Netgear RAX200

[dylanmitchell]

I'm tempted to pick up a wi-fi 6 router that supports OFDMA since I have a few wi fi 6 devices but would have a hard time paying a few hundred dollars for one when 6E is around the corner. My RT-AC86U is running well with Merlin firmware so I'll probably hold out for 6E modem. But then something better will be around the corner...

 

[thiggins]

I'm tempted to pick up a wi-fi 6 router that supports OFDMA since I have a few wi fi 6 devices but would have a hard time paying a few hundred dollars for one when 6E is around the corner. My RT-AC86U is running well with Merlin firmware so I'll probably hold out for 6E modem. But then something better will be around the corner...

Don't buy anything just for OFDMA at this point. The conditions that produce gains are very specific. And you need at least two, preferably 4 AX devices to see them.

 

[psychopomp1]

Netgear release updated firmware v1.0.2.88_1.0.50 a week or so ago.

New Features and Enhancements:

• Supports NETGEAR Armor
• Improves the device type and model detection
• Includes dashboard enhancements to support CPU/Memory utilization indication
• Supports OFDMA enable/disable per radio

Been using it for a few days and its been stable. Have activated (via app) Netgear Armor and gone for the 30 days free trial before potentially taking out a subscription for $45 per year.

Very happy with my RAX200, rock solid with excellent wifi coverage on the wifi 5 and wifi 6 bands

 

[Synomenon]

Mine has been somewhat stable. A couple of times when adding things to the address reservation list then applying and saving, the RAX200 would suddenly drop its connection to the modem, LED on the internet connection light turning orange. Each time, I had to factory reset the RAX200 and reconfigure from scratch.

 

[bob123456]

From reports I've read, the RT-AX88U is better overall than the RAX200. Particularly with RMerlin firmware.

Vs. the unreleased RT-AX86U? I'll say it's still better (right now).

Waiting for a great WiFi 6E router right now makes no sense. 2021 is my guess of when we'll know what to buy (if WiFi 10 isn't out by then, yet).

It seems hard to get routers in shops these days anyway.
Been looking for a while, it seems wifi 6 routers are draft, all with pros and cons, and usually limited quantities. RT-AX89X? March 2020. Not available anywhere around here, in December 2020.

I bought that RAX200 (not yet delivered, maybe weeks), as the price was interesting (less than equivalent of 300USD). Not perfect as I could read, and surely I would prefer "merlin" than Netgear rom, but not so many choices either.

 

[bob123456]

The RAX200 is essentially an RAX80 with an extra 5Ghz band and a 2.5 GBPs port. They share the same (Quad Core ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.8 Ghz) CPU plus an 800 MHz packet co-processor . These two are Broadcom chipset based routers .

The RAX120 is a Qualcomm based unit. The main CPU (also a Quad Core ARM Cortex A53 @ 2.2 GHz) is faster by about 22% but I doubt you’d notice the difference. It also has an additional 1.7 GHz Dual Core for packet proccesing, ie deep packet inspection, QoS and so on.

It looks deceiving from Netgear to call if RAX200 then... RAX40, 80, 120, 200... makes it looks like higher range, while in fact it's apparently not.
Having said that it seems they are offering more features on the rom side (which should not justify that naming)... And which is not something I'm interested in.

 

[psychopomp1]

It looks deceiving from Netgear to call if RAX200 then... RAX40, 80, 120, 200... makes it looks like higher range, while in fact it's apparently not.
Having said that it seems they are offering more features on the rom side (which should not justify that naming)... And which is not something I'm interested in.

The RAX200 is higher range, because its Netgear's flagship tri-band wifi 6 router. I have the RAX200 and its the best router I've ever owned for wifi coverage. Sure, the firmware on the RAX200 may not offer advanced features like Asus firmware does, but the wifi performance more than makes up for it. I've also tried Asus' flagship router - the AX89X - but the RAX200 blows the AX89X out of the water for performance.

 

[bob123456]

The RAX200 is higher range, because its Netgear's flagship tri-band wifi 6 router. I have the RAX200 and its the best router I've ever owned for wifi coverage. Sure, the firmware on the RAX200 may not offer advanced features like Asus firmware does, but the wifi performance more than makes up for it. I've also tried Asus' flagship router - the AX89X - but the RAX200 blows the AX89X out of the water for performance.

