A word of warning on the R8000. The R7000 has been plagued with issues. Check out the netgear forums to see a multitude of ac1900 adopters having very little support from technical staff. The real support for the N7000 ac1900 comes from tomato and dd-wrt teams. When it works, the N7000 is great but anything with a 300 price point that is not dependable will not get my hard earned dollars.
As an owner of an R7000, yup what he said. Really wish I hadn't purchased it now. It's got some problems and they don't seem very concerned about pushing out firmware.. for instance in this article "he VPN client is also being talked up by Netgear in the R8000, signifying that it is going to perform substantially better than in the R7000." Umm thats just software and firmware, why can't they upgrade the R7000 to have the same, oh wait they can, but then they might lose a sale on the R8000.
As I mentioned in the article, the R8000 offloads some of the network processing tasks to the Wi-Fi radios which also integrate ARM cores now. This is freeing up CPU cycles. The extra performance is what is causing USB 3.0 to perform better, and the VPN client to provide more performance.
It's been an outstanding router for me- especially with wireless. As a matter of fact I've dropped Intel AC wireless cards in all my laptops and haven't missed the wired connections a bit. All my streaming (netflix, amazon, hului, youtube) has been flawless as well to all my wireless streaming devices. The nerd in me can't wait to get ahold of this new model. The realist in me is asking why when the R7000 is working so well.
That is what I thought too.. Had very slow transfer speeds over Wi-Fi and some other strange behaviour with the launch firmware, but, since updating, haven't faced any. In fact, it is our mini-PC testbed router. That said, the load on the unit is probably much lesser than average on mine since my main router is something else.
Er, what would you use the stinking pile of software that comes with any decent router? They are typically plagued with stability, performance, and security problems.
This thing has two radios and each radio has three antennas, right? So the best possible simultaneous scenario is 3x3 AC + 3x3 AC, right?
So, how can it be called AC3200? It should be AC1300+1300 or AC2600 (still misleading).... or somehow it is possible to run the 3x3 2.4GHz 11n while the other two ACs are running?
I hate marketing teams...
I will still wait for an AC Router with 3 or 4 streams, but WAVE 2.
Its adding in the 600 Mbps it gets on 2.4GHz so the 3200AC is just marketing crap just like it is now for the AC1900 which is just 1300AC 5GHz with 600N on 2.4GHz add on
Yes, it can do concurrent 2.4GHz and both 5GHz. The setup uses 3 antennas for one 5GHz radio and 3 antennas for the other 5GHz radio and the 2.4GHz. You can transmit more than one frequency over an antenna at the same time. The issue is when you start looking at mulitple frequencies close to each other than discrimination and stuff becomes an issue.
In theory it can link and do 600Mbps on 2.4GHz and 1300Mbps on both 5GHz at the same time.
That said, if you had good connections that might be around ~1700Mbps net real payload between the 3 radios...no fuzzy chance you can do that unless it also include link aggregation as you are limited to the 1000Mbps of the wired gigabit port.
That is something I'd like to see manufacturers start moving toward is link aggregation on these suckers. It is going to be sorely needed soon.
As for how this works, XStream (since it isn't detailed here) basically allows the OEM to decide how to provision it or allow the end user to change provisioning. Basic idea behind it is one 5GHz radio works in the low channels and one works in the high channels and the router decides which devices to assign to which radio. It'll basically aggregate slower devices, like N150 and AC433 clients on one radio and aggregate the fast clients, like N300/450 and AC866/1300 clients on the other radio. This allows you to have additional bandwidth and because of the way Wifi works, it reduces the losses faster clients experience when there is a slower client connected on the same channel and working.
Anyway, you can also set it up so that each 5GHz is a seperate SSID instead of letting the router pick and choose which device goes where and some other variations.
It is a rather interesting idea, but it is not MU:MIMO. I'd be very curious to see if down the line any MU:MIMO routers actually adopt multiple 5GHz radios to be a melding of XStream and MU:MIMO. That said, a good implementation of MU:MIMO is likely to work a lot better than XStream and also obviate the real need for it.
