Considering R7800, coming from Merlin AC68U

[ewokuk]

I have an AC68U which I have no problem with. I run Merlin firmware on it which I like because I can quickly and easily send specific devices over my VPN while leaving the rest outside it. But I am itching to try wireguard and can't get it on the AC68. LEDE only partially supports it, I don't think the wifi works.

So I am looking at the R7800 which I believe is fully supported by LEDE which means I can get wireguard and keep all the features, and seems very highly rated (showing as no.1 on SNB in almost every test). Although there is now the XR500 and if it is using the same hardware I may as well get that since it should then support all the same firmware and maybe a few extras.

I have not used LEDE or openWRT before, I pretty much just stuck to Merlin firmwares so I don't really know what I can and can't do on it. I do know I don't want to spend hours messing about with command line settings.

I am also wondering if there is perhaps a custom firmware for the R7800 which maintains more of the netgear features/setup but adds in some fixes/tweaks and wireguard (kinda similar to what Merlin does on the Asus routers).

Aside from all that, perhaps there is a better alternative to the R7800/xr500? Maybe an Asus router that is fully compatible with LEDE that allows me to try that out and go back to Merlin if I don't like it. I think the R7800 seems to be the best at the moment though.

 

[avtella]

Voxel’s firmware is stock based and he updates most of the packages and tweaks firmware which actually is based on OpenWRT.

You can try LEDE, use the hnyman pre made builds. SQM QoS in LEDE is amazing at reducing bufferbloat and performance in some cases is better than stock.

As for Asus the 86U is fairly close to the R7800, which I believe is still the best for 5Ghz performance, but does beat it in VPN performance. Only problem with Asus that I see is the Broadcom chipset is not open source friendly, for example there still is no WiFi support in OpenWRT for previous and current gen Broadcom based routers like the 86U, 88U. Even Netgear’s Broadcom units face this ie R8000P, R8500, but the R7800 is a Qualcomm unit, its Asus equivalent using the same hardware is actually the BRT AC828 which is quite expensive.

The 86U however is supported by RMerlin and his custom firmware is beloved so you could go for either the 86U or R7800. If OpenWRT/LEDE support isn’t important I would lean toward the 86U at the moment.

 

[roo]

Voxel’s firmware is stock based and he updates most of the packages and tweaks firmware which actually is based on OpenWRT.

You can try LEDE, use the hnyman pre made builds. SQM QoS in LEDE is amazing at reducing bufferbloat and performance in some cases is better than stock.

As for Asus the 86U is fairly close to the R7800, which I believe is still the best for 5Ghz performance, but does beat it in VPN performance. Only problem with Asus that I see is the Broadcom chipset is not open source friendly, for example there still is no WiFi support in OpenWRT for previous and current gen Broadcom based routers like the 86U, 88U. Even Netgear’s Broadcom units face this ie R8000P, R8500, but the R7800 is a Qualcomm unit, its Asus equivalent using the same hardware is actually the BRT AC828 which is quite expensive.

The 86U however is supported by RMerlin and his custom firmware is beloved so you could go for either the 86U or R7800. If OpenWRT/LEDE support isn’t important I would lean toward the 86U at the moment.

has the r7800 performance been repeated by others?

 

[RogerSC]

has the r7800 performance been repeated by others?

What aspect of performance are you asking about? I'm very happy with the R7800 here, performs well for me with either Voxel or dd-wrt firmware. Haven't tried LEDE yet, since last time I looked you had to use tftp to get back to other firmware, not something that I'm going set myself up to have to do *smile*.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Have enjoyed my R7800. Especially with Voxels same UI FW, better handling of FW behind the scenes. Haven't tried LEDE or WRT on it though. Happy with Voxels though.

Have a XR500 now. Better range then the R7800 for me, and the UI is great. Love the features. Like the ability to use NAT Filter for multiple gaming consoles is still there as well.

I have an AC68U which I have no problem with. I run Merlin firmware on it which I like because I can quickly and easily send specific devices over my VPN while leaving the rest outside it. But I am itching to try wireguard and can't get it on the AC68. LEDE only partially supports it, I don't think the wifi works.

So I am looking at the R7800 which I believe is fully supported by LEDE which means I can get wireguard and keep all the features, and seems very highly rated (showing as no.1 on SNB in almost every test). Although there is now the XR500 and if it is using the same hardware I may as well get that since it should then support all the same firmware and maybe a few extras.

