Replacing a faulty N router, AC1750 or AC 1900?

[ampdigitl]

I have a NETGEAR WNR3500L (802.11n) router from samknows that has become faulty. My wife has a 2014 MacBook Pro with Retina for work and a 2013 MacBook Air, which both have AC cards. I don't know the antenna configuration however. Both of my laptops have N cards.

I figured by looking at the reviews and articles that the AC2350 and AC3200 are overkill. I don't want to pay more than $200 for a router either. This router needs to cover 2/3 of my house (2 floors, 2100 sq ft). I provide coverage for my den with a D-Link powerline wireless router in AP mode. I primarily use 5GHz.

I'm trying to decide between an AC1750 and a AC1900 router. After reading the AC1700 Router Retest article, a refurb Linksys EA6500 is looking really good. They are down to $79.00 now! Is the Netgear Nighthawk R700 worth paying $100 more? If anyone knows where to look up what class of wireless client is built into the different Mac models, that would help too!

Thanks!!!

 

[RogerSC]

Couple of things...if you read that retest carefully, you'd see that one important choice point is whether you're looking for better performance on 2.4GHz (1750AC) or 5GHz. (1900AC). Personally I'm a 5GHz. fan, since 2.4GHz is crowded around here. And 5GHz covers my house with the 1900AC routers that I've used. Plus 5GHz. is where you get the higher wireless-AC transfer rates. That's one thing.

The other is that if the firmware for the EA6500 is like that for the WRT1900AC, I wouldn't touch it unless there was third-party firmware available that I wanted to use. That one's just me, but I find the lack of tools for both network monitoring and features that should be supported by a $250 wireless router in the WRT1900AC Linksys firmware less than useful. Maybe the firmware used by the EA6500 is more complete since it came first, I don't know.

I'd recommend either an Asus RT-AC68U or a Netgear R7000 for you, from my experience. You can look at reviews here and elsewhere to get a sense of reviewers and users experiences and make your choice. As always, I'd suggest buying your new (or refurbished) router where you can return it if it doesn't do what you need it to do.

 

[L&LD]

If you're trying to save a little money, I would recommend the RT-AC56U which lets you dabble in the AC pond with any client with up to two antenna design. RMerlin firmware highly recommended.

Choosing between the 1750 and 1900 Class routers is a no brainer. The RT-AC68U is again in a class by itself mainly because of frequent fixes to new security (or other) issues from Asus themselves, but again; RMerlin firmware highly recommended once again.

 

[ampdigitl]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'm a 5GHz fan as well. Someone needed a wireless router, so I have up my dual band N router and had to go back to using this router as the primary. I finally found that they MacBook Pro has a three antenna design.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/1...s-15-inch-2013-retina-macbook-pro-reviewed/3/

I'm leaning towards the R7000. I will post once I get it in!

 

[sfx2000]

Outside of the Apple ecosystem, the Asus 68U has probably the best performance... and one has options if they want to explore things outside of the factory firmware (e.g. rmerlin's excellent efforts)

For your MacBook Air - it's a two stream A/B/G/N/AC dualband, the Pro is three stream.

If you want to keep things plain and vanilla - consider the Airport Extreme AC - might not have all the features of some of the others, but close enough in performance, and stability is a major plus on the AP/AC...

 

[bobsilver]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'm a 5GHz fan as well. Someone needed a wireless router, so I have up my dual band N router and had to go back to using this router as the primary. I finally found that they MacBook Pro has a three antenna design.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/1...s-15-inch-2013-retina-macbook-pro-reviewed/3/

I'm leaning towards the R7000. I will post once I get it in!

As many will tell you the R7000 has a lot of fans. I have one and it is very solid and stable. Regarding the Mac's the pre retina Pro's were N only. Max speed you will see is 450mbs which is the N max with three radios. Thats what I get.

The MacBook Air is a 2 radio client but in the 2013 model and up is AC. I have a 2013 Air and it gets up to 860mbs+ in AC. In N it would be around 300mbs max.

To help you understand each band has multiple radios. In N its a max of 3 with 150mbs speed per combined that would be a max of 450mbs. In AC the max radios is 4 in the 5ghz band and 3 in the 2.4ghz band. Each radio is capable of 433mbs so if you have a 2 radio client like the Air then its max speed is 866mbs.

With AC as you move away from the signal and strength drops speed drops off pretty fast so you need to be aware of that too.

Bob Silver
Netgear Advisor

 

[sfx2000]

The OP has the 2014 Retina MacBook Pro - it's a 3 stream client - AC1300 in 5Ghz and N216 in 2.4Ghz (Apple only supports 20MHz channels on the client side for 2.4GHz, otherwise it would be considered N450).

 

[keenism]

Asus's routers and Mac's seem to get along quite well...

MAC IP Address Name RSSI Rx/Tx Rate Connected Flags
3C:15:C2:xx:xx:xx 192.168.1.30 xxxxMBP -53dBm 1300/878 Mbps 16:59:53 AU

This is from an ac87, the r7000 I had(before it's oddly quick death) was also quite fast, around 300mbps slower than the ac87 is getting. Honestly though I'm now of the opinion TP-LINK Archer C7 or C8 is the way to go for its price/performance, unless you need/want aiCloud/aiProtection/AQoS/ other Asus goodies or Merlin's magic.

edit: and apparently the tp-link c9 is out...look forward to seeing how it performs and its pricing.

 

[ampdigitl]

Update

So I went with the Nighthawk R7000 and have been very happy. I had to retreat to the 2.4GHz band because the thick walls and plaster of my older house (1948) eat the 5GHz signal very easily. :-( Luckly, the R7000's improved range makes up for it. I can repurpose my Dlink powerline router for my man cave

 

[jegesq]

So I went with the Nighthawk R7000 and have been very happy. I had to retreat to the 2.4GHz band because the thick walls and plaster of my older house (1948) eat the 5GHz signal very easily. :-( Luckly, the R7000's improved range makes up for it. I can repurpose my Dlink powerline router for my man cave

Glad you're happy with it. And I don't mean this question to be a downer, but doesn't having to use your 3x3 802.11ac MacBook Pro Retina on a 20 MHz 2.4ghz channel sort of defeat the whole purpose of upgrading and spending the money for a 3x3 stream 802.11ac 1900 router? Just sayin'.... I mean, you had no idea about the construction of your walls and how 5ghz would behave before you bought the R700? And have you thought about using multiple AP's to extend your 5ghz signals to reach areas that the router can't as a way to still get the better and faster connection and speeds of 11ac? Again, just a thought.