#NETGEAR NIGHTHAWK R8500 REVIEW UPGRADE#
The reason you might want to upgrade to a new router is to boost the speed of your home network. Your router’s performance won’t make your Internet connection any faster, either. You’ll never see actual performance that high. And those are theoretical numbers that don’t take protocol overhead and a lot of other things into account. If Smart Connect determines that load balancing isn’t necessary, the router automatically assigns 802.11ac and 3×3 802.11n devices at short range to the low-power channels and any 5GHz devices at long range to the high-power channels.ĭoes that mean you can expect to see your wireless network deliver throughput of 3200Mbps? Heck no, that’s just the sum of the wireless throughput on all three networks. The router also evaluates each client’s signal strength, pairing clients with weak signals to the high-power channels and clients with strong signals to the low-power channels. I tested the router using channels 6 and 10 on the 2.4GHz band, and channels 44 and 48 and channels 153 and 149 on the 5GHz band. If there are fewer than three clients on each network, or the numbers are equal, the router examines the client’s speed and assigns new 802.11a, 1×1 802.11n, and 2×2 802.11n clients to the higher-power 5GHz channels (channels 148 through 161). If the number of existing clients on each network is greater than three, the router will connect the next new client to whichever network has the fewest commitments. Netgear’s Smart Connect feature first determines if the router needs to perform any load balancing. (You can also override this and assign the two 5GHz networks different SSIDs.)Īlso of interest: What’s next for Wi-Fi: A second wave of 802.11ac routers When you begin connecting wireless clients to the common SSID, the router automatically assigns each client to the most appropriate network. In order to avoid having the two networks step on each other, the Nighthawk X6 bonds two channels at the lower end of the 5GHz spectrum and two channels at the higher end (the higher channels deliver more power). As you know, so-called first-wave 802.11ac routers like this one achieve massive bandwidth by bonding two 40MHz channels to create one channel that’s 80MHz wide. Out of the box, it uses one SSID for its 2.4GHz network (for 802.11b/g/n clients) and one SSID for both of its 5GHz networks (for 802.11a/n/ac clients). If you (or your significant other) think the router calls too much attention to itself, you can fold its six antennas flat against the top of its enclosure.Īs I said in the opener, the Nighthawk X6’s primary claim to fame is its three discrete Wi-Fi radios.
As such, the Nighthawk X6 is the first 802.11ac router I’ve tested that has the potential to displace the 802.11ac router you might already own.
Netgear packed this router with all the features you’d expect to find in a high-end model.īut if your wireless network needs to support several PCs, tablets, smartphones, TVs, and other devices-plus legacy devices on the 2.4GHz band-and you’re experiencing lag, dropouts, or other connectivity problems when several clients are streaming media at the same time-Netgear’s router is just the ticket. And if your wireless network streams video to just one or two devices, you probably don’t need a router with the Nighthawk X6’s advanced capabilities. As you’ll see from the performance charts, that distinction still belongs to the Linksys WRT1900AC (again, I have not yet benchmarked the Asus RT-87U).
Wi-Fi Technology: IEEE 802.11ac, Wi-Fi Performance: AC5300 (1000 + 2166 + 2166 Mbps), Wi-Fi Range: Very Large Homes, Wi-Fi Band: Simultaneous Tri Band Wi-Fi - Tx / Rx 4 x 4 (2.4 GHz) + 4 x 4 (5 GHz) + 4 x 4 (5 GHz), Beamforming: Implicit and Explicit Beamforming for 2.4 and 5 GHz Bands, Dual Gigabit Ethernet Port Aggregation, Smart Connect Intelligently Selects the Fastest Wi-Fi Band for Every Device, Load Balancing Distributes Wi-Fi Devices Ensuring Usage of Both 5 GHz Wi-Fi Bands, MU-MIMO Capable Simultaneous Streaming of Data for Multiple Devices, Dynamic QoS Prioritizes Network Traffic by Application and Device, Read圜LOUD USB Access, ReadySHARE Vault, DLNA Server to Find and Play Your Media on TVs and Game Consoles, Enhanced Parental Controls to Manage Web Filtering and Accessibility by Profiles or Devices, NETGEAR Genie Home Network Manager Includes Remote Access to Manage Your Network Away from Home, Processor: Powerful Dual Core 1.4 GHz Processor, Memory: 128 MB Flash and 512 MB RAM, Dimensions: 12.44 x 10.39 x 2.The Nighthawk X6 is not the fastest router I’ve tested.