Reviews - Asus RT-AC56U and RT-AC68U

[HEXUS]

High-speed networking for the home or business.

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[crossy]

Maintaining the design ethos of its predecessors, the [RT-AC56U] router's front fascia sports a mock carbon-fibre weave that gives it a premium look and feel.

Hmm, that picture makes it look like tartan.

[CampGareth]

Wow those are getting expensive... might be time to start fitting wifi cards to my existing machines. Anyone know where I could pick up a 3 antenna AC card?

*edit* scratch that, the cards do exist for sensible money, they were just far too expensive last time I checked.

[Brewster0101]

Be nice if Hexus compared these to something other than the Home Hub 3, not exactly a far comparison.

[jimborae]

Does not appear to be wall mountable....fail

Also how hot do these get as the previous generation RT-AC66U gets very toasty???

[Savas]

Be nice if Hexus compared these to something other than the Home Hub 3, not exactly a far comparison.

My thoughts exactly..

[Hicks12]

also power consumption is a key part well atleast for me I find it important to consider as its a device that would 9/10 be on 24/7 so needs to be power efficient, any chance you guys can look at power consumption next time?.

Thanks

[aceuk]

how many of your gadgets actually have support for the 802.11ac standard?

There are millions of people with 802.11ac smartphones (Google Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One etc.) and 802.11ac computers (latest iMac's, MacBook Air's, MacBooks Pro's).

[Brewster0101]

There are millions of people with 802.11ac smartphones (Google Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One etc.) and 802.11ac computers (latest iMac's, MacBook Air's, MacBooks Pro's).

This is why I thought that the lack of ac support on the new Nokia devices announced last week (week before) was a big deal.

[bledd]

I really wish Asus would add an optional plug in module for ADSL connectivity. This way they could release one model of router worldwide and then have an optional plug in add-on that has ADSL connectivity for that area.

Currently I use the DSL-N55U, I'm limited to this device because I only want one thing plugged into the wall.

[keithwalton]

I really wish Asus would add an optional plug in module for ADSL connectivity. This way they could release one model of router worldwide and then have an optional plug in add-on that has ADSL connectivity for that area.

Currently I use the DSL-N55U, I'm limited to this device because I only want one thing plugged into the wall.

A router of this speed is a bit wasted with an adsl connection.
makes much more sense to use it on a vdsl connection but you must use openreach's modem for that.

I have the RT-N66U as the standard isp router was limiting my connection speed over wireless. My NAS is the fastest thing on my network and the 300mbit doesn't slow it down (gigabit wired is no quicker to it)

[ddg4005]

Does not appear to be wall mountable....fail

Also how hot do these get as the previous generation RT-AC66U gets very toasty???

I have the AC68R (same as the U model but sold in Best Buy stores) and it runs much cooler that the N66U or AC66U.

[jonnyhuk2]

Hi, I recently bought my first dual band router, the AC66U, but have a couple of questions on the best way to set it up...

Do you need to name the 2.4 and 5GHz channels with different SSIDs? Or will a client connect to either channel with the one SSID / passphrase? I don't really want to have 2 different SSIDs and have to explain to people which they should connect to if they have a 5GHz client (which they won't know).

From the brief testing I've done so far where I used one name and passphrase for both channels, clients would only connect to the 2.4GHz band. To use the 5GHz band, I had to rename the 5GHz SSID and specifically connect to it. Is that the only way though?

And finally, when ASUS quotes speeds combining both the 2.4 and 5Ghz speeds, you can't actually get that on a client can you? As the client only connects to one band, it can't combine the bandwidth from both channels?

Thanks!
Jon.

[bledd]

A router of this speed is a bit wasted with an adsl connection.
makes much more sense to use it on a vdsl connection but you must use openreach's modem for that.

I have the RT-N66U as the standard isp router was limiting my connection speed over wireless. My NAS is the fastest thing on my network and the 300mbit doesn't slow it down (gigabit wired is no quicker to it)

Not if I want to have better wifi for LAN connections.

[directhex]

Be nice if Hexus compared these to something other than the Home Hub 3, not exactly a far comparison.

Definitely. The HH5 (which is also ac) might be a useful comparison. Or the older HH4 for a "is this a worthwhile upgrade" question. But who's using HH3?

[Brewster0101]

But who's using HH3?

me