Linksys Re-launches WRT32X Gaming router

[sfx2000]

Why didn't you guys pile on ASUS for its ROG router?

Some folks have dinged the marketing there as well

Outside of the hype - sometimes they do have tangible changes that "can" improve things well beyond just gaming...

 

[ddarko]

Prospective buyers would be advised to not be misled by the Linksys' AC3200 class rating for the 32X. What you're getting for practical purposes is a 3x3 AC1900 class with one 5 GHz radio that supports contiguous 160 MHz bandwidth. The stated 3200 Mbps maximum link rate math works out to 600 Mbps (2.4 GHz) + 2600 Mbps (5 GHz) = 3200. If you don't have a device that supports 160 MHz bandwidth, the 5 GHz link rate falls back to 1300 Mbps, which added to the 2.4 GHz 600 Mbps yields 1900 Mbps.

Just to be clear - I don't begrudge any company their gaming line. 95% of the appeal of those products is hardware or software looks. If some people want to spend their money on flashy lights or angular surfaces, I don't have a problem with companies meeting that desire. They offer higher margins for minimal R&D so the business appeal of the gaming segment is understandable in a tough and low margin business.

What bugs me is are specs like the above that, while they may be strictly true, are so fine print that they cross the line for me into willful obfuscation. The class rating on the router has now been buffed up by the contiguous bandwidth?! If someone I was dealing with personally tried to pull a fast one like this, I'd punch him in the face.

The wifi class rating, which was intended to give people a simple benchmark to compare like-for-like items, has become useless since every company uses different criteria to come up with the number. That makes palming the responsibility for sorting this mess onto the consumer all the more troubling. Shifting the burden onto people only works when accurate information can be easily and readily found but the marketing departments have flooded the pool with borderline, if not outright, misinformation. The companies are short-sighted because when many people are faced with information they don't understand, trust or takes too long to clarify, they will simply opt to stay with what they have, even if it old, slow and obsolete. Clear and simple information would enhance the market.

 

[sfx2000]

Prospective buyers would be advised to not be misled by the Linksys' AC3200 class rating for the 32X. What you're getting for practical purposes is a 3x3 AC1900 class with one 5 GHz radio that supports contiguous 160 MHz bandwidth. The stated 3200 Mbps maximum link rate math works out to 600 Mbps (2.4 GHz) + 2600 Mbps (5 GHz) = 3200. If you don't have a device that supports 160 MHz bandwidth, the 5 GHz link rate falls back to 1300 Mbps, which added to the 2.4 GHz 600 Mbps yields 1900 Mbps.

Ultimately for most AC1900 and above Router/AP's - they're all essentially AC1200 class at the end of the day, since the clients are really the driver, not the AP itself.

N300 + AC867 (Wave 1) = 2*2:2 SU -- and this is an incredibly common config these days - even my $200 Chromebook has the Intel 7265 Wifi Adapter... on the extreme low-end, there's still a lot of N72 class devices out there..

 

[sm00thpapa]

One thing I can say about this router is that Linksys went away from that horrible web GUI. I'm using the eero pro gen 2 system and gaming on my Xbox One and PS4 with no lag and Open NAT on both. That's really all a gamer needs on a console. These routers are always aiming towards PC gamers.

 

[Razor512]

I could not disagree more strongly with the notion that it's ok for a business to sell "snake oil" with overinflated claims that they know in many circumstances will never be achieved and that the "blame" rests entirely on people for not figuring out what is or isn't accurate. The party in the best position to know the capabilities of a product are the people who make it - the onus should rest on them to make plain and accurate statements. Of course some level of common sense and due diligence is required of any interested buyer but turning to technically oriented forums and sites such as this should be an option for those of us interested in this stuff, not a necessity for everyone to sort out the one sliver of truth from the mountain of marketing obfuscation that has unfortunately become the norm in this area.

The problem with the gaming market is that you are dealing with a wide range of customers, including console gamers,where if you can get someone to pay for a service like xbox live or the PlayStation stuff, then you can get then to overpay for a "gaming" headset where they spend $150 for something that has a horrible mic, and speakers that sound closer to what you would get in a $30 pair of headphones. I literally cannot find a microphone that is as low end as what is found on many common gaming headsets.

The gamer tax is similar almost like the apple tax but worse, as you are often paying extra for hardware that is lower quality across the board. At least with apple, you get a decent reasonably calibrated screen, with a gaming product, you often end up with lower quality parts that fail more easily, while performing well below their price point.

Outside of accessories, in the case of a router, they can take the hardware of what would normally be a $150 router, add an inefficient but gamery looking skin over the web UI, and then charge twice the price.

 

[pete y testing]

One thing I can say about this router is that Linksys went away from that horrible web GUI.

lol and thats got to be a good thing

i see tp link has also started to change its gui with the release of the c3150 v2

now if we can just get netgear to rejig that slow as gui and improve its feature set thing would be on a much more even playing field

 

[sm00thpapa]

lol and thats got to be a good thing

i see tp link has also started to change its gui with the release of the c3150 v2

now if we can just get netgear to rejig that slow as gui and improve its feature set thing would be on a much more even playing field

Yeah man I saw the TP-Link Web GUI and it is much better than that green screen. Netgear is also horrible to look at. Asus is the only one that is useful and pleasing to the eye. Also maybe one day in the next 10 years Linksys will let you set 80MHz only on the 5GHz band.

