Best AC Router for Gigabit connection?

[Dulanic]

So I just got a gigabit fiber connection and damn is it fast...The downside is my router can't handle the speed. The CPU pegs at 100% at around 200-250Mbit. I have the R7000 currently but it just doesn't seem fast enough anymore... I never thought I would say that!

Currently the R7000 is running AsusWrt-Merlin firmware, I may try going back to stock to give it a shot... but haven't had the time yet.

So my question is what router may be best for me with this situation? Importance in order...

1. Able to handle a gigabit worth of speed.
2. Dual Band
   
3. Have a good wifi range on AC.

This is from plugged into the router:


This is plugged directly into the modem:

 

[AnonymouseUser]

By chance do you have any QoS settings enabled in the R7000? Regardless, backup your settings and reset the router. See if that helps.

 

[Dulanic]

By chance do you have any QoS settings enabled in the R7000? Regardless, backup your settings and reset the router. See if that helps.

I can't believe it but yes I had QOS on. I turned that off and it helps, but it does still peg at 100% at 350Mbps.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

This is an AsusWRT/DD-WRT issue:

2) When certain incompatible features are enabled, then the router is rebooted with CTF disabled. In this mode, the processing is then entirely done by Linux. It allows you to do anything you'd want (as a firmware developer), but performance is seriously impacted. A typical 600 MHz MIPS device (such as the RT-N66U) will reach a WAN to LAN limit of around 150-200 Mbps (less if you start heavily processing traffic through QoS, parental control, custom firewall rules, etc...). Unfortunately, it's not always clear to the end user when HW acceleration is automatically disabled by such a thing. If your router has telnet access, you could see if the ctf.ko kernel module is loaded or not, using the "lsmod" command.

This is interesting and completely new to me. I will have make a mental note to avoid Broadcom SoC-based routers in the future. Read more here.

 

[Dulanic]

This is an AsusWRT/DD-WRT issue:



This is interesting and completely new to me. I will have make a mental note to avoid Broadcom SoC-based routers in the future. Read more here.

Thanks I'll look more into that. I can deal with stock firmware if I need to and that will speed it up.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, you're pretty-much limited to a newer router with line-speed Gigabit Hardware NAT, utilizing Stock firmware. The third-party firmwares, due to all their additional processing / routing features, usually don't enable the Hardware NAT, even if they could. Which, as you noticed, limits their WAN-to-LAN routing speed to a fraction of line speed.

Another thing I might suggest, is building a mini-ITX PC, with a real x64 CPU, getting an Intel multi-port Gigabit server LAN card, and running a purpose-built Linux router distro, like PFSense, or one of the other ones, like Astaro Gateway, or there's a few more.

What you want is a very high PPS (Packets-per-second) rate, which is really only achievable with a pretty grunty CPU (compared to the ARM or MIPS CPUs in consumer routers), and a server-grade NIC (with ports for both LAN and WAN).

Edit: Then you can utilize a consumer AC1200 / 1750 / 1900+ router, as a wireless AP, bridging onto your LAN. (Or using the mini-ITX board's onboard NIC, for a wireless AP port.)

 

[Dulanic]

Thankfully I don't need anything not offered by stock firmware. As long as I can port forward and set dhcp static IPs I'm good. I do have a 24/7 mini ITX Linux server but I think I'll go with stock firmware route.

 

[Dulanic]

FYI, Asuswrt does support CTF. I had to turn off QOS and traffic monitoring and it works no problem now.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

That's what the thread I linked to said. Basically, as long as you aren't using any setting that makes AsusWRT better than stock firmware, it works fine.

 

[gizbug]

I just upgraded to gigabit service. XFINITY gave me a free Netgear Nighthawk R8000 router. I currently have a generation 6 Airport Extreme. Trying to decide which to use, as I see a lot of poor reviews on the R8000, and the lack of firmware updates is a joke, seems the company is slowly stopping support for the product. I thought about using a custom firmware, but so far have stayed with stock.

 

[Makaveli]

Glad you got it figured out i'm running the same Router with Xvortex/Merlin firmware.

You will have no problems hitting those speeds aslong as QOS and traffic monitor stuff is off.

 

[gizbug]

Where is this Merlin FW for the R8000


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Makaveli]

There is no port of Merlin firmware for the R8000 only the R7000.


Only DD-WRT is available for the R8000 for custom firmwares that I can see out.

https://www.myopenrouter.com/download/list?cat=100

Quick review.

https://www.myopenrouter.com/article/quick-review-dd-wrt-kong-mod-firmware-netgear-r8000-nighthawk

 

[gizbug]

Thanks. Looks like KONG does not support CTF

 

[Dulanic]

Thanks. Looks like KONG does not support CTF

Yeah I stopped using DDWRT a while back due to it's shoddy support. I believe tomato supports CTF however.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah I stopped using DDWRT a while back due to it's shoddy support. I believe tomato supports CTF however.

I don't think so much that it's "shoddy support" (although, DD-WRT does support a multitude of devices, which makes support for individual devices generally receive less direct attention than they possibly should), but more to the fact that DD-WRT is primarily based on adding features to the stock firmware, and virtually all of those advanced features directly interfere or prevent CTF (hardware NAT / routing) from functioning. So they don't even enable it, when they could.

 

[Makaveli]

Looks like Tomato does have support for the R8000

http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=164