Today I purchased a RT-AC86U ...

[Skeptical.me]

Yeah, that's unfortunate. Did wave 2 bring anything else to the table, if we're all disabling MU-MIMO on our Broadcom products? Beamforming was already part of wave 1 wasn't it?

One quick question, what exactly is MU-MIMO & Beamforming and why are they important? I think I understand Mu-mimo relates to gaming, which I never do.

 

[HowIFix]

why are they important? I think I understand Mu-mimo relates to gaming, which I never do.

It is pure marketing those options, no device supports them and garbage, I recommend that you do not use them and everything will work better.

 

[avtella]

It is pure marketing those options, no device supports them and garbage, I recommend that you do not use them and everything will work better.

What no, the QCA6174A WiFi card also branded as the Killer 1535, The Intel 9260ac and the older 8265 in quite a few laptops, there’s also a lot of Android devices support MU. The Broadcom based Android units ie Galaxy S7 don’t do we’ll however. A few sites did tests as well showing decent gains. SNB’s own tests with the R7800 showed decent gains as well.

Beam forming is not a gimmick either, I suggest you read up on explicit vs implicit beam forming. Implicit beam forming is the one I’d disable if you have issues as not all devices like that.

Having said that yeah you won’t see night and day differences with MU. Most people might only have 1 or 2 MU clients at home. You need at least two MU clients working simultaneously to make it useful. So don’t worry too much, the 86U should serve you just fine. Also MU is downlink only and usually upload is the bottleneck from your ISP. So if you have gaming lag due to the upload bottle neck you should try enabling QoS in the router and set device priorities.

With 802.11ax coming I hope MU is better on Broadcom devices. Granted it will be a few years before ax will even make a dent in availability and market share.

 

[HowIFix]

With 802.11ax coming I hope MU is better on Broadcom devices. Granted it will be a few years before those make a dent in availability and market share.

You are confused sir as you think that Broadcom MU-MIMO is equal to the MU-MIMO of Qualcomm, you do not have an RT-AC86U and do not know that it is broken on Broadcom.

Maybe the next router from ASUS is fixed.

 

[Skeptical.me]

So, the eBay shop location is 1 hour and 15 minutes away from me, yet it took over a week to get delivered. I should have purchased it from Amazon. Prime shipping here is only 2 days. Anyway, at least I have it now. The Web UI certainly runs a lot more smoothly than RTAC87U. So far all devices connecting well, LAN speeds are excellent, and range appears to be better than the 87U.

 

[sfx2000]

Beamforming was already part of wave 1 wasn't it?

It's actually optional in 802.11ac

MU is also optional, but if one wants MU, beamforming becomes a requirement.

 

[sfx2000]

One quick question, what exactly is MU-MIMO & Beamforming and why are they important? I think I understand Mu-mimo relates to gaming, which I never do.

MU actually has nothing to do with Gaming - it does have benefit to multicast traffic, but even there, it's a limited use case as to when MU should be used.

 

[Skeptical.me]

MU actually has nothing to do with Gaming - it does have benefit to multicast traffic, but even there, it's a limited use case as to when MU should be used.

Ok, I wasn't sure. I think I might do as suggested here and just disable.


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