What should I do / What do I need?

[nejo]

Hi all,

I used to have an Asus N56U which worked pretty great to be honest, but I felt since I got the newer MBP with AC I thought I'd get an AC-router. The choice fell on the Netgear R6300v2.

However I don't feel it adds anything to my network, on the contrary when I'm on the 5GHz band (which I had turned off on the N56U) websites loads very slowly and on the 2.4GHz I feel it's somewhat worse than the N56U.

So, I'd thought I'd get your opinion on what I should do. I'm thinking of returning the R6300 and get the Asus AC66U instead.

My setup is as follows and is used for movie-streaming and web-surfing mostly.

NAS (1 GB wired)​

Macbook Pro (AC)​

iMac (N)​

What do you recommend? Should I get the AC66U? Should I get something else?

Kind of in need of fast answers as I have to return the R6300 tomorrow or the day after.

Thanks

 

[Pierino]

The rt-ac66u is a great router. It's not a dual arm cpu like the r6300v2 but for your use it would probably be fine.

 

[Razor512]

Both will be good choices, but the RT-AC66U will be a little better, especially if your main focus is wifi performance, and the ability to customize the router.

 

[KGB7]

Have you looked at the performance charts on SNB for 6300 vs ac66? I'm on cell phone ATM, so the charts don't work for me. But if I remember correctly, ac66 is a better choice.
Then there is another issue with 6300. In my.past experience, Netgear has a limited and poor support for their products and firmware updates. It works fine if you just need something cheap that works, but look else where if you want to get the most out of a product.

If you willing to wait a month or three, the prices on ac68 will start to drop, as Asus just came.out with a new AC router.

I used to have wndr3700 and it was a great product at the time. But, poor firmware support, less then poor forum support and external antennas are far better then internal antennas. I had a Linksys router model 610 at the time that was a direct competitor to wndr3700. I added external antennas of my own to Linksys router and it was a far Better router then wndr3700.

Asus with external 4 antennas and Netgear with 6 antennas has proved it.

 

[htismaqe]

I used to have wndr3700 and it was a great product at the time. But, poor firmware support, less then poor forum support and external antennas are far better then internal antennas.

The 3700 was one of the best, most-stable routers I've ever owned. You're right about Netgear support, except the forum part. For a user-to-user forum with basically no Netgear presence at all, it's a pretty good place and has helped a lot of people.

 

[KGB7]

The 3700 was one of the best, most-stable routers I've ever owned. You're right about Netgear support, except the forum part. For a user-to-user forum with basically no Netgear presence at all, it's a pretty good place and has helped a lot of people.

I just have been clearer. User on user was good support, but any Netgear representatives that are on the forums, just spit out robotic answers.

 

[htismaqe]

I just have been clearer. User on user was good support, but any Netgear representatives that are on the forums, just spit out robotic answers.

I've been a member of the forums over there for almost 6 years and I've seen an actual Netgear employee maybe once or twice. Their support used to be very good too, it's a shame.

 

[nejo]

Hi,

small update:

Returned the r6300 and got the AC66U, however still having problems with wifi signal strength, even on Merlin. The router feels a bit buggy and sometimes slow to respond etc, both on stock FW and Merlin, maybe I got a bad sample or something?

Anyways, I'm now looking at the Airport Extreme, but it doesn't look that appealing... Don't really know what to try next.

 

[sfx2000]

Anyways, I'm now looking at the Airport Extreme, but it doesn't look that appealing... Don't really know what to try next.

How? - you don't like the gleaming white tower of AC power?

Just kidding - the AP Extreme AC is a very stable, competent router with a somewhat reduced feature set.

It's about a 20 percent price premium over some of the similar routers, but if you value your time and effort, might be worth it.

What I can say is this is what I run in a multiple AP network here at the house, and I've got 5*5 coverage in the house and outside on my half-acre...

sfx

 

[nejo]

I returned the AC66 today, and thought I'd just forget about AC for a while. The price jump between the AC66 and the Airport Extreme would be about 60USD, so I decided to get the N66U instead, and 45USD back to me.

I've only tested it a for a little while, but the signal seems better so far.