asus rt-ac 5300 vs asus rt-ac 88u vs apple AirPort Extreme Base Station wireless router

Sham_gabz · February 8, 2016

asus rt-ac 5300 vs asus rt-ac 88u vs apple AirPort Extreme Base Station wireless router (please rank the products)

Razor512 · February 8, 2016

Sites like smallnetbuilder already do data driven ranking http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view

The thing is that it all requires you to evaluate your own network. For example, a WiFi router that does 1024QAM means nothing for you if your devices are all top out at 64QAM-256QA

A 4 stream WiFi radio may not do much for you if all of your devices are 1-2 stream devices and do not have support for MU-MIMO.

One of the most important things to look for in a router (though is not mentioned in rankings), is the ability to install 3rd party firmware. Just like how windows, Mac OS, and linux need to be updated on your PC, the OS running on the router also needs to be regularly updated. many router makers stop releasing security updates for their routers after 1-2 years of the product's release. this is why you see issues like remotely exploitable NetUSB not being patched for a massive number of routers.

If your router allows you to install DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT, etc, then you have an update path after the company that maid the router stops updating it. The asus routers will allow 3rd party firmware, but the apple airport will not.

PS, there is not much benefit with going for ac 5300, the benefits of a second 5GHz radio is really only seen in environments where they are many 802.11n devices and many 802.11ac devices (beyond that of the ability of the airtime fairness algorithm to cope with).

Edit: wanted to add a direct link to the download profile: 5GHz http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/bar/119-5-ghz-profile-dn

2.4GHz http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/bar/117-2_4-ghz-profile-dn

That is an average of the WiFi performance across the attenuation range, as you can see, the expensive 1024QAM routers do not really offer much of an improvement in performance. With 802.11ac 256QAM,that modulation rate usually only had a range of around 10 feet before it began to drop, 1024QAM drops it even further. What helps with WiFi performance the most, is how good the WiFi drivers are in the router (how well it balances modulation, PHY rate and retransmission), as well as the low noise amplifiers used, and the skill of the electronic engineer and laying the board out in a way that preserves the signal path as much as possible.