RT-AC3100

[sfx2000]

And for some, it's a win for OpenVPN performance...

 

[nagle3092]

Don't forget that the new CPU also saw a clock increase of 400 MHz. That's probably where the thermal gains went.

That's very true, I completely overlooked that aspect.

 

[RMerlin]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does having an increased clock speed actually do for a router?

Improves performance primarily for:

• VPN server and clients
• USB disk sharing (it was CPU-limited in the past)
• People running apps such as Download Master
• People with fast WAN but who cannot use NAT acceleration

Has about no performance impact on wifi (especially with the newer Broadcom SoC where the wifi SoC have their own dedicated CPU now) or LAN traffic (which is switched).

 

[dsring]

Can someone post there AC3100 cpu and radio temps ?

The temps on my RT-AC88U are:
2.4 GHz: 32°C - 5 GHz: 38°C - CPU: 48°C

 

[Deleted member 22229]

The temps on my RT-AC88U are:
2.4 GHz: 32°C - 5 GHz: 38°C - CPU: 48°C

Are you using active cooling ? Just got my new 3100 today working well so far. Here are my temps at least they are cooler then my old 68U.

2.4 GHz: disabled - 5 GHz: 45°C - CPU: 71°C

 

[dsring]

Are you using active cooling ? Just got my new 3100 today working well so far. Here are my temps at least they are cooler then my old 68U.

2.4 GHz: disabled - 5 GHz: 45°C - CPU: 71°C

Yes. I have a laptop cooler under the router. It was needed when I had the RT-AC87U which runs hot. I am now using it on the RT-AC88U.

 

[Joseph canttell]

Can anyone with the 88u and stock firmware try to max out the router cpu and watch the utilization logged into the router and share with me if both CPUs are being utilized or just one, please?

I just got the best buy version of this router, upgraded to latest stock firmware, and with old firmware only cpu one was being utilized while the other always sits their idling. Now with new firmware, cpu two is being utilized while cpu one is sitting idle even while maxing out ac connection from a r7000 connecting as a media bridge at AC1300 speeds bringing cpu two to 20-40 percent while other one idles.

It's weird because with xvortex firmware on r7000 it shares the load between both CPUs evenly maxing out the bridge link. On the asus only one cpu being used...

I did get at fastest so far 900Mbps out receive and 600Mbps transmit using r7000 with xvortex in media bridge linked to ac3100 3x3 @ AC1300 with signal of -40 and noise floor of -89.

In lamens terms that's 85 percent of a hard wired gigabit link for downloads via ftp only and 55 percent upload, it's slower in windows copy because for some reason my windows 7 32b ultimate edition is not using newer version of samba to multi thread copy files over from qnap ts251.

So if you were to bridge two 88u's or AC3100 routers @ 4x4 using nitro QAM(1024) at a link speed of AC1700-2168 you would be getting over 110oMbps maxing out a single hard wired gigabit connection.

Pretty cool. I was really hoping for faster speeds between the r7000 bridged to asus router. 900Mbps is fast but I wanted 1000Mbps or faster.

 

[Deleted member 22229]

I just ran a speed test from my phone and watched the CPU graph during the test and both showed activity almost equal it never did max out but did hit about 16%. Using Merlins 380.57 firmware. I have only had this router one day and so far loving it !!

 

[Joseph canttell]

Merlins firmware load balances both cores of the processor in router.

Stock firmware seems to only use one core for connections and rx & tx transmission speeds. Want to see if other owners with "stock" firmware is experiencing the same...?

 

[W4RH34D]

Vent on the top, they are listening! I'll be honest, I'll probably get this too. LOL

 

[jgebel]

Can someone post there AC3100 cpu and radio temps ?

I use the stock firmware(3.0.0.4.380_858) so only can see the CPU temp but its been averaging 73C. I am very happy with the stability of this router so far.

