RT-AC88U

[sm00thpapa]

Dang...just a few days ago I read a post where you scolded another member for buying a new release router prior to the test report coming out on this site and now you are doing the same. Are you sure your not running for Senator?

LOL! I'm actually waiting for Tim's review to be honest. Amazon is taking their sweet time with the trade in. Plus if it stinks I can return it.

 

[RMerlin]

Dang...just a few days ago I read a post where you scolded another member for buying a new release router prior to the test report coming out on this site and now you are doing the same. Are you sure your not running for Senator?

He cannot confirm nor deny that he may, or may not buy a router, which may, or may not be an RT-AC88U.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Router hobby can get pretty expensive we all know but no where near as expensive as my firearm hobby.

 

[NightOwl326]

He cannot confirm nor deny that he may, or may not buy a router, which may, or may not be an RT-AC88U.

As soon as he gets his amazon gift card he will hit confirm order so fast his head will spin, and then hide in his closet as he opens it so his wife does not see he just spent the money for her gift on another router than gets 1.5' more range than the one he is replacing. Classic....

 

[sm00thpapa]

As soon as he gets his amazon gift card he will hit confirm order so fast his head will spin, and then hide in his closet as he opens it so his wife does not see he just spent the money for her gift on another router than gets 1.5' more range than the one he is replacing. Classic....

LOL! You're killing me dude. She just bitched at me for buying 5 firearms this month.

 

[NightOwl326]

LOL! You're killing me dude. She just bitched at me for buying 5 firearms this month.

She is tired of hamburger helper for dinner and shopping at goodwill so you can have a router with red antennas.

 

[kvic]

It turns out the CISCO whitepaper that I quoted on another day isn't lying but hitting 70+% is not that hard either. I made it on my AC56U.

650 out of 866 between AC56U and a Mac. 802.11ac 2x2 link. That's a whopping 75% efficiency!

It's the post of Actiontec Wifi Extender the other day (thank you!) drived me to question what are the possible bottlenecks in achieving higher efficiency..

I'm reasonably convinced AC88U can easily achieve 60% efficiency as some early adopters reported. Some people may manage to hit near 80%...I won't be a surprised.

That's all I can say for now. Into my Nirvana

Spoiler: AC56U iperf test

root@wjes:~# iperf -c 192.168.1.100 -P 4 -t 45
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.100, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 43.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 4] local 192.168.1.110 port 36538 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 3] local 192.168.1.110 port 36539 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 6] local 192.168.1.110 port 36541 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 5] local 192.168.1.110 port 36540 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 4] 0.0-45.0 sec 866 MBytes 161 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 0.0-45.0 sec 868 MBytes 162 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 0.0-45.0 sec 896 MBytes 167 Mbits/sec
[ 3] 0.0-45.0 sec 861 MBytes 161 Mbits/sec
[SUM] 0.0-45.0 sec 3.41 GBytes 651 Mbits/sec
root@wjes:~# iperf -c 192.168.1.100 -P 4 -t 45
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.100, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 43.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 6] local 192.168.1.110 port 36545 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 5] local 192.168.1.110 port 36544 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 4] local 192.168.1.110 port 36543 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 3] local 192.168.1.110 port 36542 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 5] 0.0-45.0 sec 872 MBytes 163 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 0.0-45.0 sec 876 MBytes 163 Mbits/sec
[ 3] 0.0-45.0 sec 875 MBytes 163 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 0.0-45.0 sec 868 MBytes 162 Mbits/sec
[SUM] 0.0-45.0 sec 3.41 GBytes 650 Mbits/sec
root@wjes:~# iperf -c 192.168.1.100 -P 4 -t 45
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.100, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 43.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 4] local 192.168.1.110 port 36547 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 5] local 192.168.1.110 port 36548 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 6] local 192.168.1.110 port 36549 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ 3] local 192.168.1.110 port 36546 connected with 192.168.1.100 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 5] 0.0-45.0 sec 839 MBytes 156 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 0.0-45.0 sec 880 MBytes 164 Mbits/sec
[ 3] 0.0-45.0 sec 901 MBytes 168 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 0.0-45.0 sec 873 MBytes 163 Mbits/sec
[SUM] 0.0-45.0 sec 3.41 GBytes 651 Mbits/sec

 

[Adam Kingsley]

I hate you guys for making me buy a new expensive router just 6 months after buying the AC87U. My AC87U is actually running great on the new firmware but after my previous troubles I guess I was easily convinced. Now, fingers crossed this one lasts me a few years.

Edit: Also the price is fluctuating between 279, 299, and 350 between Amazon and Newegg. Amazon currently has it at 279 if anyone is interested on the best time to snatch it up, I'd say it's now before it goes back up again.

