Do you really need a good router?

[Newblesse Obblige]

Enlighten me on this topic because I don’t see the point of getting a $150+ router when a $40 router can do the same.

 

[Kilrah]

Depends on context, of which you gave none. 

If you have a fast internet connection a cheapo router may not be able to route at the full speed of your connection.

If you have many devices all making lots of connections a cheapo router might not handle it and either slow down or crash.

You may want features like VPN, USB sharing, guest wifi, WiFi6 etc that a cheapo router doesn't offer.

 

 

[Dimondminer11]

9 minutes ago, 5GigaaHertz said:

Enlighten me on this topic because I don’t see the point of getting a $150+ router when a $40 router can do the same.

 

The difference is wifi version support, range, and bandwidth. Our shit free router that came with our internet plan is 8 years old and drops packets like its no tomorrow. If you use ethernet you shouldn't have an issue with a cheapo router but if you like using wifi more expensive = better.

[Nena Trinity]

For youtube? Nope gaming and fast downlaods? YES! O3O

[Sir Asvald]

1 hour ago, 5GigaaHertz said:

Enlighten me on this topic because I don’t see the point of getting a $150+ router when a $40 router can do the same.

 

People have their different preferences. I will myself as an example. I am network/sys admin, the idea of having a basic router doesn't sit with me, the basic functions are stupid. I have a standard router which I am replacing for an enterprise Cisco router. It may be old but it will definitely help a lot. I well be able to manage my network. I'll have more features.

[The Torrent]

Idk about elsewhere but in the uk they give you a router each time you get a contract.

 

I've never bought a router.

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, 5GigaaHertz said:

Do you really need a good router?

You're not even defining what is a "good" router or not. If we go buy a generic definition of "good" as in terms of usefulness and quality, then yes, you do want a router that's "good" for you needs, but...well, that's obviously not saying much.

 

First of all, you'd obviously want a router that can handle all of your traffic. The cheapest crapola will most likely only have 10/100 ports and thus won't be able to handle Internet-speeds higher than that. They may advertise as having 1300+ WiFi-speeds, but you're still limited to the speed of the WAN-port, so all that WiFi-bandwidth does jack shit. Similarly, if it's an underpowered crapola, its CPU just simply may not be fast enough to handle routing WiFi-traffic in-and-out and all that.

 

Secondly, you'd obviously want a router that can do all the features you want. If you want to use it as e.g. a NAS, you'd want a router with a USB3.0 - or eSATAp - port, not USB2.0. The cheapest crapola often don't have any such ports or only USB2.0. And, again, the speed of the CPU and the amount of RAM very much come into play when using the router as a NAS.

 

Thidly, VPN, either by way of routing your Internet-traffic through a separate VPN-service or providing a private VPN you can use to connect to your home-network from a remote location; the CPU has to be able to handle the VPN-traffic. Encryption on-the-fly is a heavy tasks and you either need a pretty beefy CPU or hardware-accelerated crypto-engine. Similarly, the cheapest crapola may not even offer VPN-features of any kind in the firmware at all!

 

Fourth, and somewhat related to the first one, is WiFi: if you plan to use your router's WiFi and want lots of bandwidth, you'll need a router than can do 802.11ac or better. You'd also most likely want a minimum of two antennas and a 867Mbps bandwidth on the 5GHz frequency. Many crapola-routers only use one antenna or can only do 802.11n -- sure, they may do 5GHz, but it'll still be 802.11n, and thus you won't be getting a lot of speed out of the connection.

 

Fifth, frequency-of-updates and general quality of the firmware. Crapola-routers often don't get any updates at all and contain a ton of vulnerabilities. They may also be crashy and just unreliable in a ton of different ways.

 

Sixth, reliability of the hardware itself. There are plenty of routers that can't actually handle much traffic because they overheat and crash. Or perhaps they overheat and just throttle everything down to all hell. Whether a router overheats or not isn't necessarily even related to how much it costs: there are plenty of just badly-designed, really expensive routers that overheat all the time and plenty of much cheaper routers than can do everything the same as the expensive ones, but without any thermal issues at all.

 

And so on and so forth. There's a fricking ton of stuff that can make something a good router or not and it's all very much subjective. No, you don't need those super-expensive, "gamer-routers": they don't really do anything that a router half the price couldn't do, and the thing defining how much they cost is mostly just marketing and hot air. On a similar note, you can often make a cheaper router into a far better one by installing custom-firmware, such as DD-WRT or OpenWRT, if the router is supported, and can actually gain more functionality than you'd get from a device several times more expensive.

[Newblesse Obblige]

3 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Depends on context, of which you gave none. 

If you have a fast internet connection a cheapo router may not be able to route at the full speed of your connection.

If you have many devices all making lots of connections a cheapo router might not handle it and either slow down or crash.

You may want features like VPN, USB sharing, guest wifi, WiFi6 etc that a cheapo router doesn't offer.

 

 

so features do matter?

