ASUS RT-AC68U Review

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tteksystems

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Nov 3, 2013
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With the most recent release of Routers, such as this ASUS-AC68U, and the Netgear Nighthawk R7000, the initial reviews seemed to favor these 2 routers, but I saw several recommendations for the Netgear Nighthawk. That was earlier this year. Now, I see the ASUS-AC68U is just wiping the floor with the latest reviews, as if it was suddenly a new animal. I mean, initial reviews did not give it this much praise and the Nighthawk was almost always mentioned in reviews when determining which is the best choice.

I was just wondering if AC technology is still a little buggy or can it be considered just as stable as some of the highly renowned N routers. I use the term stable and I guess what I want to know is if this ASUS router will keep me connected consistently. My household seems to be having a lot of random disconnects from the router I am currently using, but I've never experienced this until recently. I really thought my current router was mighty stable. I'm using the Netgear AC6300. I was using the AC6200 Wireless Adapter by Netgear for a long time. There is one thing that I changed recently though. I installed an ASUS AC56 AC1300 USB3 Wireless Adapter. I have great signal all the time. But why all the sudden random disconnections when pairing the ASUS AC adapter with my Netgear Router? Anyone know if it is more stable to pair like brands? Meaning, is it more stable if I use the ASUS brand AC Router with ASUS brand AC Network Adapters? I was curious because my Netgear AC Adapter seemed pretty flawless for quite some time. I wish I still had it to see if maybe it too would be having these connection drops. The things that baffles me about these types of problems is that I have absolutely perfect signal on both bands. And the other issue with this ASUS adapter is that the 5Ghz band craps out on me with the slowest download speeds and I have to unplug it and change to a different USB3 port for it to regain the download speeds I get from my ISP. I do not use the ASMEDIA USB3 ports because they always seem unstable for devices that are plugged in constantly. I use them to hot plug a USB3 thumb drive for files but not much else.

I have to buy this ASUS router here. I think there is not much to lose. It's more updated than my version 1 Netgear R6300 and I have to figure it should pair nicely with my ASUS Adapter. I really like ASUS. I also like the Netgear. But sometimes it's like hit or miss with these super fast network devices. Some people just cannot say enough good things about a specific brand and model while a dozen others post that they would never again buy one or recommend it to anyone due to bad results dealing with them.

Well, I have lots of ASUS hardware, I cannot say anything bad about the performance either. They have become a super giant in the computer hardware industry
 

schalliol

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Dec 10, 2006
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It looks like you only reviewed using a 2 x 2 NIC. Is that correct? If so, you didn't evaluate the 3 x 3 performance…
 

Matt2h

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Sep 5, 2013
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I'm deciding between this router and the ASUS RT-AC87. This router's form fits my space, but I'm thinking about MU-MIMO. How valuable is it? With a few devices going at once, will I see significant improvement on a MU-MIMO router vs. one like this? I have no more than 50 mbps down from my ISP anyway, but I want efficient utilization and am willing to consider future-proofing (I know MU-MIMO *clients* are just starting to be rolled out, but as one article noted, any MU-MIMO you can run clears frees up more bandwidth for everyone else, including the single input output devices).
 
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