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Rt-ac68u

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Can you point me to where Trusted Reviews describes their test methodology?

AC1900 is the latest craze manfs have latched onto to try to keep you shelling out for $200 draft 11ac routers.

There is nothing in TurboQAM that helps improve performance for devices that don't support it. So any performance gains the reviewer saw were likely due to better basic RF performance.

BTW, achieving the 600 Mbps in 2.4 GHz requires a 40MHz wide channel. Since the 802.11 spec now requires 40MHz mode coexistence, even fewer people are going to experience 600 Mbps link rates.
 
His USB performance is way off. I get 2-3x his performance on the USB 3.0 port. I was able to push read speed over 40 MB/s here. Makes me suspect he might have enabled the option to reduce USB3 interference, unless whichever firmware he was running was sub-optimal (I see it's a 372.xxx build).

Hi RMerlin,

Since you have mentioned it, i find it peculiar odd that how did the reviewer get his ASUS RT-AC68U? ;) besides the USB 3.0 performance, there are no pictures of the physical unit posted and i don't recall having heard that ASUS TW has shipped out any .372 firmware for ASUS RT-AC68U. Currently all retailing ASUS RT-AC68U are A1 hardware revision and shipping firmware 3.0.0.4.374_107 or higher and ASUS TW has just released 3.0.0.4.374_134 for some fixes for limited release.

3.0.0.4.374_107



3.0.0.4.374_134

 
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His USB performance is way off. I get 2-3x his performance on the USB 3.0 port. I was able to push read speed over 40 MB/s here. Makes me suspect he might have enabled the option to reduce USB3 interference, unless whichever firmware he was running was sub-optimal (I see it's a 372.xxx build).

Did you get a 68U or is this on the 56U? I thought it was kind of odd that they got such terrible speeds on USB 3.0, it would be really nice to get 40MB/s

Also I realize this isn't the best review out there, but figured I would share it since it is the first review I have seen for the 68U.
 
Did you get a 68U or is this on the 56U? I thought it was kind of odd that they got such terrible speeds on USB 3.0, it would be really nice to get 40MB/s

Also I realize this isn't the best review out there, but figured I would share it since it is the first review I have seen for the 68U.

RMerlin got his results on the ASUS RT-AC56U, USB results will vary tho with setup, mine is 20+ ~ 25+MB/s on my ASUS RT-AC56U

 
They did test a regular N device and it saw a speed improvement.

I saw they mentioned that in passing, but didn't actually give any #s?

I look forward to its wide release and the results from consumers in actual real life setups.

I'm also curious how much more expensive prosumer routers can get and people care about that device's ability to function as a NAS when they'd get better performance out of an entry level NAS.
 
Did you get a 68U or is this on the 56U? I thought it was kind of odd that they got such terrible speeds on USB 3.0, it would be really nice to get 40MB/s

Also I realize this isn't the best review out there, but figured I would share it since it is the first review I have seen for the 68U.

That was on a AC56U, which is pretty similar HW-wise.
 
RMerlin got his results on the ASUS RT-AC56U, USB results will vary tho with setup, mine is 20+ ~ 25+MB/s on my ASUS RT-AC56U


My numbers were for read speed. Write speed is indeed closer to 25-30 MB/s (I haven't retested it with recent FW code).

All tests are also done with my FW, tho I didn't make many optimizations related to USB/Samba performance.
 
Hi RMerlin,

Since you have mentioned it, i find it peculiar odd that how did the reviewer get his ASUS RT-AC68U? ;) besides the USB 3.0 performance, there are no pictures of the physical unit posted and i don't recall having heard that ASUS TW has shipped out any .372 firmware for ASUS RT-AC68U. Currently all retailing ASUS RT-AC68U are A1 hardware revision and shipping firmware 3.0.0.4.374_107 or higher and ASUS TW has just released 3.0.0.4.374_134 for some fixes for limited release.

Sounds like they had their hands on a prototype, or someone inside Asus smuggled them a review unit. FW 372 would indeed put them back to a router "shipped" a month or two ago.

They also mention the CPU being a BCM4709. I couldn't find any information confirming if it was indeed a 4709, or a 4708 (the FW code only refers to the latter).

Very little info on Broadcom's own website as to what are the differences between the 4707,08 and 09.
 
My numbers were for read speed. Write speed is indeed closer to 25-30 MB/s (I haven't retested it with recent FW code).

All tests are also done with my FW, tho I didn't make many optimizations related to USB/Samba performance.

At these kind of high performance levels, don't we almost need charts with USB 2.0/3.0 to SATA interface adapter rankings? All I ever see advertised is the max theoretical speed of the spec, I have no idea if (or maybe more accurately "how" not "if") my hard drive controller or the chipset in whatever adapter/interface I use to connect a SATA drive to USB is affecting the throughput of the drive.

As someone who works on drives a lot, I have a lot of standalone, toaster style caddies, I would speculate they might be slower than OEM made external drives in case with interface bundled in. Who knows. . .like I've said, this isn't something I personally would use my router for since I've got a NAS, but it seems to be a feature that people want and that router manufacturers are eager to tout (file serving abilities and USB 3.0 connectivity). There's no plain vanilla test it seems where router file serving performance can be measured independently of drive & chipset used to bring that drive to the USB interface? But one guy's 25MB/s (which is already file system, file size, direction of transfer, and networking protocol dependent) could be another guy's 40MB/s if they have wildly different storage devices.
 
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I wonder what the release plans are for other devices w/ TurboQAM support. It appears that is the only item w/ TurboQAM available for order/pre-order right now at Newegg.
 
It can't be much more expensive given the actual price of RT-AC66U, in fact the only major changes are the processor, usb3.0 ports, and TurboQAM in the 2.4ghz side, a huge increment in prince with similar AC performance will lead to a not very competitive product.

I'm still wondering if I should give it a try (as soon as it is available in Spain) as a replacement for AC66U, but i just find hard to justify the investment only for OpenVPN performance and better usb speeds.
 
I wonder what the release plans are for other devices w/ TurboQAM support. It appears that is the only item w/ TurboQAM available for order/pre-order right now at Newegg.

As has been noted, the "TurboQAM" support requires 40MHz. (2 channels) on 2.4GHz. No point to it for me, other than the prestige of being able to say that I'm a proud new TurboQAM owner *smile*.

Although I'm sure that the other 17 2.4GHz. wireless networks that I see around my neighborhood would all be envious *smile*.
 

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Linksys EA6900 launches on the same day as the RT-AC68U. Wonder which one will sell more on launch day. Tough decision as both routers seem to be very equal in power. I'm looking at both myself. Will wait for reviews before I purchase either.
 

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