High performance routers?

[Army GI]

Hello, I'm in the market for a new router. I have an older Linksys WRTG54G or whatever it's called. I'm looking at the new Cisco e2500 or e3000. But on amazon.com I saw some more expensive ones close to $150+. Is there a noticeable difference between these routers and the normal $50 ones?

[sholling]

It depends on what you're looking for from a router. I like dual band wireless routers so that I can have a semi-private 5ghz channel to myself but not everybody cares about that. I also have a 35Mb internet connection so performance is important to me. If you don't need all of that esoteric stuff than a D-Link DRI-655 is a really good wireless-N router for about $80 and is plenty fast. It's only downside is its wireless range could be a little bit better.


I finally switched an Asus RT-N56U but it's an expensive router and not everyone needs all of its features. You'll find SmallNetBuilder a good source for tests and reviews.

[ntrddragn]

i would craigslist for you but you know the whole censorship thing is getting in the way. LOL

It reallys depends on what you need or want it for. You can the most baddest router but if your computer is max at something lower then thats all the speed ur getting out it.

[SouperMan]

Costco had the Cisco E4200 a few months back, but I did not act fast enought and I endded up getting a Netgear WNDR3700 from Costco for about $100:

http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wirelessrouters/high-performance/WNDR3700.aspx

It was a significant upgrade from my old WRT-54G. I was running a custom OS (DD-WRT) on the guy, but it seems like age was taking its toll with packet collisions and transmission errors. With the WNDR3700 (and most newer routers), you may hook up a non-networked USB printer or USB HDD and share these devices to your whole WAN. A dual band network is also useful to compartmentalize your network from guests.

[high_revs]

armygi, i'm also coming from a wrt54g. i went with the asus rt-n56u. i considered the cisco e3000 and the wndr4500.

other things to consider.. does your equipment use triple or dual antenna wifi? if you're using it for hardwired mostly and you don't have wifi adapters that are triple antenna, then you'd be fine with the recommendations above.

if guest access is important, i believe the cisco and netgaer high end has those (not my asus though).

[GSwain]

Most people cannot even take advantage of wireless g at 54 Mbps. It's only useful if your Internet connection and hard drives are blazing fast too. Most places limit download bandwidth anyways.

[high_revs]

i will add also since OP had the same model i had. i could never get the wifi speed on bandwidth tests to be the same as wired bandwidth tests. i had wrt54g v5 and v8, both with ddwrt too. with my asus rt-n56u, the wifi bandwidth speeds matched my hard wired speeds. i'd be lucky if my wifi on wrt54g would even get up to 11mpbs where as my wired speed is 24-25mpbs.

maybe the wifi components on my wrt54gs were worn out, but it's never been able to match hardwired speeds even years back.

but you're right gswain, bandwidth will limit the speed unless OP does a lot of streaming from like a nas to view on ps3 or something in his home network. and each website viewed has different speeds.