column P ought to do what you want.

In fact just because I can, I am going to make a few more sheets in the spreadsheet. The only difference between them will be the cutoff speed (500mb/s 600mb/s etc)

Ought to give you the best bang for buck after a bit of cutting down like that.

Edit:

Looks like your best bet is one of 4 routers;
Linksys EA6300
Asus RT-N56u
Linksys EA6400
TP-Link Archer C7

Mind you, this is not based on wireless performance. JUST ROUTING.

 

[L&LD]

Cloud200, I like your spreadsheet but cannot see all the data in each column (they are too narrow).

Anyway you can make it more usable?

 

[Cloud200]

Cloud200, I like your spreadsheet but cannot see all the data in each column (they are too narrow).

Anyway you can make it more usable?

Sure, I made the columns wider.

If you like I can just share a copy with you that you can edit however you like.

 

[tipstir]

I use a TP-Link TL-R600VPN and am very happy. 1 Gigabit WAN port and 4 Gigabit LAN ports. Been humming away for months with no issues. My ISP package speed is 100/20mbps and I consistently get 100/30.

Same with the TP-Link TL-ER6120VPN no issues and it's been running since 2012 like this. STO (Star Trek Online) pounding it daily and no issues from it. My GF runs her online Everquest game at the same time. No issues. I could be streaming Netflix in another room no issues either. Run WiFi from attached ESR600H to tablet to see what news are going on via Windows 8.1 Update 1 Tablet using USA Today report and a video playing.

Fussing with weak router is the issue of the past, today with the right router you don't have that issue.