Talk about some serious marketing BS - 4334 Mbps on 5GHz and 1000 Mbps on 2.4GHz. It also claims 1.8Gbps WAN-LAN routing performance yet only had 1Gbps ports.

That's a bit like saying you have a 2.4Tbps switch when you actually have a 24 port 100Mbps switch!

The Netgear Nighthawk has a lot to answer for. One of the first routers that realised it didn't just need to be a black box. I think it kind of looks cool (disclaimer: I've got one), but it really does seem to have kicked off a "I can out-aerial you" arms race.

For that price you could buy quite a few 11ac APs and powerline boxes.

deadlyllama:

 

For that price you could buy quite a few 11ac APs and powerline boxes.

 

Anybody who has tested a 256-QAM capable system will know that you have to be extremely close to the radio to hold a 256-QAM MCS rate.  To hold a 1024-QAM MCS rate you are going to need to be so close to the radio that you would be better off with an Ethernet connection.   Wireless is about mobility and this product is marketed to the gaming community who generally don't walk around (while gaming - heading to the fridge is another story).  If you aren't moving and you need to be so close to a radio that you can run a patch cable why wouldn't you.

Aredwood: The specs claim it can reduce the distance to the game server. Maybe it has an undocumented wormhole feature. Or it can create a VPN tunnel using quantum entanglement.

It appears to use WTFast's gaming network that uses traffic shaping and SSL tunneling.

I'm more interested in the hardware and software stability, performance,  and the correct implementation of the various networking standards. 

It is amazing how few consumer routers are actually stable and implement networking standards correctly. 

I agree on the marketing BS front. A sucker and his/her money are soon parted.

The proliferation in aerials on home routers is the same con as the multi-blade razor fiasco:

Seriously, if you want cheap, top quality shaves and not pay Gilette over the odds just so they can pay sportsmen ridiculous amounts for endorsements, get a good DES razor (Muhle, Merkur), some 'feather' blades, a silvertip badger brush and some Mitchell's Wool Fat or Haslinger schalfsmilch soap. Thank me later.

Similarly, if you want decent wifi, get a switch and run some cables to well-placed APs.

surfisup1000:. 

 

It is amazing how few consumer routers are actually stable and implement networking standards correctly. 

 

 

The issue with a number of standards is that they have mandatory and optional components.  Enterprise vendors will implement and be certified for all or the vast majority of the optional components while consumer vendors, in an attempt to keep the costs down, will implement very few, if any, of the optional components.  Unfortunately it is commonly these optional components that add stability and improve performance.

sultanoswing:

 

The proliferation in aerials on home routers is the same con as the multi-blade razor fiasco

 

 

 

All things being equal the wireless performance of a 4x4:3 configuration should should exceed that of a 3x3:3 configuration.

Again, all things being equal, the SNR from external antennas should exceed that from internal antennas.

Problem is that it's ASUS. :(

sultanoswing:

 

I agree on the marketing BS front. A sucker and his/her money are soon parted.

 

The proliferation in aerials on home routers is the same con as the multi-blade razor fiasco:

 

Seriously, if you want cheap, top quality shaves and not pay Gilette over the odds just so they can pay sportsmen ridiculous amounts for endorsements, get a good DES razor (Muhle, Merkur), some 'feather' blades, a silvertip badger brush and some Mitchell's Wool Fat or Haslinger schalfsmilch soap. Thank me later.

 

Similarly, if you want decent wifi, get a switch and run some cables to well-placed APs.

 

 

Off topic, but I've spent months doing and publishing evaluations of Merkur, Gillette, Schick, and Dorco razors. Everyone's different, but I found Merkur double edged by far the worst, and that quality generally matched price - other than a couple of stand-out exceptions.

During that I discovered that more blades means less pressure per blade, which can mean less irritation. Within reason of course, and quality is more important than blade count. The Dorco seven blade razor isn't as good as the Schick three blade razor.

timmmay:

 

Looks like you could talk to the astronauts in the space station with this thing! $650 for a router! Plenty of features, but that's an expensive router!

 

 

 

 

To really get the full benefit of such a beast you have to buy wifi devices that can talk to it on it's own level. I bought a network card for my (similar) D-Link "Taipan" router...and have a 702mbps wifi connection (through two walls). Worth every penny to me, but there were a fair few pennies involved. In the same room my (new) HP laptop gets an 866mbps wifi connection. 

Linuxluver:

 

To really get the full benefit of such a beast you have to buy wifi devices that can talk to it on it's own level. I bought a network card for my (similar) D-Link "Taipan" router...and have a 702mbps wifi connection (through two walls). Worth every penny to me, but there were a fair few pennies involved. In the same room my (new) HP laptop gets an 866mbps wifi connection. 

 

I paid $50 for Ethernet cable and $100 for a guy to run it under the house :-)