Still and all, link aggregation on higher end consumer routers please!!!
Thanks for getting more into the details :) The 1700 Mbps real-world throughput could be useful right away because of transfer within the internal network - from, say, a NAS on each of the 4x LAN ports to multiple mobile devices.
Oh, on the Link Aggregation, I realize that isn't a huge benefit to most users because if they are connecting to the internet, most users are going be in the tens or maybe low hundreds of Mbps at best and even connecting to a home server they are probably limited to the gigabit port on their home server or NAS.
However, a few of us have more than a single gigabit port on their home server, plus storage that can handle it...as well as mixing in going out to the internet at the same time and you have a scenario where >1,000Mbps on a LAN is very possible to accomplish and therefore 1,000Mbps single port on the router/Access Point is a real bottleneck.
There are a large number of link-aggregation capable switches in the market at a low price point. I remember purchasing a ZyXEL GS2200-24 couple of years back from Newegg. It is a 24-port managed GbE switch. At less than $200, it was a steal, and thankfully, it is still going strong.
It looks like nice router. $300 is too much unless you absolutely need 2 ac bands. I do like the appearance of this router better than the asus offering. I just upgraded from a netgear n900 to netgear r6300v2. The price of $80 is right for me. One thing that is sorely lacking is media bridges that can do 1300 ac. I ended up getting a Linksys WUMC710 for $40 which works like a cham. The closest I can find is a trendnet but that tops out at 867 mbs.
I have a two-level home with no decent wiring throughout. I am currently using one DD-WRT WNDR-3700 as my main router connected directly to my FiOS router (only using FiOS router to provide Ethernet) and a second DD-WRT WNDR-3700 in my home office on the other end of a 100ft CAT6 cable. The office router handles all of the wireless traffic.
I'd really like a solution that would allow me to stream HD video wirelessly to rooms that currently have no connectivity (not even coax) as well as extending my wireless range. I was initially considering replacing everything with R7000s and adding one or two more R7000s. Perhaps with multiple 5GHz connections, I may want one R8000 as the main distribution router and R7000s as wireless bridge endpoints and range extenders. Ideally, I'd finally move to TiVo Roamio and TiVo Minis ... connecting them wirelessly via AC1300. I'd even like to go one step better by isolating the video devices on one VLAN, perhaps building up a home automation environment on another VLAN, while maintaining a true Internet-connected VLAN. (Yes, I realize that some of those "isolated" video and home automation devices will require a little Internet access, so routing tricks will have to be used.)
Now, if I were only ready to spend a thousand dollars or two to make this all happen. (:
FWIW I used a ceton infinitv4 & echo wireless over n wifi 450mbs with minimal issues. The TiVo Roamio is nice but with a subscription costly. What your trying to do may be cheaper than you think...
I currently have the HDHomeRun Prime and two Xbox 360s as extenders, with that same 100ft cable between the tuner and the Windows Media Center PC where I maintain the recordings. While this solution works for me, I think the Roamio+Minis configuration (all with lifetime subscriptions; not doing monthlies) is a bit easier for the family (wife, kids, visiting family and friends). I just don't have the wiring infrastructure currently in place, so I'm willing to investigate using wireless to distribute the content.
I was thinking of ordering this product. I currently use Apple's latest Airport Extreme which has the 802.11ac protocol. The reason for considering this Netgear Nighthawk R8000 was to function as a signal booster or extender to my front room. The signal sometimes becomes weak or lose a connection to the AirPort Extreme which is in another room in the house. There are no interfering walls and I am separated by about 10-15 meters in the living room to where the AirPort Extreme is located. It's an all Mac environment with a MacBook Pro retina, MacBook Air, Macmini, and a couple iPad airs.
