Should I replace my RT-AC68U?

[mosestyle]

Hello everyone!

I've been using my RT-AC68 for more than 7+ years now and I honestly still love it!
Works great, stable and good range til this day!

For the last 2-3 years I've been using 250 Mbit/s, which have been working great. When using both 2.4 and 5Ghz on my phone or my PC, I'm getting like 240 Mbit/s, which is great!

However last week I upgraded to 500 Mbit/s and I noticed that my AC68U can't reach to that speed.
Even when I'm in front of my router, like literally 20cm away, I'm "only" getting ~260-300 Mbit/s.
I've tried both stock firmware and Merlin, same speed.
When using the ethernet cable from the router to my PC, I'm getting full speed (~490-498 Mbit/s)

Does this means that the RC68U Wifi can't handle 500Mbit/s speed and I need to replace it?

I've been looking for some replacement and found these. I don't want spend a lot since I'm on a budget (can't buy AX68U or AX86U):
- ASUS TUF-AX3000 V2
- ASUS RT-AX58U V2 AiMesh AX3000

I have also been looking for some TP link routers, specifically these (if they are better):
- TP-Link WLAN router AC1900 (1900Mbps)
- TP-Link Archer AX55

BUT I'm also wondering, since ASUS have AiProtection to block some malwares websites etc, do TP Link router also have something similar? If yes, I've noticed that ASUS is completely free, is it the same for TP link routers?

 

[ColinTaylor]

The RT-AC68U can do over 500Mbps on Wi-Fi provided your clients are capable of that. However using AiProtection will restrict your speeds to roughly what you're seeing. Try disabling AiProtection by going to Administration - Privacy and withdrawing from all agreements on that page. Then reboot the router and test again.

 

[mosestyle]

The RT-AC68U can do over 500Mbps on Wi-Fi provided your clients are capable of that. However using AiProtection will restrict your speeds to roughly what you're seeing. Try disabling AiProtection by going to Administration - Privacy and withdrawing from all agreements on that page. Then reboot the router and test again.

I just tried to disable it and restarted the router, I'm getting more or less the same speed. No major difference.

Also Isn't recommended to enable AiProtection?
And does it restrict the speed due to the hardware isn't "good enough"?

 

[bennor]

For the last 2-3 years I've been using 250 Mbit/s, which have been working great. When using both 2.4 and 5Ghz on my phone or my PC, I'm getting like 240 Mbit/s, which is great!

However last week I upgraded to 500 Mbit/s and I noticed that my AC68U can't reach to that speed.
Even when I'm in front of my router, like literally 20cm away, I'm "only" getting ~260-300 Mbit/s.
I've tried both stock firmware and Merlin, same speed.
When using the ethernet cable from the router to my PC, I'm getting full speed (~490-498 Mbit/s)

Does this means that the RC68U Wifi can't handle 500Mbit/s speed and I need to replace it?

No what it may mean is your WiFi clients are only capable of that 260-300 Mbit/s speed. Check the capabilities of the WiFi device and compare that capability against the router's WiFi capabilities. If the WiFi clients have better hardware specifications and capabilities than the 10+ year old RT-AC68U can provide then it is the router that is limiting the WIFi capability due to it's WIFi hardware.

The reality is the RT-AC68U is End of Life by Asus. It's had a terrific 10+ year run. While it is still capable of being a router and handling 500 Mbit/s broadband speed; it may be time to consider upgrading to a newer router if one's WiFi clients are being limited by the RT-AC68U's older WiFi standards, limited hardware and limited capabilities.

AiProtection and certain other features are disabled by default. The router will function as designed without AiProtection being enabled. They are add-on features for those who want to enable them but it can come at a cost of dragging down the router's limited processing power.

Also, don't use the RT-AC68U's built in speed test page, it is well known to not report the correct speed. Check the broadband speed using a wired network client instead.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I just tried to disable it and restarted the router, I'm getting more or less the same speed. No major difference.

What firmware version are you using?
Log into to the router and view the Client List on the Network Map page. What are the Tx and Rx rates for your Wi-Fi client when it is doing the speed test?

 

[mosestyle]

No what it may mean is your WiFi clients are only capable of that 260-300 Mbit/s speed. Check the capabilities of the WiFi device and compare that capability against the router's WiFi capabilities. If the WiFi clients have better hardware specifications and capabilities than the 10+ year old RT-AC68U can provide then it is the router that is limiting the WIFi capability due to it's WIFi hardware.