 

[sfx2000]

One thing I can say about this router is that Linksys went away from that horrible web GUI.

Not sure what horrible is - horrible seems to be a subjective comment, and doesn't have an objective basis behind it.

The Linky SmartWifi WebGUI is minimally functional... challenge for some is that it's somewhat limited in how to tweak the stuff under the hood...

Moving forward - @sm00thpapa - Care to provide some UI screens and workflows - UI/UX is hard stuff...

 

[pete y testing]

Care to provide some UI screens and workflows - UI/UX is hard stuff...

for the tplink c3150 v2 see

http://www.tp-link.com/resources/simulator/C3150_emulator_v2/index.htm

vs

c3150 v1 emulator

http://www.tp-link.com.au/resources/simulator/Archer_C3150V1_simulator/index.htm

 

[sfx2000]

for the tplink c3150 v2 see

I'm suggesting that folks don't copy/paste of bad examples - all consumers Router/AP's generally could do better there... That being said - the UI workflow that Linksys (and Asus) does ok

The F-pattern - generally works for a WebGUI...

Google it - the Bootstrap packages - they're getting there - problem is still discovery of specific items/features...

 

[sm00thpapa]

Not sure what horrible is - horrible seems to be a subjective comment, and doesn't have an objective basis behind it.

The Linky SmartWifi WebGUI is minimally functional... challenge for some is that it's somewhat limited in how to tweak the stuff under the hood...

Moving forward - @sm00thpapa - Care to provide some UI screens and workflows - UI/UX is hard stuff...

By horrible I mean the way tabs open up, can't sort the devices in the map, can't set 80MHz only, can't set AES only.

 

[RMerlin]

A lot of of these home gateways have horrible GUIs. Some are horrible from a visual point of view, but many are horrible from a functionality point of view. I recently had to work on a customer's E series Linksys, and I found it quite confusing to navigate.

Netgear doesn't look good, but functionality-wise it was ok.

D-Link, I haven't seen their webui in years, but back then it was also very confusing to navigate.

Asuswrt, old-school WRT54/300/600, DD-WRT, Tomato - these are my favorite in terms of navigation.

A lot of these manufacturers need to hire real web designers instead of leaving the web design in the hands of a software engineer.

This WRT32x UI looks visually nice, no idea how its functionality is like.

 

[pete y testing]

Netgear doesn't look good, but functionality-wise it was ok.

you must not have played with a netgear for a while then , they seem to have screwed up the attached device list and now everything runs slow as

here is the new gui for dlink , pretty basic

http://support.dlink.com/emulators/dir890l/100/Home.html

the linksys gui is quite slow and pretty basic

http://ui.linksys.com/WRT3200ACM/1.0.5.175944/

A lot of these manufacturers need to hire real web designers instead of leaving the web design in the hands of a software engineer.

totally agree

 

[RMerlin]

here is the new gui for dlink , pretty basic

Quite different from the last DLink I've worked with, which had that hideous Orange-and-grey look, and you had two levels of menu that weren't intuitive to navigate.

Looks MUCH better now, but it's indeed a bit too basic.

you must not have played with a netgear for a while then , they seem to have screwed up the attached device list and now everything runs slow as

Indeed, the last Netgear I worked with was a 802.11n model. I haven't seen any of their recent Rx000 models. (that's in addition to my managed Netgear switch that I have at home).

The Linksys Smart Wifi looks nice, but it's not intuitive to use - that's the one I've had to deal with a couple of times these past few years.

 

[sm00thpapa]

If you look at the Linksys on the 3200ACM you can only set 160MHz when it's set to AC Only. What about your 5GHz N devices. Netgear lets you set 160MHz and allows N and AC devices to connect. Linksys Web GUI designer needs some serious retraining.

 

[pete y testing]

The Linksys Smart Wifi looks nice, but it's not intuitive to use - that's the one I've had to deal with a couple of times these past few years.

dont know if you have anything to do with draytek modems and router but they have just about the best overall gui package but cost quite a bit

 

[System Error Message]

At least asus actually does provide gaming related features like pre configured QoS that is favourable for games.

 

[thiggins]

Ultimately for most AC1900 and above Router/AP's - they're all essentially AC1200 class at the end of the day, since the clients are really the driver, not the AP itself.

You are correct that device often limits link rate. But more streams on the router alone can push out the Rate vs. Range curve and improve performance. This is shown by higher rankings of 4x4 routers in the Charts, all tested with 2x2 STA.

 

[pete y testing]

At least asus actually does provide gaming related features like pre configured QoS that is favourable for games.

not in any meaningful way

 

[System Error Message]

not in any meaningful way

true but most arent skilled when it comes to networking that having preconfigured QoS profiles that actually favours games is useful. Ive seen countless threads complaining about bufferbloat on asus auto QoS when it is the result of their pre set QoS favouring games over other things including web browsing which causes tests to look bad. Asus does provide some benefit from calling itself a gaming router.

In this case of linksys, does it actually provide any feature useful for gamers? Any preconfigured QoS, additional protection, and other features?