I mean RAX200 vs RAX120. I saw it's less powerful chipset on the RAX200, and since it's broadcom vs qualcom, it has different limitations.
Also, it does not have 5G ports like the RAX120 but only 2.5G.

Someone said here: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Ni...00-VS-RAX120/m-p/1803671/highlight/true#M3061

 

[avtella]

Well NETGEAR’s comparator last I saw a few months back would describe the RAX120 as having the greatest range which in my testing checked out plus the faster LAN port and storage performance. However the RAX200 is considered higher end due to the extra radio which theoretically helps balance bandwidth with numerous active devices on a fast connection, so it makes sense why they consider it the highest tier.

I can’t speak for others experiences or their usage in regards to tri vs dual band. My own experience is on a 1.2 gigabit connection with 25-30 devices and 3-4 people at home generally. I personally never noticed any tangible gains with the RAX200. Mainly because for example even if you have like a phone/iPad/laptop you only generally use one at a time for example so there isn’t necessarily as much bandwidth contention as router manufacturers like to market and your internet speed will probably be the main bottle neck before the WiFi bands come into play especially unless you have very fast internet like gigabit or you have too many old slow devices in the network. Another area triband may help is if you do a lot of large transfers to a NAS or within your network in general, with many active users. I have a NAS with a 10Gbe connection but it’s not like I was constantly using it full tilt while also having users maxing the internet side bandwidth so for me a dual band was fine.

TLDR triband can be useful, just know if you really need it or not.

 

[bob123456]

Well NETGEAR’s comparator last I saw a few months back would describe the RAX120 as having the greatest range which in my testing checked out plus the faster LAN port and storage performance. However the RAX200 is considered higher end due to the extra radio which theoretically helps balance bandwidth with numerous active devices on a fast connection, so it makes sense why they consider it the highest tier.

I can’t speak for others experiences in regards to tri vs dual but I have a 1.2 gigabit connection with 25-30 devices and 4 people at home generally. I personally never noticed any tangible gains with the RAX200. Mainly because for example even if you have like a phone/iPad/laptop you only generally use one at a time for example so there isn’t necessarily as much bandwidth contention as router manufacturers like to market and your internet speed will probably be the main bottle neck before the WiFi bands come into play especially unless you have very fast internet like gigabit or you have too many old slow devices in the network. Another area triband may help is if you do a lot of large transfers to a NAS or within your network in general, with many active users.

Well, thanks for the explanation, I still think it's somehow misleading or border line cheating from Netgear... The router is not limited to the wifi performances and capacities! In my view the CPU is also rather important and it's a less powerful one on the RAX200 than RAX120 (and even different brand, which has consequences for third party fw support). The RAX200 does has an extra radio but less good other specs (cpu, 5GB port...).

It should have been renamed differently, I think. Even if it has triband, it has less good important specs.
From what you said and what I read around, it's not clear that RAX200 is better than RAX120, it depends on the usage of some of its feature.

 

[avtella]

Well you definitely won’t notice that difference in CPU clock speed in regular use with the current feature set in the firmware. CPU and wireless performance don’t necessarily always go hand in hand. As far as I know most of the packet processing work is offloaded to the dual core network coprocessor for the most part even with QoS enabled, and aside from basic services, CPU would mostly get used heavily for storage performance or OpenVPN. Considering Netgear doesn’t really have much in terms of feature set to fully make use of the four CPU cores I don’t think it makes too much difference especially at 1.8 vs 2.2 Ghz.

As for “less good important specs”, not sure if I’d see it like that. It’s depends on use case/what you need, as mentioned in that link @psychopomp1 posted.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

Gonna have to be some major price reductions before I consider any of these “ax” routers.

 

[bob123456]

Gonna have to be some major price reductions before I consider any of these “ax” routers.

I paid equivalent of 292.11 United States Dollar.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

300....

I’m cranking on a very fast and stable R7800 that I got for 149.

Price needs to get into the high 100’s to low 200’s.