The reality is the RT-AC68U is End of Life by Asus. It's had a terrific 10+ year run. While it is still capable of being a router and handling 500 Mbit/s broadband speed; it may be time to consider upgrading to a newer router if one's WiFi clients are being limited by the RT-AC68U's older WiFi standards, limited hardware and limited capabilities.

AiProtection and certain other features are disabled by default. The router will function as designed without AiProtection being enabled. They are add-on features for those who want to enable them but it can come at a cost of dragging down the router's limited processing power.

Also, don't use the RT-AC68U's built in speed test page, it is well known to not report the correct speed. Check the broadband speed using a wired network client instead.

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S23, i think it should be able to handle full speed (or maybe I'm wrong)
Yeah it's honestly been solid without any hiccup or anything these 7+ years I've had it.

But let say that I was going to replace it, the list I wrote above, out of these 4 I wrote, is there a router you recommend or do you know a better one?

 

[mosestyle]

What firmware version are you using?
Log into to the router and view the Client List on the Network Map page. What are the Tx and Rx rates for your Wi-Fi client when it is doing the speed test?

I'm using the latest firmware update from Asus (not using Merlin).
For some reason my Chromecast is stuck at 866.7 (Tx Rate). 433.3 (Rx Rate)
Everything else is under 200. It says I have 13 clients.

 

[bennor]

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S23, i think it should be able to handle full speed (or maybe I'm wrong)
Yeah it's honestly been solid without any hiccup or anything these 7+ years I've had it.

But let say that I was going to replace it, the list I wrote above, out of these 4 I wrote, is there a router you recommend or do you know a better one?

The Samsung Galaxy S23 appears to be WiFi 6E capable which means the old RT-AC68U and it's older WiFi5 (AC1900) is likely going to be the bottle neck in terms of the max possible WiFi max speed. The RT-AC68U claims to be capable of WiFi 5 (802.11ac) up to 1300 Mbps, but in real world one likely sees a lower max WiFi speed due to various reasons including environmental factors.

Is the Samsung phone connected to the 5Ghz WiFI band? What does the Client List indicate for WiFi?

 

[ColinTaylor]

I'm using the latest firmware update from Asus (not using Merlin).
For some reason my Chromecast is stuck at 866.7 (Tx Rate). 433.3 (Rx Rate)
Everything else is under 200. It says I have 13 clients.

Maybe it's time to do a factory reset and just do the bare minimum setup to get it online, and then test again.

For reference, when I was using my RT-AC68U my laptop easily got over 500Mbps download speeds with a link speed of 866.7.

N.B. Your "866.7 (Tx Rate)" is correct because that is the transmission speed from the router to your client. The upload (Rx rate) will typically be much lower.

 

[eibgrad]

FWIW, my own RT-AC68U running either FreshTomato or DD-WRT (just for comparison) gets at most 300Mbps over wireless, 640Mbps over wire w/ NAT acceleration enabled. I suppose it could be capable of more for either wireless or wired, but I lack the most modern wifi clients, and my ISP tops out at 640Mbps.

Like the OP, I've stuck w/ the RT-AC68U in spite of any limits on wifi because a) the router is rock solid (which is no small advantage), b) I have no plans to update my wireless clients anytime soon and c) I find there comes a point where having more wireless throughput just doesn't matter for my needs.

And frankly, much of the time, the other party in the communications isn't offering anything better in terms of throughput anyway. IOW, it takes two to tango here, and unless both parties are similarly capable (or capable but unwilling), it often just doesn't matter. A lot of the high water marks you see posted come from performance testing, NOT real world results.

Where better wireless could help is you're dealing w/ a lot of local concurrency. But again, that's just NOT an issue for me.

 

[mosestyle]

The Samsung Galaxy S23 appears to be WiFi 6E capable which means the old RT-AC68U and it's older WiFi5 (AC1900) is likely going to be the bottle neck in terms of the max possible WiFi max speed. The RT-AC68U claims to be capable of WiFi 5 (802.11ac) up to 1300 Mbps, but in real world one likely sees a lower max WiFi speed due to various reasons including environmental factors.

Is the Samsung phone connected to the 5Ghz WiFI band? What does the Client List indicate for WiFi?