Would getting this router be overkill just to get a better signal in the living room? Or, is it better I wait a bit longer until new offerings come out in the fall? After reading some of the comments posted here, they seem to be less the positive for this product and also being defined as an overpriced router.
not sure what is the use of two separate radios, especially since i see no devices around with 11ac standard yet. link aggregation is no easy thing to do and i don't really see the need for home grade devices, not many people can afford or want to run enterprise grade equipements at home and i dont really see this changing anytime soon. people who does need it will use enterprise grade networking equipments (as i do), moreover if you have complexity in your network you do not want an AIO device like this.. I personally use a 24p cisco 3750 as core switch and an IBM X server as a VMware host (both used ofc!), a cisco 2800 series as a firewall and various cheap n AP on each floor. tbh i could get rid of the router but i don't want to overload the switch. this is to say i wouldn't go for this if i relly needed performance, and i guess i spent 300/400 for all this stuff on ebay..
Don't get fooled by the stealthy look, imho is still consumer crap...
This router is amazing. It is constantly switching devices around on the 2 5ghz chanels in order to make sure everything is running as fast as possible. I used to download a video game in 8 hours. I now do it in 1. Netflix used to lag and stop and start. Now it runs smoothly. To stream a rental or purchased movie from iTunes used to take a minimum of 30 minutes for the initial load. The movies now start in about a minute and run flawlessly.
I do recommend that if you are using an Apple TV, do not upgrade the firmware to version 1.0.2.44_1.0.96. After the upgrade, Netflix on the apple TV would abruptly knock me back to the menu screen when watching an episode of a show. Stick with firmware version 1.0.1.16-1.0.74. It works flawlessly with no issues I have detected. I upgraded and then switched back.
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26 Comments
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decompiled - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
A word of warning on the R8000. The R7000 has been plagued with issues. Check out the netgear forums to see a multitude of ac1900 adopters having very little support from technical staff. The real support for the N7000 ac1900 comes from tomato and dd-wrt teams. When it works, the N7000 is great but anything with a 300 price point that is not dependable will not get my hard earned dollars.izdlang - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
As an owner of an R7000, yup what he said. Really wish I hadn't purchased it now. It's got some problems and they don't seem very concerned about pushing out firmware.. for instance in this article "he VPN client is also being talked up by Netgear in the R8000, signifying that it is going to perform substantially better than in the R7000." Umm thats just software and firmware, why can't they upgrade the R7000 to have the same, oh wait they can, but then they might lose a sale on the R8000.ganeshts - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
"thats just software and firmware"As I mentioned in the article, the R8000 offloads some of the network processing tasks to the Wi-Fi radios which also integrate ARM cores now. This is freeing up CPU cycles. The extra performance is what is causing USB 3.0 to perform better, and the VPN client to provide more performance.
There is an internal hardware change involved.
BadCommand - Friday, June 27, 2014 - link
It's been an outstanding router for me- especially with wireless. As a matter of fact I've dropped Intel AC wireless cards in all my laptops and haven't missed the wired connections a bit. All my streaming (netflix, amazon, hului, youtube) has been flawless as well to all my wireless streaming devices. The nerd in me can't wait to get ahold of this new model. The realist in me is asking why when the R7000 is working so well.imaheadcase - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Never had any issues with it myself. It was only $180 fyi now.leetruski - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
No issues to report since updating the firmware back in march-april.ganeshts - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
That is what I thought too.. Had very slow transfer speeds over Wi-Fi and some other strange behaviour with the launch firmware, but, since updating, haven't faced any. In fact, it is our mini-PC testbed router. That said, the load on the unit is probably much lesser than average on mine since my main router is something else.spikebike - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - link
Er, what would you use the stinking pile of software that comes with any decent router? They are typically plagued with stability, performance, and security problems.My R7000 runs DDWRT quite well.
alyarb - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
ac1900 is great on paper, just waiting on maturity. and perhaps linksys WRT1900AC+DDWRTmadmaximinus - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
The Problem is that the WRT1900AC is not opensource search on internet about developpers abandonment for openWrt.Ipatinga - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Someone help me here.This thing has two radios and each radio has three antennas, right? So the best possible simultaneous scenario is 3x3 AC + 3x3 AC, right?
So, how can it be called AC3200? It should be AC1300+1300 or AC2600 (still misleading).... or somehow it is possible to run the 3x3 2.4GHz 11n while the other two ACs are running?
I hate marketing teams...
