Netgear R8900 (X10) or R7900P (X6S)

[hyde]

These two are on sale at Costco, and our office just upgraded to gigabit fios, sadly our router cannot handle the gigabit WAN to LAN.

Which one of these would give us better WAN to LAN? We are not much concerned about the wifi since we use access point for other areas of the office, but it would still be nice to have it.

So, if we don't care about the ultra fast wifi speeds, which router should we get for best WAN to LAN speeds? I can't find much info on WAN to LAN/LAN to WAN on these routers, so I was about to buy AC1900 (R7000) when I noticed X10 is $380 and X6S is only $195. But I know newer is not always better. There is less than $40 price difference between X6S and AC1900.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

I could be wrong of course but as I understand it to address what you need is primarily about the muscle of the router, not the different wireless platforms. As you move up the food chain you are adding wireless platforms, not cpu muscle. At least for the most part. I think you’d be fine with an X4S for that reason.

IF you need triband wireless support then sure, the X6S. The CPU in the X4S is more than enough however.

 

[Internet Man]

These two are on sale at Costco, and our office just upgraded to gigabit fios, sadly our router cannot handle the gigabit WAN to LAN.

Which one of these would give us better WAN to LAN? We are not much concerned about the wifi since we use access point for other areas of the office, but it would still be nice to have it.

So, if we don't care about the ultra fast wifi speeds, which router should we get for best WAN to LAN speeds? I can't find much info on WAN to LAN/LAN to WAN on these routers, so I was about to buy AC1900 (R7000) when I noticed X10 is $380 and X6S is only $195. But I know newer is not always better. There is less than $40 price difference between X6S and AC1900.

Thanks in advance.

The hardware of the R8900 (X10) destroys the R7900P but they both max out a gigabit WAN <-> LAN.

If you don't care about WiFi, just get a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite or another wired router for much less money.

 

[hyde]

Thank you for both of your replies.
I thought about Edge Router Lite, it's cheap, compact, but I am worried that we may not be able to manage it since we are note IT professionals, and managing/configuring USG50 was a pain in the neck and even that firewall is considered user friendly. I want to keep the control panel user friendly and simple.

Also, I like the idea of having just one device handle wifi & router because nowadays routers have so much more options, like add'l guest networks, etc. I had problem trying to set up guest on the access point, and it's even bigger trouble trying to allow guests to print because it always means allowing them to access our network so they can print. I am trying to avoid that, but it's a different issue we'll address later.

Just like you guys said, beefier wireless doesn't mean better wired performance. I didn't realize X10 has quad core and X6S has dual core processor, would that really help with throughput WAN<->LAN? If so, I'll just order that. I can still keep our other router as access point for time being. But if Edge Router has user friendly control panel, I can go with that too.

 

[NETGEAR Guy]

For X10 and X6S WAN to LAN, please refer to the following:

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...hthawk-x10-smart-wifi-router-reviewed?start=2

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...and-wifi-router-with-mu-mimo-reviewed?start=2

 

[hyde]

Thank you Netgear guy, I really appreciate your reply. I am not familiar with the results or how to interpret them.
For our application (regardless of the wireless functionality) it looks like both will be able to handle gigabit internet, and in the links you sent the test scores don't have exact same tests, 9000 shows it failed TCP and UTP tests while 8000 doesn't have these tests listed, also 9000 doesn't have http test listed.

I am not really hung up on those test scores, all I need is something reliable that will not bottleneck the gigabit internet or overheat under medium load (10 workstations) with only 2-3 wireless clients. So if R8000P's processor is enough for that and if 9000's extra horsepower is meant for wireless, we might as well grab 8000P.
Thanks.

Edit: I see there is no QoS on 8000P, and we usually limit the bandwidth on our guest wifi, does this mean we wouldn't be able to limit their speed on our network using 8000P? We would have to use a secondary router if that's the case?