New Gigabit Internet: RT-AC68U or RT-AC3100

[adamrc]

I'm having AT&T GigaPower (1000 up/1000 down) gigabit internet installed tomorrow. Many of my devices are going to be connected via CAT 6. However I have many other devices that will be exclusively wireless such as iPhones, iPad, Nest, iBaby camera, Apple TV, printers, and others devices.

I will run as many of these wireless devices as I can on the 5 GHz band. Will the RT-AC68U be able to handle the high WAN gigabit speeds or should I stick with the newer/faster RT-AC3100? I know the 68U very reliable now with firmware builds. I will be going with the Merlin FW.

Also would there be any speed/performance decrease if I run an ethernet cable from the built in switch to an 8 port switch with all ports full?

 

[doczenith1]

I am also getting gigabit in the next month or so and was looking at those routers as well. My setup is similar to yours with many cat 6 devices and a few handhelds. Looking at the reviews on this website it seems as if the 68U and the 3100/88U both do about the same with WAN to LAN speed. My guess is that if you need to use options that disable the NAT acceleration then the 3100 would be the best choice but if not the 68U should do just fine. Hopefully some of the more knowledgeable folks can chime in with their comments.

 

[pete y testing]

GigaPower (1000 up/1000 down) gigabit internet installed tomorrow.

Will the RT-AC68U be able to handle the high WAN gigabit speeds or should I stick with the newer/faster RT-AC3100?

the answer to both is no as there isnt a domestic grade router today that can handle those speeds over wan to lan never mind wlan

see

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view

also take not these results are with all routing and qos features disabled and with them enabled the results are much lower

router wise the newer ones like the 3100 have better processing power which may help if you have many clients and demands on the routing

wifi wise we are still limited to 1300M as there are currently no adapters available that sync faster so at best your throughput is limited to about 60MB/s or around 500Mbps

so unless you want to run some sort of gateway server or commercial / business grade router that can support those internet speeds your prob going to pay for speed you cant yet use