If you want a budget AC1750 router to replace a potato, now's a good time... $59

I've been trying to decide what to do. I want to update my network but I'm not sure how much money I want to spend. Right now I have one of these bad boys:

So anything has got to be a step up. On the other hand the house is pretty big so I'm trying to decide between 2 WAPs or a really robust wireless router. I don't really want to spend $250 though.

Here is my load:
Downstairs:
-Wired desktop
-wireless printer
-Amazon Fire TV(wired)

Upstairs:
-laptop (wifi)
-wireless printer
-Roku3 (wifi)
-Roku XD (wifi)

Roaming:
-iphone
-ipad air
-GS4
-Galaxy Tab

House is about 4000 SF: 2000 SF upstairs and 2000 down.

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How does ac1750 compare to the n900 routers, specifically with using only wireless n devices?

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It still varies, completely depends on the router. Without AC clients in your house, this router, given the 3x3 MIMO, would function as an N900. The variables come with the internals and how it handles and prioritizes clients and how much power it provides the signal. The reviews of this router show it having average performance in terms of throughput at various attenuation. But if you read further into the review, it's caveated by stating that this particular router was more prone to dropping the connection at higher attenuation -- e.g., 30mpbs constant reliable connection would be preferred over a 60mbps connection that loses the signal too often to complete a large file transfer, but the 60mbps is going to look better on a chart that just displays maximum throughput at X attenuation. I don't know exactly what causes one N900/AC1750 router to handle noise better than another (determined by a combination of firmware and internal hardware).

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So as I understand it, they both offer 450mbps on the 2.4ghz bands. How is this allocated to a/b/g/n/ac devices, and does an ac router "reserve" some of that room for AC clients? I would think that they would perform the same on the 2.4 GHz band with an 802.11n client and that the only performance increase would be with an 802.11ac client on an 802.11ac router, like this one's, 5GHz band that has more than 450mbps bandwidth. Would that be correct? Basically, so long as the 2.4 GHz band doesn't "reserve" or have some amount of that bandwidth unavailable to N clients, this is a better deal for me.

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No, it doesn't reserve bandwidth for AC clients. If you connected N clients to the 5GHz bandwidth, you'll still get 150mbps per spatial stream (bottlenecked by the client's spatial stream almost always). Same concept as putting a wireless G device on an N router with a bunch of other 2.4GHz N devices. It's not the 802.11G protocol that would slow down the rest of the network, but rather its activity on the network just like any other device. (On another topic -- it's kind of a myth that changing your 2.4GHz band from mixed to N-only will improve performance.)

I'm in the market. Do these have beam forming? How many USB ports that can be used for external drives?

I'm on mobile right now but will definitely check this out when I get home. Much appreciated.

eta: 2 usb 2.0 ports, no beam forming. It's the older version of the router I had my eye on (the C8) but this is such a good bargain, I may pull the trigger. It should be a nice upgrade from our classic Linksys 54G router with DD-WRT. I max out at 17Mbps wirelessly and get 50 to 100 wired.

eta2: The c8 is on sale, too but it's not as much of a price drop as the model you linked.

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Also, beamforming is not as amazing as it sounds, at least not yet. It boosts throughput at longer ranges but not signal strength or reliability. And the throughput increase is small.

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Thanks, seeing as the C8 is 2nd generation design, do you think there would be any difference in range and reliability between the C7 and the C8?

So far, having USB 3.0 is the only real advantage that is readily apparent to people like me who are ignorant about modern-day consumer electronics. I could stop using my PC desktop as a file server.

You have a lot of 1x1 devices, some 2x2s, and most of them wireless N. Your biggest concern should be range, and that's really hard to predict because there's a lot more to it than distance. You probably don't need any of those high-end solutions, but your best bet is to drop by Walmart or somewhere else with a decent return policy and try out an AC66 or AC68 and go from there. I would be surprised if the AC68 didn't meet your needs perfectly (USB 3.0 included).

Of those you listed, if you plan on using the USB port for external storage, the AirPort Extreme only supports HFS+ and Fat32 file systems, so if you're using any reasonably-sized hard drive for backups with non-OSX computers, you may have some road blocks. There are some paid programs that will let Windows computers mount HFS+, so don't let it deter you. Just know that you may hit that road block if that's the route you're going. It's also only got 3 ethernet ports (as opposed to the essentially standard 4), which probably isn't a big deal to you, but it's another thing that will annoy you if you're expecting it. The router itself works great, and I have nothing but good things to say about its performance.

Conversely, if you're using all OSX, make sure the router in question supports HFS+ drives. Most that I have come across do, but make sure you check it out.


In terms of checking out what routers provide decent range in the setup you're talking about, smallnetbuilder does a good job of fairly comparing routers. They don't exactly test range, but they show performance at certain ranges, so checking out these products next to your "more reasonably priced" ones there would be prudent. Typically, the 5GHz band has better line-of-site speeds but is more prone to interference. The 2.4GHz band, on the other hand, is a bit slower on paper but handles longer ranges, interference/walls better. All of those routers will probably be over-buying, but there's a chance that the lower-end stuff won't hit the ranges you need. I've never really considered range so heavily- I've always lived in relatively small places or had a backup router available as an access point for areas where signal was poor.

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In terms of checking out what routers provide decent range in the setup you're talking about, smallnetbuilder does a good job of fairly comparing routers. They don't exactly test range, but they show performance at certain ranges, so checking out these products next to your "more reasonably priced" ones there would be prudent.

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Just keep in mind what I said in my earlier post. Throughput at X range doesn't tell the whole story, as in the case of this TP-Link. It may have a high throughput ranking at longer ranges, but the detailed review itself mentions it being unable to sustain connectivity.

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Filtering the Router Ranker to show only products tested with the latest method (magenta color bar), the C7 V2 takes the top position. But this ranking is heavily influenced by its top-of-charts total routing throughput and not outstanding wireless performance.

Looking at sub-ranks shows the V2 tied for second place with the Linksys EA6500 for Average Wireless throughput, tied for first with the ASUS RT-AC66U and dead last for Wireless Range.

It really earned the last ranking because it wasn't able to stay connected for the 60 dB tests used for 2.4 GHz range ranking and 39 dB tests used for 5 GHz range rank.

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SmallNetBuilder does have a router ranker by range: LINK

You have to sort it by class (All AC1750s, or all AC1900 or all N900, etc), so as far as I know you can't easily see which one has the absolute best range of all--- i.e., does the NETGEAR R6300 (ranked #1 wireless range for AC1750s) have better range than the ASUS RT-N66U (ranked #1 for N900s)?

Generally, you'll notice that Netgear and ASUS hang out near the top of the list in most of the rankings. I haven't used a Netgear router in years, but I can vouch for the ASUS, especially the interface.

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the AirPort Extreme only supports HFS+ and Fat32 file systems

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Good call. I did not know this.

I just realized that the file format is less of a deal breaker since the drives are mounted to the router and not the PC, and likely sharing over a protocol like SMB. They should be pretty agnostic.

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I just realized that the file format is less of a deal breaker since the drives are mounted to the router and not the PC, and likely sharing over a protocol like SMB. They should be pretty agnostic.

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If starting from scratch, you're fine. If you're plugging in a drive you already own with no good method of transferring the files and reformatting the drive, it's problematic. With a large portion of external drives hooked to routers being high-volume drives and most people using laptops and tablets for home machines, it can actually be problematic to grab a router that doesn't support what you're currently using.