Best Routers of 2015

stormy13 said:

Good choice. Been using one since February this year with zero issues. Currently running the following off of it,

one hard wired computer
one wireless computer (2.4 Ghz)
three cell phones (all at 2.4)
three Roku's (one hard wired and two wireless at 5 Ghz)

Thanks, it's encouraging to hear that you've been having success. My TP-Link C7 router should arrive tomorrow. It's part of a larger upgrade; there will also be a faster modem going in and a bump to 100 meg from the ISP

I switched from kong's dd-wrt firmware to XVortex's Merlin Asus WRT a little over 10 hours ago on the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 and the change is amazing.... I am sitting about 12 feet from the router but before with both Netgear and DD-WRT firmware, my latency to the router is 25ms when wired is 1ms or less. With XVortex, my latency to the router is 1ms!

Almighty1 said:

I switched from kong's dd-wrt firmware to XVortex's Merlin Asus WRT a little over 10 hours ago on the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 and the change is amazing.... I am sitting about 12 feet from the router but before with both Netgear and DD-WRT firmware, my latency to the router is 25ms when wired is 1ms or less. With XVortex, my latency to the router is 1ms!

I have not had any issues with my stock firmware (R7000) but the UI of the merlin looks way better then the stock one, might have to switch for that convince alone.

Just in case some people are not clear about this, when a router quotes a 900Mbps wireless speed, that's on your local, interior network, not on the internet. From your PC to the router and to other devices on your local network. Usually real speeds are half that. If you have 10 devices (PC's, wireless printers, Roku boxes, cell phones on wifi, etc) all receiving and sending data at once, then it's probably 90Mbps each. It gets divided up. Also, if you get a fancy new AC router, but the wifi cards on all of your devices are N models, you won't gain anything. So to take full advantage of the AC router the wifi cards on your other devices also have to support AC.

The actual internet speed still stays at what you are paying for from your internet provider, 5Mbps, 25Mbps, 50Mbps, etc.

fredc said:

So what does that mean exactly ? Does it mean you should buy a router even though you will never use WiFi ? I haven't had any issues with malware in years not using a router but willing to learn .

Note that a router provides additional wired ports along with WiFi, so you have the option to connect printers and other devices via Ethernet. Routers also usually include a firewall, but features vary quite a bit depending on the model. It can get complex, but basically a router firewall can provide some isolation/separation from the internet that you don't have when you plug directly into the modem. I'm sure there are some knowledgeable folks here who can say more about the firewall features if you're interested. And by the way it's still a good idea to keep the Windows Firewall (or other third party firewall) ON when using a router.

rvcjew said:

I have not had any issues with my stock firmware (R7000) but the UI of the merlin looks way better then the stock one, might have to switch for that convince alone.

Depends how recent your stock firmware is as I haven't run stock firmware for atleast a year if not more as I was one of the first to get the R7000. XWRT has better range it seems.

Victek said:

Note that a router provides additional wired ports along with WiFi, so you have the option to connect printers and other devices via Ethernet. Routers also usually include a firewall, but features vary quite a bit depending on the model. It can get complex, but basically a router firewall can provide some isolation/separation from the internet that you don't have when you plug directly into the modem. I'm sure there are some knowledgeable folks here who can say more about the firewall features if you're interested. And by the way it's still a good idea to keep the Windows Firewall (or other third party firewall) ON when using a router.

Really depends. These SOHO Routers are low-end devices that runs Linux. You can get a dedicated PC and run FreeBSD Unix on it and provided you get a quality NIC like Intel, it will run better in the firewall and the routing department. For the other stuff, it's better to get a switch that actually handles a high amount of packets which none of these SOHO routers can do anyways. I have a dedicated Unix box on the network which handles the routing part that handles the traffic shaping as well as acting as the shell server, www/smtp/ftp server and I have Cisco Managed switches as well as a HP Managed switch like the 2848: HP ProCurve Switch 2800 Series

My wireless routers are more for wireless devices like Smartphones, tablets, roku.

AC Routers will handle 400Mbps fine with the CPU but for anything above that for those that have fiber optic connections, it uses CTF.