I will still wait for an AC Router with 3 or 4 streams, but WAVE 2.
SunLord - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Its adding in the 600 Mbps it gets on 2.4GHz so the 3200AC is just marketing crap just like it is now for the AC1900 which is just 1300AC 5GHz with 600N on 2.4GHz add on0ldman79 - Saturday, July 19, 2014 - link
Where are they getting 600mbps from 3x3? Isn't that4x4 numbers?0ldman79 - Saturday, July 19, 2014 - link
http://mcsindex.com/azazel1024 - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Yes, it can do concurrent 2.4GHz and both 5GHz. The setup uses 3 antennas for one 5GHz radio and 3 antennas for the other 5GHz radio and the 2.4GHz. You can transmit more than one frequency over an antenna at the same time. The issue is when you start looking at mulitple frequencies close to each other than discrimination and stuff becomes an issue.In theory it can link and do 600Mbps on 2.4GHz and 1300Mbps on both 5GHz at the same time.
That said, if you had good connections that might be around ~1700Mbps net real payload between the 3 radios...no fuzzy chance you can do that unless it also include link aggregation as you are limited to the 1000Mbps of the wired gigabit port.
That is something I'd like to see manufacturers start moving toward is link aggregation on these suckers. It is going to be sorely needed soon.
As for how this works, XStream (since it isn't detailed here) basically allows the OEM to decide how to provision it or allow the end user to change provisioning. Basic idea behind it is one 5GHz radio works in the low channels and one works in the high channels and the router decides which devices to assign to which radio. It'll basically aggregate slower devices, like N150 and AC433 clients on one radio and aggregate the fast clients, like N300/450 and AC866/1300 clients on the other radio. This allows you to have additional bandwidth and because of the way Wifi works, it reduces the losses faster clients experience when there is a slower client connected on the same channel and working.
Anyway, you can also set it up so that each 5GHz is a seperate SSID instead of letting the router pick and choose which device goes where and some other variations.
It is a rather interesting idea, but it is not MU:MIMO. I'd be very curious to see if down the line any MU:MIMO routers actually adopt multiple 5GHz radios to be a melding of XStream and MU:MIMO. That said, a good implementation of MU:MIMO is likely to work a lot better than XStream and also obviate the real need for it.
Still and all, link aggregation on higher end consumer routers please!!!
ganeshts - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Thanks for getting more into the details :) The 1700 Mbps real-world throughput could be useful right away because of transfer within the internal network - from, say, a NAS on each of the 4x LAN ports to multiple mobile devices.jdrch - Thursday, June 26, 2014 - link
AFAIK link aggregation also requires client support.azazel1024 - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Oh, on the Link Aggregation, I realize that isn't a huge benefit to most users because if they are connecting to the internet, most users are going be in the tens or maybe low hundreds of Mbps at best and even connecting to a home server they are probably limited to the gigabit port on their home server or NAS.However, a few of us have more than a single gigabit port on their home server, plus storage that can handle it...as well as mixing in going out to the internet at the same time and you have a scenario where >1,000Mbps on a LAN is very possible to accomplish and therefore 1,000Mbps single port on the router/Access Point is a real bottleneck.
ganeshts - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
There are a large number of link-aggregation capable switches in the market at a low price point. I remember purchasing a ZyXEL GS2200-24 couple of years back from Newegg. It is a 24-port managed GbE switch. At less than $200, it was a steal, and thankfully, it is still going strong.457R4LDR34DKN07 - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
It looks like nice router. $300 is too much unless you absolutely need 2 ac bands. I do like the appearance of this router better than the asus offering. I just upgraded from a netgear n900 to netgear r6300v2. The price of $80 is right for me. One thing that is sorely lacking is media bridges that can do 1300 ac. I ended up getting a Linksys WUMC710 for $40 which works like a cham. The closest I can find is a trendnet but that tops out at 867 mbs.SUOrangeman - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
I have a two-level home with no decent wiring throughout. I am currently using one DD-WRT WNDR-3700 as my main router connected directly to my FiOS router (only using FiOS router to provide Ethernet) and a second DD-WRT WNDR-3700 in my home office on the other end of a 100ft CAT6 cable. The office router handles all of the wireless traffic.I'd really like a solution that would allow me to stream HD video wirelessly to rooms that currently have no connectivity (not even coax) as well as extending my wireless range. I was initially considering replacing everything with R7000s and adding one or two more R7000s. Perhaps with multiple 5GHz connections, I may want one R8000 as the main distribution router and R7000s as wireless bridge endpoints and range extenders. Ideally, I'd finally move to TiVo Roamio and TiVo Minis ... connecting them wirelessly via AC1300. I'd even like to go one step better by isolating the video devices on one VLAN, perhaps building up a home automation environment on another VLAN, while maintaining a true Internet-connected VLAN. (Yes, I realize that some of those "isolated" video and home automation devices will require a little Internet access, so routing tricks will have to be used.)
