Best wireless router...

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Any suggestions on a wireless router with strong connections and throughput that will support gaming?

 

The Netgear WNDR3700 is hands down, the best wireless router on the market. I has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, it supports 802.11 a, b, g & n...in fact, it runs two networks simultaneously - one is the 2.4Ghz band for the b & g folks, the other is the 5Ghz for the awesome people like me that have a laptop with 802.11 n support. I have a 2.4Ghz network running for the dude living in my parent's basement and for any smart phones in the house, and a 5Ghz network for me...and get this, those two Wi-Fi networks and the wired network are bridged seamlessly. Also, it will check for, and update its firmware by itself just by clicking a button in the browser-based setup page.

Right now, my WNDR3700 is in the basement...next to the HVAC system (not the best place for it...but it's the only central location in the basement that had power outlets), I'm sitting about 30 feet (in a downward diagonal direction) and I'm connected at 243Mbps. With that snappy speed, I'm streaming music from my PC in the other room, and I was transferring pictures from my laptop to the basement guy's laptop.

After using 3 different Linksys and a D-Link router...My current Netgear router is by far the best router I've ever used.

I paid $150 for it...*well* worth the price.

 

Good one. If that is your price range. 75/90$ is possible for a good N-router. That Netgear has little brothers.( still it is a little brother) Like this one:WNDR3300 Netgear RangeMax Dual Band Wireless N router

I, as a Linksys/Cisco user, feels sorry for Kitrax.

Just to tease:WRT610N Linksys Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router. (version2)

I would pay extra for either the Netgear 3700 or the Linksys 610n. Could go either way.

 

Has it really been that long?!?!? LOL! I know, I mostly lurk on SP now. Haven't had much time for gaming, although I've been playing a little NWN2 multiplayer lately on ALFA and some other RP servers.

Thanks for the info on the routers, I was looking at that Netgear one, but I wanted to get some comments on it.

 

I wanted to get the WRT600N when it hit the market. For a Draft-N router, it smoked the competition in benchmarks. Once I had an N based laptop, it was discontinued and almost impossible to find places that still had it in stock.

 

Really? Why has no one told me... I haven't seen any Sir_Bel log in for ages. What's your GSID these days?

Err... yes. Ever so slightly off topic. My apologies. I blame dmc entirely.

 

The very best routers on the consumer side of the market are from Draytek.

They are stable, fast and have almost too many options. A collegue of mine has done a lot of research on consumer routers and was impressed about these routers.

Sidenote for the non-techs here: it has a little bit of a learning curve because of the many network related options you can configure.

Good alternatives are the Netgear mentioned earlier. Great router also.

Try to steer away from new Linksys routers. There are a lot of reports about network disconnects and speeddrops with them, especially when used for heavy trafficing. I myself have an older Linksys (WRT54G) which still works like a charm, but alas the newer ones have issues from what I'm seeing and hearing around me.

 

I've never heard of Draytek before, so I Googled it. From Draytek's own side description:

Sounds expensive...and overkill for any typical home networking solution.

Also, from just a quick look at their broadband router page, none of their routers support Gigabit Ethernet. WTF is up with that?!?!

 

I can agree with you for most users. However, the question asked what were the best routers and I answered

Yes, they most certainly do have Gigabit Ethernet routers. See: http://www.draytek.com/user/PdListbyCategory.php?action=LoadData&Typeid=283

 

Hmmm...interesting. They have a different a product selection on the two pages I looked at:

Broadband Routers
and
DSL/Routers

I admit, I really didn't do any in-depth research into the company. I clicked on the first link in Google for Draytek. Being a .us address, I just assumed that was their English version of their site.

 

What on earth do you need gigabit routers for? It seems a bit of a waste if you're not a medium-large company :/

 

Good question. Let me paint you a picture...

Firstly, the home network at the house: 2 laptops (one (mine) is 802.11n), one smartphone that has WiFi, 3 PCs, 2 shared AIO printers, and one Netgear WNDR3700.

My PC is currently serving as a media server ATM, until I decide to build/buy a *real* media server. I've got a Blu-ray drive in my laptop...but not in my PC, so when I rip a Blu-Ray (or transfer the free digital version that came with the disk), I have to send it to my PC via the network. 802.11n is quick, but when I plug a CAT5e cable into the 10/100/1000 port, the transfer zips along waaay faster than the fastest WiFi connection ever could.

I also store the backup disk images of 3 computers on my main PC. Those suckers are big, and they get rewritten once a month.

The dude living in the basement has every season of 4 different shows...(all legal too!) I just showed him how to rip them directly to the network so we can all enjoy them.

Streaming HD video, off loading hundreds of high-res (RAW) pictures, moving massive disk backup images, streaming lossless FLAC audio *while* playing Diablo 2 online *and* chatting with one of my friends (who I was playing with in D2) on Facebook.

Gigabit routers make perfect sense to people who enjoy taking full advantage of what today's technology offers. Sure, a gigabit router is overkill for a home with 2 computers that don't share files, and only use the internet for basic tasks...but for the rest of us, it's a worthwhile investment (hell, it's not like it adds much to the cost.)


Morgy, please don't be one of those guys who thought that 1.4MB is *far* more storage than anyone would ever need.

 

These are very good examples of why you would like to have a Gb network. Streaming HD video on a network slower is going to be a pain when you multitask.

I myself like a Gb network because I'm an IT Professional and a hardware nut

Also, if you have computers running good SSD harddrives, you have taken out one of the main bottle necks of your systems and can take full advantage of the read and write speeds with a Gb network.

Also, I have access to a 120 mbit/s internet connection, so theoretically, with a 100 mbit/s router I could never get the best out of my internet connection

Well, as a IT proffesional I too, in the past, have had my doubts if I would ever get that "massive" 20 Mb harddrive full. How I miss those times...

 

I hate you... -.-

Seriously, how *DARE* you rub your awesomely fast connection speed in my face as I am stuck with a lowly 1.5Mbps connection! I think I'm going to be sick.

SSD's aren't on any of my shopping lists yet. I'll probably wait until there is an affordable 500GB SSD. By then, the controllers should be mature and take full advantage of SATA 3 (6Gbps)...hell, by that time, Intel might actually have a chipset that natively supports SATA 3.

 

Because I can! Moehahahahahaha!

Nor on mine, however, I have a system with a SSD disc and one with SAS disc in RAID 5 at work. Gives nice performance.

Hehe, that could be a long wait, especially for a 500 Gb SSD with good performance and which is affordable

I saw a movie on Youtube once with a system which had 24 SSD discs in RAID 5 on 4 Areca controllers. It started 22 applications, including the full Office 2007 AND Adobe applications, in about 2 seconds

Now THAT's awesome

 

I never managed to fill a HDD over 100Gb I would be a different story if I watched series, but I don't

 

Yeah, I've seen that one before. I'd like to see the same setup with a bunch of Crucial RealSSD C300's in RAID 0.