Replacing Asus RT-AC87U - To RT-AC88U or RT-AX88U

[Louis James]

Good Afternoon:

I would kindly request some advice. I currently have the RT-AC87U with Merlin 384.13_1. I've had this router since 2015 running at full. (My office is in my home). I think the router is starting to "fade." My VOIP calls are dropping outbound packets. I am pondering either doing a factory reset on the router and reflashing 384.13_1 and/or replacing it with an RT-AC88U or RT-AX88U.

Here are my questions:

1.- Both the AC and AX have eight ports. Seems to be un-managed. I understand Merlin allows to make it a managed switch. Is that true?

2.- If anyone has any guidance on which is better - the AC88U or the AX88U.

I would be most grateful for any thoughts. Thank you for helping.

Regards

Louis

 

[CriticJay]

Actually I believe your 2 choices should be AC86U and AX88U

 

[Mutzli]

The AC88U is old, this one is probably soon getting EOL from Asus. I have a couple of RT-AX88U's myself and they are excellent routers especially once you have them loaded with the Merlin firmware update. Regarding the ethernet switch, it is not a fully managed switch. But you can control certain features and assign LAN ports to work as WAN port. There are limitation since it's still a consumer product.

 

[Louis James]

I'm so glad you replied. I too wondered about the AC88U and will look at the AX88U. I've had such success with the RT-AC87U that moving to a different brand is just not an option. Thank you for helping.