I have not used LEDE or openWRT before, I pretty much just stuck to Merlin firmwares so I don't really know what I can and can't do on it. I do know I don't want to spend hours messing about with command line settings.

I am also wondering if there is perhaps a custom firmware for the R7800 which maintains more of the netgear features/setup but adds in some fixes/tweaks and wireguard (kinda similar to what Merlin does on the Asus routers).

Aside from all that, perhaps there is a better alternative to the R7800/xr500? Maybe an Asus router that is fully compatible with LEDE that allows me to try that out and go back to Merlin if I don't like it. I think the R7800 seems to be the best at the moment though.

 

[ewokuk]

Have enjoyed my R7800. Especially with Voxels same UI FW, better handling of FW behind the scenes. Haven't tried LEDE or WRT on it though. Happy with Voxels though.

Have a XR500 now. Better range then the R7800 for me, and the UI is great. Love the features. Like the ability to use NAT Filter for multiple gaming consoles is still there as well.

How easy is it on Voxels firmware to get the sort of split tunnelling that Merlins firmware has on the asus models, where you can quickly and easily have specific ip's go via the vpn while leaving others outside it? Does wireguard work on Voxels?

I am still deciding. I am sure performance is fine on both R7800/X500 and the AC86u so the pro's and cons now seem to be:

• AC86U has a beast of a processor to handle anything thrown at it, including openvpn at high speeds
• AC86U has a very good interface and easy to configure which devices use the vpn and which don't, so I already know it can currently do everything I want, except wireguard
• AC86U (Asus WRT in general) seems to be getting more and more closed source and has less choice in firmwares due to Broadcom and the other closed source binaries that are increasing
• AC86U might take years to get wireguard, if ever, R7800 has it now

Aside from wireguard, the AC86U is probably the clear winner due the interface and the procesor, but since the majority of my traffic will go through the vpn, and openvpn is so inefficient (even increasing pings regardless of server locations), it makes the choice much harder. If wireguard was coming to the Asus any time soon then it's an easy choice.

 

[avtella]

The XR500 is literally an R7800 with 128MB extra NAND flash (128 vs 256). Oh not to mention XR500 firmware testing was actually done on an R7800. Duma QoS is nice and all, but I actually find the Qualcomm Streamboost QoS on the R7800 much simpler to use. Price to benefit ratio, I’d get the R7800 or 86U.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Voxels FW is based off NG stock FW, just the back end packages are better managed. No real difference in features. The R7800 is a good general and gaming router. One reason why I bought it.

The more advanced features your looking at is probably not available in Voxels FW.

The XR500 has similar to the R7800 however the FW is completely different from NG stock or Voxels FW. There are some HW differences between the R7800 and XR500. The DumaOS is proprietary to NetDuma R1 and the XR500. It will not be ported to the R7800 from what I'm told. I enjoy both R7800 and XR500 UIs. I wish the XR500 UI has a nice connection UI that displays were on the router devices are connected on the router in relation to wireless or wired and what wireless devices are connected to what radio. One thing I do enjoy with NG router is the NAT Filter feature. Something that other routers don't have for helping with multi game console being on the router.

If your needed more advanced networking features on the R7800, possible WRT or LEDE would be your next option if you go with the R7800.

How easy is it on Voxels firmware to get the sort of split tunnelling that Merlins firmware has on the asus models, where you can quickly and easily have specific ip's go via the vpn while leaving others outside it? Does wireguard work on Voxels?

I am still deciding. I am sure performance is fine on both R7800/X500 and the AC86u so the pro's and cons now seem to be:

• AC86U has a beast of a processor to handle anything thrown at it, including openvpn at high speeds
• AC86U has a very good interface and easy to configure which devices use the vpn and which don't, so I already know it can currently do everything I want, except wireguard
• AC86U (Asus WRT in general) seems to be getting more and more closed source and has less choice in firmwares due to Broadcom and the other closed source binaries that are increasing
• AC86U might take years to get wireguard, if ever, R7800 has it now

Aside from wireguard, the AC86U is probably the clear winner due the interface and the procesor, but since the majority of my traffic will go through the vpn, and openvpn is so inefficient (even increasing pings regardless of server locations), it makes the choice much harder. If wireguard was coming to the Asus any time soon then it's an easy choice.

