Modern Routers

[targetrasp]

I've used the same Asus RT-AC68U router since it came out in the early 2010s and really didn't know any better. I didn't care about wireless, every computer and video game console gets wired so I just didn't keep up.

It finally caught up to me. I'd find myself having random network errors playing on the Playstation or getting disconnected from games on Steam. Toward the end I'd even watch ping on discord go from 25 ms to 3000+ ms. I blamed the ISP for years and just bought the highest speed available every time they offered something faster, trying to keep up that way.

Before dropping $800 on a ROG Rapture router, I did a deep dive via chat gpt one everything from throughput to scalability and went so far as to provide dimensions, devices I have, typical use, everything up to and including a basic network map.

I ultimately landed on a Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Ultra and a Ubiquiti U6+ Wireless access point. I also purchased a Ubiquiti POE Injector since my POE switch is too loud for inside use. All in I spent about $280.

For less half the cost of a mid-tier Rapture I'm getting a something a whole lot more stable with maybe not the gaming focused QOS but it's not too shabby and I've seen more than the advertised gig speed on the routers speed test, the ookala app for windows as well as speedtest.net. Even with several computers gaming at once a speedtest shows over 900 Mbps.

The access point was super simple to incorporate, and the software really does do much of the heavy lifting despite many reviewers saying setting up Ubiquiti gateway and router can be challenging. Even the recommended tweaks were already tweaked in my case.

The biggest difference I've noticed between the new setup and the old, or what some other friends have is the smoothness when there's more than 4 computers gaming and / or streaming at once. The gaming routers seem more focused on wifi and QOS gets meh when more than a few are gaming. The Ubiquiti set up seems to handle multiple users without issue and tons more stable. Buffer bloat doesn't seem like an issue either.

For something seemingly more small business / enterprise focused, these things make great gaming routers

[BLUEVOODU]

Awesome post @targetrasp --> I know a few people now that have settled on the Ubiquiti setups.  They are sold and sold on it ... though it's not cheap (or cheapest).  There is a cost to it, but once you get there, the hardware handles everything really well.  The use cases I've heard work great:

• Streaming
• Multitudes of PCs and Devices and handling it all well at once
• Gaming
• Hosting Media Sharing with Many access to many

Your $280 in all in cost is really not bad AT ALL.  I am going to look into this at a certain point.  I'm running with Eero right now and the lack of being able to build my own network to it is frustrating.  There are things you can do, but if I want to connect my own unmanaged switch to then connect to a managed network... just doesn't work.  It's supposed to but the port just won't recognize a managed or unmanaged switch. I gave up as I don't have much time to play around with this stuff right now ... life be life'n as they say... and it's kicking my butt. Once time opens up...

$280... really need to look down this route.