Ahh. In that case would a ASUS TUF-AX3000, a RT-AX58U or a TUF-AX4200 help if I buy one of them?
Or even the TP-Link Archer AX55?
The only thing I'm worried with TP-Link router is that if they don't have any protection like Asus have with it's AiProtection.

Yeah it's 5Ghz. I have separated the connections so I have both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. My phone is only connected to 5Ghz since the router range cover the whole house.

 

[bennor]

Ahh. In that case would a ASUS TUF-AX3000, a RT-AX58U or a TUF-AX4200 help if I buy one of them?
Or even the TP-Link Archer AX55?
The only thing I'm worried with TP-Link router is that if they don't have any protection like Asus have with it's AiProtection.

Yeah it's 5Ghz. I have separated the connections so I have both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. My phone is only connected to 5Ghz since the router range cover the whole house.

Cannot really speak to which of the routers you are looking at that would be the best replacement. Haven't had any experience with any of those four specific models. They all likely will perform better than the RT-AC68U but as always it depends on your use case and your environment.

Used a RT-AC68U on a 500/500 MB fiber line for a short period of time and it worked fine. Got acceptable speeds for my use case. Due to updating to a newer WiFi 6 capable laptop, decided to update to a RT-AX86U Pro. Doing a quick and dirty test with that old RT-AC68U with a generic cellphone (WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) and with a WiFi 6E capable laptop on that 500 fiber line yields the attached results. Also included are the WiFi Log, and WiFi settings on that RT-AC68U. It shows that it is possible (at least with a speed test performed from the WiFi 6E capable laptop) to achieve close to 500 Mbps broadband speed on WiFi. The Wifi Log indicates 866 RX/TX rates for that laptop. (PS: I don't use AiProtection. Router at generally default settings, do run YazFi on that RT-AC68U router.)

 

[andyross]

I have Comcast which is rated 500/20, although should test to 600/24. On my Pixel 8, I can get into the mid-upper 400's. (and nearly the full 600/24 on a wired computer.) I do have AiProtection and many other stuff turned off, so the router is running about as basic as possible.

 

[heysoundude]

I have 50MbpsDlL/10MbpsUL package speed from my ISP, and this is the connection speed of my phone, ~2m from my router:

(sorry, my first time using the windows screenshot tool)

 

[Tech9]

I don't want spend a lot since I'm on a budget

Just continue using your RT-AC68U and don't worry about the speed. Read this twice:

c) I find there comes a point where having more wireless throughput just doesn't matter for my needs.

You @mosestyle obviously need more the money and not better speed test numbers.

 

[John_]

With my Galaxy S23 I get 620 down 40 up on a RT-AC3100 and 1400 down 42 up on a GT-AX6000.
Comcast 1.2G

For two of my friends with basic connectivity needs I got each a RT-AX55 (no Merlin though) $89 currently.
It looks like there is also a RT-AX57 for the same price. I don't know anything about this one though.

For higher, RT-AX68U $130, RT-AX5400 $150

 

[Tech9]

RT-AX68U $130

This model is discontinued and End-of-Life.

RT-AX55... also a RT-AX57 for the same price. I don't know anything about this one though.

The same router, RT-AX55 is AX1800 class with locked to 80MHz 5GHz radio, RT-AX57 has 160MHz for AX3000 class.

 

[mosestyle]

Just a small update about my AC68U. I factory restored it to default settings. And enables NAT acceleration and yes even AiProtection. I'm getting like 490Mbit/s when using 5Ghz!
So big improvement there (i think)!

HOWEVER I noticed something strange. When I use Speedtest.net I'm getting ~490Mbit/s.
When using other websites such as RT-AC68U's built in speed test page, I'm getting ~290-300mbit/s.

Is Speedtest.net accurate or should I rely on my routers built in speed test page?

 

[bennor]

HOWEVER I noticed something strange. When I use Speedtest.net I'm getting ~490Mbit/s.
When using other websites such as RT-AC68U's built in speed test page, I'm getting ~290-300mbit/s.

Is Speedtest.net accurate or should I rely on my routers built in speed test page?

Well known and discussed issue with the RT-AC68U. Use the forum search feature to find those various past posts and discussions. The RT-AC68U's GUI speed test page often reports an incorrect speed. Usually half or two thirds of what the speed actually is when tested from a Gigabit wired PC. So always speed test from a Gigabit capable wired PC instead.