Difference in RT-AC68u and RT-AC1900 CPU - which one for primary?

[RRands]

I have both an ASUS RT-AC68u and an RT-AC1900 (running current Merlin FW) - today I noticed that the CPU in the 1900 is running a higher mhz (1400 -vs- 800 on the AC68u). I have my 68u set up as the main wireless router, while the AC-1900 is set up as an Access Point (AP).

My question is whether there would be any performance benefit to swapping them? I have some custom scripts running on the JFFS partition on the 68u, so it's not quite as easy as "swap and try it", but I wondered if anyone knows if it makes much of a difference?

Here's the CPU load (currently) on my 68u:

And the CPU info from the 1900:

Thank you - I appreciate any help!!

-randy

 

[OzarkEdge]

I have both an ASUS RT-AC68u and an RT-AC1900 (running current Merlin FW) - today I noticed that the CPU in the 1900 is running a higher mhz (1400 -vs- 800 on the AC68u). I have my 68u set up as the main wireless router, while the AC-1900 is set up as an Access Point (AP).

My question is whether there would be any performance benefit to swapping them? I have some custom scripts running on the JFFS partition on the 68u, so it's not quite as easy as "swap and try it", but I wondered if anyone knows if it makes much of a difference?

Here's the CPU load (currently) on my 68u:
View attachment 43146

And the CPU info from the 1900:
View attachment 43147


Thank you - I appreciate any help!!

-randy

Looks like the AC1900 is newer and running faster and would make the better router. You may enjoy a snappier webUI and may not notice a difference to your clients with minimal loading. I'd do it for the snappier admin experience, but perhaps wouldn't bother until some other call to recommission the network comes along like the next/388 firmware upgrade.

OE

 

[eibgrad]

The RT-AC1900 would definitely benefit from improved VPN performance. My RT-AC68U maxes out around 30Mbps w/ OpenVPN. Since improvements tend to be relatively linear w/ it comes to these AC and older routers, maybe 50-60Mbps?

In fact, these days that's one of the major limitations now of the RT-AC68U. Other than that, for the right person, this is *still* a great router. Incredibly reliable and stable.

 

[Justinh]

Where do you see that CPU info? I can't find any such info with my stock firmware.

+1 on the AC68 - mine has been great.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Where do you see that CPU info? I can't find any such info with my stock firmware.

That page doesn't exist on stock firmware. You'd have to SSH into the router at look at the output of these commands:

cat /proc/cpuinfo
nvram get clkfreq

 

[Tech9]

My question is whether there would be any performance benefit to swapping them?

Yes, RT-AC1900P(?) has 75% faster CPU and it's quite noticeable. I had both recently to compare.

 

[RRands]

The RT-AC1900 would definitely benefit from improved VPN performance. My RT-AC68U maxes out around 30Mbps w/ OpenVPN. Since improvements tend to be relatively linear w/ it comes to these AC and older routers, maybe 50-60Mbps?

In fact, these days that's one of the major limitations now of the RT-AC68U. Other than that, for the right person, this is *still* a great router. Incredibly reliable and stable.

that's an interesting point on the VPN performance. I use Trust.Zone VPN on the router for just one computer, and it's set up via the RT-AC68u. I do get better performance than what you are describing (based on torrent speeds - they do something funny to speedtest.net, so it doesn't work reliably to check it that way though) It is set up in the VPN client section on the router. But, I wonder if it would be faster on the 1900, based on that?

 

[RRands]

Yes, RT-AC1900P(?) has 75% faster CPU and it's quite noticeable. I had both recently to compare.

Hi, @Tech9 - thank you for the reply - the UI "snappiness" isn't super important to me, as I am not it it much , but are you saying the packet throughput is that much faster, or in what way is it noticeable?

 

[Tech9]

or in what way is it noticeable

It was very noticeable in my FreshTomato experiments. Most fancy FT features are incompatible with NAT acceleration. AC68U can do about 200Mbps, AC1900P can do >300Mbps. It also works better with TrendMicro components in Asuswrt - AiProtection and Adaptive QoS. It also works better with Wi-Fi - BCM4360 radio doesn't have own processing units and relies on the main CPU. BCM4709C0 CPU used in AC1900P is the same as the CPU used in AC88U and AC5300 routers. Perhaps the fastest Broadcom ARMv7 CPU available before ARMv8 in HND platforms.

 

[RRands]

It was very noticeable in my FreshTomato experiments. Most fancy FT features are incompatible with NAT acceleration. AC68U can do about 200Mbps, AC1900P can do >300Mbps. It also works better with TrendMicro components in Asuswrt - AiProtection and Adaptive QoS. It also works better with Wi-Fi - BCM4360 radio doesn't have own processing units and relies on the main CPU. BCM4709C0 CPU used in AC1900P is the same as the CPU used in AC88U and AC5300 routers. Perhaps the fastest Broadcom ARMv7 CPU available before ARMv8 in HND platforms.

Thank you - I am going to switch it out & see how it goes! I appreciate the insights!

 

[Tech9]

It is better, but there won't any WOW! moments.