p2p performance different with every router's abilities?

[quisp65]

It's been mentioned frequently getting a better router can improve p2p torrenting performance, though they are often referring to upgrading to an old outdated router to a more modern one.

Would you see a noticeable difference in performance with p2p tranfers in upgrading a midrange router that can handle 5,000 connections with a 560mhz chip to a router than can handle 30,000+ connections with a 800 - 1Ghz chip? In other words, do you see an increasing improvement in p2p performance as go up the chain in higher performance routers?

I'm guessing I'm usually hitting only 100-300 connections on my tp-link wdr3600 and performance seems to be adequate, but the nerd in me wants to maximize this stuff out. Just wondering if having a higher performance router would maybe speed up connecting, requests, and overall communication between 100-300 peers. I guess in year I'll go up drastically in internet speed too, so I might be upping my number of connections soon.

 

[L&LD]

I would guess if the current router is anywhere close to maxing out your ISP connection, then a new router wouldn't improve the situation all else being equal.

The only way to actually know is to try a new router and retire or return the router as indicated by your testing.

 

[azazel1024]

I would guess if the current router is anywhere close to maxing out your ISP connection, then a new router wouldn't improve the situation all else being equal.

The only way to actually know is to try a new router and retire or return the router as indicated by your testing.

This.

At least in my experience the WDR3600 is pretty good with routing performance. The test is, are you maxing or roughly maxing stated ISP speeds? And or the speeds you get when running speed test while not torrenting?

If so, then no, a better router won't do a thing. In my experience, the WDR3600 can EASILY handle concurrent up/down of ~170Mbps total utilizing PPPoE. My 75/75 connection is actually around 82/90Mbps, and I've tested sustained (not speedtest, ACTUAL transfers) up of 9.9MB/sec and 10.3MB/sec down simultaneously. Counting payload overhead...that works out to around 80-82Mbps and 82-84Mbps up.

My up speeds seem to be kind of variable as I see from 74-92Mbps in speedtest sometimes even from back to back runs, but my download speeds are rocksteady at 81.5-83Mbps with very, very little variance.

So, anyway, the WDR3600 is not a beast, but it can certainly handle some decent routing duties. My Archer C8 is better, but I also don't have an internet connection that can "prove" the differences. I just notice very slightly faster response times from loading webpages and the sort, but actual throughput seems to be the same, well...at least both are limited by my ISP's connection. There was HUGE difference moving from my old Netgear 3500L to my TP-Link WDR3600, even though at the time I had a 75/35 connection and both could max it out. Page loads and general latency went down with the WDR3600 (about 3ms reduced latency on average). Then Verizon upgraded my connection to a 75/75 and a bit later I got the C8. Latency seems to be down about 1ms further on average (I have done a LOT of testing back to back with the two routers)) over my WDR3600 and page loads seem to be a bit snappier, especially on wifi, but even wired. However, the difference is VERY minor. On Wifi the difference is deffinitely there and noticable, if not huge (and some of that could be/probably is better WLAN performance, not better routing performance), on wired, it might be more placebo effect.

Netgear 3500L -> WDR3600 big difference
WDR3600 -> Archer C8 minor difference

Now if I had a 250/250 connection or something (or maybe it would need to be even faster), the differences might start turning up, or if I did torrenting (at all) to 5000+ connections...even with my current ISP plan, I might see some real differences. Dunno.