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So the Asus N66U gets great reviews. What about the Asus RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750?

Is it worth the slightly higher costs?

I assume it may require dual band cards to get bets performance. Any thoughts? (Two level single family house 9 rooms wooden frame)

Thanx

ordskiweicz wrote:

So the Asus N66U gets great reviews. What about the Asus RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750?

Is it worth the slightly higher costs?

I assume it may require dual band cards to get bets performance. Any thoughts? (Two level single family house 9 rooms wooden frame)

Thanx

They're both dual band, but the N66U does not have 802.11ac. That said, the N66U is designed to allow loading DD-WRT firmware, which opens up many options. I'm sure the RT-AC66U will get DD-WRT (if it hasn't already as most ASUS routers eventually get a DD-WRT distro) but if you don't have 802.11ac client devices (or won't be purchasing any in the next year or two) stick with the N66U.

Don't forget that as the microwave frequency goes up, as in 2.4 GHz (b/g/n) to 5.0 Ghz (n/ac/ad) the range drops and the signal becomes more direct line-of-sight. If you're just using the wireless for surfing, g is all you really need.

My shiny new AC66U arrived today, along with an Intel 7260.HMWG 802.11ac mPCIe card. So far so good. Compared to my old DIR-655 & Killer 1102 combo my file transfer speeds are roughly 3-4 times better.

Captain Ned wrote:

They're both dual band, but the N66U does not have 802.11ac. That said, the N66U is designed to allow loading DD-WRT firmware, which opens up many options. I'm sure the RT-AC66U will get DD-WRT (if it hasn't already as most ASUS routers eventually get a DD-WRT distro) but if you don't have 802.11ac client devices (or won't be purchasing any in the next year or two) stick with the N66U.

Switching to DD-WRT doesn't open many more options that are not already present in the Asus firmware (especially Merlins builds).

I have the r66u (not ac) and if you don't get ac cards no reason to get the ac router. I did run ddwrt thought I'm now running tomato and it's rock solid even with a VPN, a printer, and a few other things on it.

With a large house range could be an issue, and while ac is supposed to improve range, there may still be dead spots. YMMV.
For many people and settings the best answer in wireless range is to get a bigger antenna, and if that doesn't work, put another access point in, which you could probably get for the cost of the difference in those two models.

You do not need the AC66 router if you do not want extra bandwidth that 802.11ac standard gives you. N66U is perfectly fine - I've been using it for a couple of years, with stock firmware, using 2.4GHz band (higher frequency 5GHz band gets attenuated too much by various obstacles and is unusable for my location), works fine for all our wireless devices, not planning on upgrading it any time soon.

Echo what JohnC said.
I have the RT-N66U and it works beautifully. I have a two story house of about 2400 sq ft and the router covers the entire house with the 2.4 band and we stream Netflix and games from all over the house with no problems at all. It was one of the best purchases I've made in the past year.

Thanks all, this is very helpful.

I shall go with the N66U.

I'd like to resurrect this post and ask if anyone had any data about the relative stability between the AC66U and the N66U. I'm deciding between these two ASUS routers and for me, the wireless speeds are less important that stability of the router. I don't currently have any wireless AC devices, but I tend to keep routers a long time (my previous router was purchased in 2007) and am leaning toward picking up an AC device to ensure compatibility with future devices, but not if the AC router is less stable.

Any experience?

While I dont have any data I do think you answered your own question. If you tend to keep routers for a long time a way to future proof yourself would be to get the AC66U.

Personally I have the AC66U and it is rock solid, again no data to really back this only that I have used it since it was released and its never given me any issues.

Asus is likely to support this new router for a while with firmware updates that would address any reliability problems. Go with the ac model if you can afford it.

bthylafh wrote:

Asus is likely to support this new router for a while with firmware updates that would address any reliability problems. Go with the ac model if you can afford it.

Yeah, that's my guess. There is just less information about the newer AC routers compared to the wide acclaim garnered by the N66u.

kumori wrote:

bthylafh wrote:

Asus is likely to support this new router for a while with firmware updates that would address any reliability problems. Go with the ac model if you can afford it.

Yeah, that's my guess. There is just less information about the newer AC routers compared to the wide acclaim garnered by the N66u.

I'm not seeing much either. My TP-Link 450Mbps did a great job in an apartment complex that would kill a 2.4GHz N connection, regardless of channel.

No reason at all not to get the AC model unless you're getting a significant discount on the N.

Buying N now would be like getting a G router just as N came out. I did just that when I picked up an extra WRT-54GL because I'd become so comfortable with my old 54G; I started to regret that decision not too long afterward.

jihadjoe wrote:

No reason at all not to get the AC model unless you're getting a significant discount on the N.

Buying N now would be like getting a G router just as N came out. I did just that when I picked up an extra WRT-54GL because I'd become so comfortable with my old 54G; I started to regret that decision not too long afterward.

They're expensive, and there isn't a terribly huge benefit, but 802.11ac will be on nearly every mobile device shipped in the next year.

Personally, while my TP-Link router is only 450Mbps, I might grab a .ac end-point for my living room stuff, to cut down on the 2.4GHz noise in that area, and provide a more stable connection to all devices. It's that or a power-line networking pair, and I think that the power-line networking might be the riskier choice overall.

Going to have to visit my local retailers to see if they have anything good in stock worth trying, so that I can return it if it doesn't work- they're all pretty good about price matching .

This is why ac matters:



From LanOC's review of the ASUS AC-56U

Hat tip to HardOCP.

jihadjoe wrote:

This is why ac matters:



From LanOC's review of the ASUS AC-56U

Hat tip to HardOCP.

Not exactly a far comparison using a single channel N instead of a bonded channel N like the RT-N66U can do.

^ Well you can assume 100% scaling and just treble the bandwidth of the N device, it still won't touch the AC.

To me channel bonding and MIMO stuff is just another advantage AC has over N. N has 20MHz or 40MHz channels, and it's really a case of YMMV because you don't know if your device will do bonding or not; whereas AC is guaranteed to do at least 40 and 80MHz. Just right there any standard AC device is already at least double the speed of the fastest N devices, and that's not counting other signaling improvements or 160MHz and 80+80MHz channels.

The price difference between the N66U and the AC66U is just $20-$30. IMO it's not worth getting stuck on old tech to save that small amount.