Now, if I were only ready to spend a thousand dollars or two to make this all happen. (:
457R4LDR34DKN07 - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
FWIW I used a ceton infinitv4 & echo wireless over n wifi 450mbs with minimal issues. The TiVo Roamio is nice but with a subscription costly. What your trying to do may be cheaper than you think...SUOrangeman - Thursday, June 26, 2014 - link
I currently have the HDHomeRun Prime and two Xbox 360s as extenders, with that same 100ft cable between the tuner and the Windows Media Center PC where I maintain the recordings. While this solution works for me, I think the Roamio+Minis configuration (all with lifetime subscriptions; not doing monthlies) is a bit easier for the family (wife, kids, visiting family and friends). I just don't have the wiring infrastructure currently in place, so I'm willing to investigate using wireless to distribute the content.tokyojerry - Wednesday, July 9, 2014 - link
I was thinking of ordering this product. I currently use Apple's latest Airport Extreme which has the 802.11ac protocol. The reason for considering this Netgear Nighthawk R8000 was to function as a signal booster or extender to my front room. The signal sometimes becomes weak or lose a connection to the AirPort Extreme which is in another room in the house. There are no interfering walls and I am separated by about 10-15 meters in the living room to where the AirPort Extreme is located. It's an all Mac environment with a MacBook Pro retina, MacBook Air, Macmini, and a couple iPad airs.Would getting this router be overkill just to get a better signal in the living room? Or, is it better I wait a bit longer until new offerings come out in the fall? After reading some of the comments posted here, they seem to be less the positive for this product and also being defined as an overpriced router.
Thanks in advance.
oloap88 - Saturday, July 19, 2014 - link
not sure what is the use of two separate radios, especially since i see no devices around with 11ac standard yet.link aggregation is no easy thing to do and i don't really see the need for home grade devices, not many people can afford or want to run enterprise grade equipements at home and i dont really see this changing anytime soon.
people who does need it will use enterprise grade networking equipments (as i do), moreover if you have complexity in your network you do not want an AIO device like this..
I personally use a 24p cisco 3750 as core switch and an IBM X server as a VMware host (both used ofc!), a cisco 2800 series as a firewall and various cheap n AP on each floor.
tbh i could get rid of the router but i don't want to overload the switch.
this is to say i wouldn't go for this if i relly needed performance, and i guess i spent 300/400 for all this stuff on ebay..
Don't get fooled by the stealthy look, imho is still consumer crap...
dhenderson002 - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
This router is amazing. It is constantly switching devices around on the 2 5ghz chanels in order to make sure everything is running as fast as possible. I used to download a video game in 8 hours. I now do it in 1. Netflix used to lag and stop and start. Now it runs smoothly. To stream a rental or purchased movie from iTunes used to take a minimum of 30 minutes for the initial load. The movies now start in about a minute and run flawlessly.I do recommend that if you are using an Apple TV, do not upgrade the firmware to version 1.0.2.44_1.0.96. After the upgrade, Netflix on the apple TV would abruptly knock me back to the menu screen when watching an episode of a show. Stick with firmware version 1.0.1.16-1.0.74. It works flawlessly with no issues I have detected. I upgraded and then switched back.