[Newblesse Obblige]

so ill give some background. Our (expensive)ISP subcription speed is just 25 Mbps which is slow but fast enough for our needs as we are satisfied on 1080p video streaming(the most demanding thing we can possibly do when using the internet) but the ISP(also out Cable service provider) 3-in-1 modem get the job done for us except for the range which it has lackluster range(one wall will drastically deteriorate the signal) and our 7 year old router just the same as the ISP modem router but better range so we are better off using the 7 year old router because we thought as long as we could connect, we are ok. we never bother looking/exploring at those features as we thought we wouldn't use them. so i thought do we really need them at all? If i were going to but one, i would buy at most a $40 router.

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

Fourth, and somewhat related to the first one, is WiFi: if you plan to use your router's WiFi and want lots of bandwidth, you'll need a router than can do 802.11ac or better. You'd also most likely want a minimum of two antennas and a 867Mbps bandwidth on the 5GHz frequency. Many crapola-routers only use one antenna or can only do 802.11n -- sure, they may do 5GHz, but it'll still be 802.11n, and thus you won't be getting a lot of speed out of the connection.

Is it worth it to upgrade to 802.11ac even if we only have 25 Mbps? 802.11n(like our ISP modem and 7 year old router) seems to reach our internet speed consistently unless everyone connects.

 

EDIT:

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

On a similar note, you can often make a cheaper router into a far better one by installing custom-firmware, such as DD-WRT or OpenWRT, if the router is supported, and can actually gain more functionality than you'd get from a device several times more expensive.

what does DD-WRT and OpenWRT do? our 7 year old router seems supported my those.

[Kilrah]

43 minutes ago, 5GigaaHertz said:

so features do matter?

I don't know? You need to check whether they are useful to you...

 

22 minutes ago, 5GigaaHertz said:

Is it worth it to upgrade to 802.11ac even if we only have 25 Mbps?

Depends what you do on your network. If you also exchange files between your devices throught he network then it might. If all you do is internet at 25Mbps, not really. 

[Newblesse Obblige]

Just now, Kilrah said:

Depends what you do on your network. If you also exchange files between your devices throught he network then it might. If all you do is internet at 25Mbps, not really. 

i think we are the latter(all we do is just internet). 

[Windows7ge]

When it comes to consumer routers, modern ones with 1Gbit interfaces unless you're doing something special you're not really going to see any difference between the cheapest and the most expensive. Where more expensive routers get their gimmicks is Wi-Fi. Better coverage, MIMO, support for newer standards like Wi-Fi6 (802.11ax), among other things.

 

Basically if your Wi-Fi needs are taken care of you don't need a top of the line router because you won't see very much if any improvement in your wired deices.

[Donut417]

5 hours ago, 5GigaaHertz said:

Enlighten me on this topic because I don’t see the point of getting a $150+ router when a $40 router can do the same.

 

It comes down the the WiFi standard, how good or crap the software on the router is. Cheap routers tend to have lower end hardware, can't support many devices at the same time and might not have as good range. I paid $200 USD for my router and it was worth every penny. But there are $80 options out there that aint bad. It all comes down to your use case. 

[Falcon1986]

1 hour ago, 5GigaaHertz said:

i think we are the latter(all we do is just internet). 

I'm assuming you're talking about a router with wireless access point built-in, rather than a simple router...

 

If it works for you then it works for you. Nothing else needs to be done. Some people can work with WiFi 4.

 

Most people only notice they need to upgrade when they start experiencing speed limitations despite implementing optimizations and when the number of simultaneous devices connecting increases from 10 to maybe 25-30.

 

As WiFi technologies have advanced, so have the rest of the hardware responsible for routing and switching. For example, a WiFi 5 wireless router from the last 2-3 years will usually outperform a WiFi 4 wireless router from a decade ago. They might both support 802.11n, but the newer model has a better optimized CPU, better antennae, better traffic management, etc. The more concurrent devices you have accessing the internet, the more you should invest in a router that can handle the demand.

 

The next thing that has to be considered is that this is a WiFi generation. Many of our gadgets are made to be portable. So everyone has WiFi in their homes, offices, workplaces, etc. When everyone in your neighbourhood sets up their internet, it usually has a wireless component, but not everyone takes the time to set it up properly (i.e. turn down the power so coverage is only within the home, set a broadcast channel that doesn't overlap with anyone else's, set narrower channel widths on 2.4GHz but allow wider on 5GHz. etc.). So your wireless router is basically competing with every other access point in the neighbourhood. Some modern devices are "smart" enough to make internal adjustments when neighbourhood WiFi is detected, while others will just sit there and choke at the overwhelming interference. On the other hand, if you live on a farm in the sparsely-populated countryside where your WiFi is the only one around for miles, then you don't have to worry about this and almost anything will do.

 

With the affordability and availability of pro-sumer gear, there has been a shift away from the traditional single wireless router setup. Not everyone needs this type of setup, but as our homes get larger and as the density of wireless clients increase within a given location at a particular time, it has been shown that regular consumer-grade hardware (or at least the very rudimentary setup) is no longer sufficient.