 

[JGrana]

Improves performance primarily for:

• VPN server and clients
• USB disk sharing (it was CPU-limited in the past)
• People running apps such as Download Master
• People with fast WAN but who cannot use NAT acceleration

Has about no performance impact on wifi (especially with the newer Broadcom SoC where the wifi SoC have their own dedicated CPU now) or LAN traffic (which is switched).

Merlin, quick question. What hardware does the actual NAT processing?

If the 1.4Ghz ARM cores are not handling packet by packet processing, the extra performance might be able to handle a media server such as Twonky or Plex.
Both run well on a Raspberry Pi's quad core ARM at 900Mhz.

Granted 2 cores vs 4 but this level of performance might be at the point where they are possible.

 

[RMerlin]

Merlin, quick question. What hardware does the actual NAT processing?

If the 1.4Ghz ARM cores are not handling packet by packet processing, the extra performance might be able to handle a media server such as Twonky or Plex.
Both run well on a Raspberry Pi's quad core ARM at 900Mhz.

Granted 2 cores vs 4 but this level of performance might be at the point where they are possible.

NAT is done by the Linux kernel, which runs on the CPU. With NAT acceleration enabled, even a 600 MHz single core CPU can reach near gigabit performance. The 1.4 GHz CPU would only matter if you were forced to keep NAT acceleration disabled.

What that NAT acceleration mostly does is bypass sections of the kernel, to improve throughput performance.

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Just wanted to report 7 days now with the RT-AC3100 and all is rock solid !!

 

[RamGuy]

NAT is done by the Linux kernel, which runs on the CPU. With NAT acceleration enabled, even a 600 MHz single core CPU can reach near gigabit performance. The 1.4 GHz CPU would only matter if you were forced to keep NAT acceleration disabled.

What that NAT acceleration mostly does is bypass sections of the kernel, to improve throughput performance.

But the firmware seems to have issues with getting upnp to work if you have NAT Acceleration enabled / automatic. Me and my buddy are both running the Asus RT-AC68U and I'm running Merlin 378.56_2 and he is running the latest official one from Asus and we both struggled with Moderate and Strict NAT with the Rainbow Six Siege BETA with upnp enabled and the only way we managed to get it to be Open NAT was to disabled the NAT Acceleration. That worked for the both of us, with it enabled it seemed like upnp was not functioning correctly.

 

[RMerlin]

But the firmware seems to have issues with getting upnp to work if you have NAT Acceleration enabled / automatic. Me and my buddy are both running the Asus RT-AC68U and I'm running Merlin 378.56_2 and he is running the latest official one from Asus and we both struggled with Moderate and Strict NAT with the Rainbow Six Siege BETA with upnp enabled and the only way we managed to get it to be Open NAT was to disabled the NAT Acceleration. That worked for the both of us, with it enabled it seemed like upnp was not functioning correctly.

It's most likely not related to UPNP, but just to NAT acceleration itself, which can introduce other compatibility issues. UPNP works fine with NAT acceleration, I use it all the time here.

 

[Puppa]

But the firmware seems to have issues with getting upnp to work if you have NAT Acceleration enabled / automatic. Me and my buddy are both running the Asus RT-AC68U and I'm running Merlin 378.56_2 and he is running the latest official one from Asus and we both struggled with Moderate and Strict NAT with the Rainbow Six Siege BETA with upnp enabled and the only way we managed to get it to be Open NAT was to disabled the NAT Acceleration. That worked for the both of us, with it enabled it seemed like upnp was not functioning correctly.

If you can set up IPv6, you won't need to turn off the NAT acceleration : IPV6 addresses don't use NAT or UPNP because each device has its own public address. Xbox one prefers to use IPV6 and will immediately go full Open because there is no NAT.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Another update 14 days now and again not a single issue with the AC3100.

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Three weeks now and still not a single issue with the AC3100. I think we got a keeper here folks..

 

[Webheadfred]

Well, I took the plunge and just installed my RT-AC88u. I never could get the 87u stable for any length of time. It was so frustrating. So far. So good. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Running Merlin 380.57_alpha2-g1b13557.