 

[winb83]

The performance of the RT-AC88U in media bridge mode is unacceptable. As a router it's great but my second one arrived and every day twice a day I have to reboot it to re-establish connection. Ironically when I had the RT-AC68R for several days this issue never happened. Also even though the link speed is rated higher there's virtually no speed difference between the 88U in media bridge mode and the 68U.

 

[Puppa]

@winb83 That bridge problem is a known issue, and it's not limited to the RT-AC88U, which tends to point towards some software bug. You may have simply got lucky with your RT-AC68R: when I tried this, I had the link stay up for 3 days to a week, or fail within the first 24 hours.

 

[winb83]

@winb83 That bridge problem is a known issue, and it's not limited to the RT-AC88U, which tends to point towards some software bug. You may have simply got lucky with your RT-AC68R: when I tried this, I had the link stay up for 3 days to a week, or fail within the first 24 hours.

Oh really. How long has this issue been known?

 

[sm00thpapa]

She is tired of hamburger helper for dinner and shopping at goodwill so you can have a router with red antennas.

Trust me bro she gets everything she wants. I just installed a $26,000 pool cash for her. Plus I just bought her a 2016 vehicle.

 

[sm00thpapa]

I took the plunge and purchased the AC88U for $8.01 after trade in. Hoping it gets a good review.

 

[System Error Message]

despite the overheads of wifi you can achieve up to 90% using a synthetic and CPU straining bandwidth tester but you will get packet losses because of the nature of wifi.

Upon looking at the AC88U there are a few concerns i was looking at.
ports 5-8 have 2Gb/s bidirectional bandwidth to CPU/switch. Ports 1-4 i dont know if they have 1Gb/s or 4Gb/s to CPU. If wifi is connected to CPU and not switch than the bottleneck is only on the ethernet ports. You can check the specs of the 2nd 4 ports and the chip is realtek with a single RGMII interface but dual chained so im hoping it means that it is 2x1Gb/s links and hoping both are used otherwise it is equivalent to connecting a 5 port switch to a router using a 1Gb/s link.

Still 8 ports is sensible considering the size and cost of these routers.

2nd gen MU-MIMO should handle multiple clients better as argued in these forums in that in the instance of multiple clients even for non MU-MIMO capable clients.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Was there ever a 1st gen MU-MIMO router that worked?

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[IAAI]

Was there ever a 1st gen MU-MIMO router that worked?

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

We are all waiting for that firmware update


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sm00thpapa]

4x4 routers have been out now for how long? And we are still waiting for firmware's to support it better yet BETA firmware's.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[RMerlin]

despite the overheads of wifi you can achieve up to 90% using a synthetic and CPU straining bandwidth tester but you will get packet losses because of the nature of wifi.

Upon looking at the AC88U there are a few concerns i was looking at.
ports 5-8 have 2Gb/s bidirectional bandwidth to CPU/switch. Ports 1-4 i dont know if they have 1Gb/s or 4Gb/s to CPU. If wifi is connected to CPU and not switch than the bottleneck is only on the ethernet ports. You can check the specs of the 2nd 4 ports and the chip is realtek with a single RGMII interface but dual chained so im hoping it means that it is 2x1Gb/s links and hoping both are used otherwise it is equivalent to connecting a 5 port switch to a router using a 1Gb/s link.

The Broadcom part of the equation should be exactly the same as all past Broadcom SoCs - nothing special on this current generation or the RT-AC88U itself.

 

[RMerlin]

People should stop worrying so much about MU-MIMO, quite frankly. I bet none of you have the pair of MU-MIMO enabled clients that would be necessary to take any benefit out of a MU-MIMO enabled router.

MU-MIMO was abused by router manufacturers and SoC makers as a marketing checkmark to add to their spec sheets. "Look, this new router adds another checkmark that your one year old router didn't have, so you MUST upgrade!".

And with the Wifi Alliance not starting MU-MIMO validation until summer 2016, don't expect much to change on the market until then, aside from perhaps the stray early adopter that might face compatibility issues until proper validation start to happen.

 

[sm00thpapa]

People should stop worrying so much about MU-MIMO, quite frankly. I bet none of you have the pair of MU-MIMO enabled clients that would be necessary to take any benefit out of a MU-MIMO enabled router.

MU-MIMO was abused by router manufacturers and SoC makers as a marketing checkmark to add to their spec sheets. "Look, this new router adds another checkmark that your one year old router didn't have, so you MUST upgrade!".

And with the Wifi Alliance not starting MU-MIMO validation until summer 2016, don't expect much to change on the market until then, aside from perhaps the stray early adopter that might face compatibility issues until proper validation start to happen.

Good info. So when the validations take place will it just be a firmware upgrade to current routers or do we need new hardware?