Is the Netgear R7000 a good router for my needs?

[theomni]

I'm currently using an Asus RT-n56u. Its a good router and all, but it doesn't keep up with the conditions of my house. The router is located in a middle of the 2nd story of my house. I bought this router mainly to have some signal strength in a room that is on the first story in the opposite corner for web browsing. However this room is now a Home theater with a NUC that is streaming from Netflix and a NAS located near a router, and will also be streaming Steam games from a computer that is also located near the router. The RT-N56U cannot keep up, especially with Steam home streaming. Will the R7000 be a good replacement? I know that in the initial tests, the netgear blew the Asus router out the water, but in a second test, the Asus caught up with the Netgear router. Is there potential for the Asus RT-AC68 to surpass the Netgear R7000 considerably? I can spend upto $250 for the router.

Edit: I will also buy the appropriate Intel AC mini PCI card for the NUC. I believe it's the 7260?

 

[AdvHomeServer]

Are you splitting the load between 2.4GHz and 5GHz?

If 2.4GHz can't handle any load, then you have one problem. If 2.4GHz can't handle all loads at the same time, then it's a different problem. Moving the media to 5GHz can help, although 5GHz doesn't have the same range as 2.4GHz; it's a little less.

It's not unusual to use a 5GHz media adapter for wired connections to the media players. This would require you to bridge wirelessly from your asus router to the media adapter over 5GHz (that's what I do using an old router and DD-WRT and it works well for me.) I also own an RT-N56U and it carries a nice load if you balance it properly.

 

[theomni]

The problem is that the walls of my house are pretty dense. At my home theater, the 5.0ghZ signal is pretty much lost.

 

[thiggins]

The RT-N56U is an N600 class router. If you are running 20 MHz bandwidth in 2.4 GHz, maximum link rate is 130 Mbps.

Since you need to stay with 2.4 GHz, moving up to the NETGEAR R7000 moves your maximum 20 MHz bandwidth link rate up to only 216 Mbps. This is the same as you would get from an N900 class router.

Buying an AC card helps only if you use 5 GHz, which you say won't reach.

What are you using to connect on the far end?

 

[RogerSC]

The problem is that the walls of my house are pretty dense. At my home theater, the 5.0ghZ signal is pretty much lost.

I don't know how many dense walls that you need to go through between your router and your home theater, but I find that the 5GHz. signal from my R7000 is much stronger than from my RT-N56U. The 5GHz. signal from my RT-N56U is only one bar at my entertainment center, the corresponding signal from my R7000 is 4 bars. That's through maybe 3 regular house walls (sheetrock on both sides with wood studs). You can always buy a higher-end router like the R7000, try it, and if it doesn't work for you, return it. Just make sure that you buy it somewhere where you can return it, locally is best for that. Saves you the hassle of packaging up and paying for postage back to the internet store *smile*.

On the other hand, you might consider an access point (AP) router in your home theater room. That would give you strong wireless there and 3 or 4 wired ports, depending on what router you use for your AP. However, you would want a wired connection for that, even if it was powerline network or MoCA. MoCA is a good candidate for home theater since you are likely to have cable TV wired there. It does matter what bandwidth you are trying to stream though, powerline networking or MoCA doesn't get up to anywhere near where wireless-ac is now. If it is adequate, though, you'll find it more reliable than wireless.

 

[theomni]

Thank you fir your help! My HTPC can see the 5.0ghz and connect to it but even though it shows 1 bar, pages don't load. I think the R7000 can be helpful. Otherwise, if I do get the R7000, do you think it'd be a good idea to keep the N56u and make that into a wireless AP?

 

[theomni]

Actually, instead of getting a new wireless router, can I just use the following:

UniFi AP Pro (UAP-Pro) or the UniFi AP AC (UAP-AC) connected to my RT-56u router via ethernet? I'd turn off the radio/antennae of the router and solely use that as a wired router, and use it in conjunction with one of the two APs. And maybe a few years down the line, I will upgrade the router to an EdgeRouter POE.

Would doing that be better, or should I just grab the r7000?

 

[TonyH]

My house is 2 story with loft where R7000 is located. House is designed like atrium
so router to our HT system in the main floor family room is like almost LOS where 2.4GHz signal is solid 40db vs. 5GHz one is 50db. Every night my wife streams real time without buffering off the internet to watch old country soap operas, movies, shows, etc. She never complains. R7000 is doing better than RT-AC66U I had before. IMO. your idea is better choice than R7000. BTW, R7000 is running on Kong's dd-wrt latest release.

 

[theomni]

Thanks! So it would be better getting either the UniFi AP Pro or the UniFi AP AC and pairing that to the rt-56u until I get a new wired router?