 

[avtella]

The Duma OS part is pretty much overlaid on stock Netgear firmware as in when you click “Netgear Setttings”, that’s stock Netgear UI underneath that menu, except it’s red. The Duma part is mostly the Duma QoS and device usage stats stuff.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Ok. From what I know, it's different. Has some NG features. the Duma OS is the animal all to itself though. Something we wont have complete information on as I presume it's all I.P.

 

[Sizzlechest]

How easy is it on Voxels firmware to get the sort of split tunnelling that Merlins firmware has on the asus models, where you can quickly and easily have specific ip's go via the vpn while leaving others outside it?

I suspect it CAN work through an IPtables command you can add via a script.

 

[Voxel]

How easy is it on Voxels firmware to get the sort of split tunnelling that Merlins firmware has on the asus models, where you can quickly and easily have specific ip's go via the vpn while leaving others outside it?

Not easy. But possible. See e.g. this article, thanks to XunilinuX for sharing his experience:

https://www.myopenrouter.com/article/how-set-openvpn-client-netgear-r7800-voxels-custom-firmware

Voxel.

 

[Ryan_C]

This thread is a little bit old... But would really like to know how the range/throughput at range of R7800 compare to AC68U. We're moving to a lager home where my AC68U will not be strong enough for cover the whole place. Is R7800 the strongest single router out there in terms of range and throughput?

 

[avtella]

This thread is a little bit old... But would really like to know how the range/throughput at range of R7800 compare to AC68U. We're moving to a lager home where my AC68U will not be strong enough for cover the whole place. Is R7800 the strongest single router out there in terms of range and throughput?

On 5Ghz it’s (R7800) probably the best consumer unit out right now with above average 2.4Ghz performance. The XR500 which is the same unit with NetDuma additions, it loses some of that 5Ghz performance but gains 2.4Ghz. The 86U from Asus is also a good unit.

 

[Ryan_C]

On 5Ghz it’s probably the best consumer unit out right now with above average 2.4Ghz performance. The XR500 which is the same unit with NetDuma additions, it loses some of that 5Ghz performance but gains 2.4Ghz. The 86U from Asus is also a good unit.

Thanks a lot! 5G is definitely what I'm looking for. Almost all devices we have are on 5G now.

Looking at SNB's chart, 86U seems quite a bit behind R7800 in terms of 5G range and throughput. Another one I'm very interested in at this point is Phicomm K3, which is new to US market. Exact same price as R7800. Tim has only tested its lower cost sibling K3C, which turned out to be a very strong competitor in the mid-range market. I have read some reviews from China (where Phicomm was established) says the K3 is even strong than R7800 in wireless performance. Would really love to see a review here as well!

 

[RogerSC]

You might also consider mesh solutions, like the Orbi or eero for a larger place that one router won't cover well. My house is like that, the cable comes in one end of my house, and my living room is on the other end. Both the Orbi and eero provide full-house wireless coverage for me.

I have an R7800 which provided coverage in my living room, but not at full speed for media streaming, etc.

So something to think about instead of struggling to find the one router that will give you coverage all over your home.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

How big is your home? SqFt?

Mines 5000 sq ft. My R7800 couldn't do most of it. I recently got a Orbi with 1 Satellite. Gotta say, coverage, range and performance is very good. Wireless or Wired back haul is great.

Something you might want to look into. Also handles two xbox1 playing same game. OPEN NAT across the board.

This thread is a little bit old... But would really like to know how the range/throughput at range of R7800 compare to AC68U. We're moving to a lager home where my AC68U will not be strong enough for cover the whole place. Is R7800 the strongest single router out there in terms of range and throughput?

 

[jsmiddleton4]

"Mines 5000 sq ft"

Well that's a pretty good size house. Mines 1800 sq ft and one R7800 does great. I went from a 68U to the R7800 as well. For me its the faster CPU more than just the wireless range. The R7800 is snappier as a result. As it is I sit outside in my backyard by the pool and have great reception for iPHONES, iPAD and laptops and that's quite a ways from the router. I keep looking at other routers but none for the price point get anywhere near the R7800's value/performance. Wish Netgear would fix some of the FW "issues". But in terms of hardware its a fantastic combo.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Ya, Even with the R7800 at one opposite end of the, not a good placement, granted, however did well. I still ran a 2ndary AP at the other end anyways. Ya, The R7800 is pretty good and a solid router. Ya, hoping the NG will address a few items on the docket.