So, it's time to consider a new product that has appeared on the Russian market. This is a ASUS RT-AC68U WiFi router from ASUS. This is a dual-band gigabit router that supports all modern standards. This is the second range of 802.11 ac, USB 3.0, which is the most important, as well as a lot of other "goodies" from Asus, which we will talk about a little later. ASUS RT-AC68U, which we will review, according to the manufacturer, is the best on the market.
Packaging
The box shows the ASUS router itself and describes all the technologies that it supports. On the back side is a comparison of different implementations of 802.11 ac technology. There are four types: AC 1900, AC 1750, AC 1200, AC 750. They differ in speed both in the 802.11 n range and in the 802.11 ac range. It also describes the speed of the router and support for various technologies, such as, for example, Turbo QAM. The latter allows you to increase data exchange. Below is a description of all the ports of the router.
Package Contents ASUS RT-AC68U
In addition to the device, the package contains a warranty card, a disk with the installation program, a rather thick instruction in all languages that you can imagine. With its help, even a beginner can correctly and accurately configure the router. Further in the kit there are three antennas. They are removable. This is very good, since on many 802.11 ac routers, and indeed on 5 GHz routers, antennas are often non-removable. This often causes some inconvenience. Here, if you need more WiFi power, Asus has provided the ability to replace the antenna. The kit also has a power supply. It is quite solid, a quality assembly immediately catches your eye. At the output, it gives out 19 V and a current strength of 1.75 A, which is quite a lot. Typically, home devices use less voltage. Here it is necessary to ensure the operation of all the declared functions of the router. A full patch cord with all four pairs is also available.
Appearance
Now consider the ASUS router itself. In fact, it is quite simple, but productive. This is what you need in today's high-tech world. It has a vertical arrangement on a stand. This stand is not removable, and the horizontal arrangement of the device is not provided by the manufacturer. Asus developers have remained true to themselves. They paid attention and appearance. The front panel of the router is made of dark embossed plastic and looks very stylish. In the upper right corner you can see the golden emblem of the company. Below are ten luminous indicators. Next in order: indicators of four Ethernet ports, indication of Internet access, indication of two USB ports. One is USB 3.0, the other is USB 2.0. Next are the WiFi indicators. Asus has provided two frequencies - at 2.4 GHz and at 5 GHz. Everything ends with a router power indicator. On the side, on the right side, there are two buttons: a Wi-Fi on / off button, which is very convenient. The fact is that some people prefer to turn off Wi-Fi at night or when going on a long trip. It also fits into today's popular concept of energy saving and safety performance. The second button is the Wi-Fi quick setup button , the so-called WPS technology.
On the back side there is a switch with four gigabit Ethernet ports, an on / off button, a router reset button. There are also power connectors, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, on which you can connect an external hard drive, printer or USB flash drive, making this device network. Next up is the blue-labeled Internet entry - WAN. In the center is a button that turns off the LED backlight of the router. There is also a cooling grill for all this powerful and high-tech “filling”.
What do all these innovations give?
First of all, it supports the speed of the new 802.11 ac format. Also, the location of the ports on the back cover improves the usability of the router. Now the wires do not stick out in all directions, but are conveniently assembled at the back. Indeed, in addition to wide functionality and technical equipment, this device also carries aesthetic functions. It should successfully fit into the interior of the room and please the eye of the owner of this stylish gadget. Moreover, the manufacturer took care of this. He made the backlighting of the indicators softer and even added a button to turn off the backlight, which we previously mentioned.
The top three antennas support the popular three-way technology called 3T3R. Thanks to the efforts of developers, this router heats up less during operation than its predecessors. This ensures its reliable and stable operation. A long power supply cable will help to place the router in any place convenient for you.
This Asus router is a big leap in terms of router performance. Developers without hesitation say that this is the fastest wireless device that is on the market at the moment. The basis of such achievements is a dual-core processor, as well as a BROADCOM wireless chip. All this serves the RAM, the volume of which has grown significantly. With such a filling, the manufacturer's declared wireless speed is 1900 Mbit per second. Such indicators give two 5G ranges with two standards: ac and n, with a frequency of 2.4 GHz and speeds of 1300 Mbit / s and 600 Mbit / s, respectively. The TurboQAM technology mentioned above has increased the speed of the n standard to 600 Mbps. This technology works with all ASUS devices supporting it. Reviews about her inspire confidence. These include devices such as Wi-Fi adapters, for example.
Gigabit ports provide reliable operation of all wired devices that require ever greater resources. Features such as NAS performance can be enhanced with the new USB 3.0 port. Together with the updated firmware, this gives a significant increase in the speed of the file server. USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports are used to connect various flash drives, hard drives, as well as 3G / 4G modems. The firmware of the router has the latest version at the time the device entered the market.
Software
When you connect the ASUS RT-AC68U router to the computer for the first time, the browser itself opens the router settings page. You no longer need to specifically enter the IP address of the router, which not everyone remembers or knows. Just in case, you can recall: 192.168.1.1/. At the first connection, you can use the username / password - admin / admin.
Interface
On ASUS RT-AC68U, the firmware of the router is standard for all Asus routers. More precisely, its interface. The only differences may be only the configuration options, which depend on the model of the router. On the left are general and advanced settings.
The general setup of an ASUS router begins with a network card setup. It is a kind of dash board with the parameters of the connected Internet, Wi-Fi security level settings, the number of clients currently connected, the presence of connections via USB ports. It is also possible to quickly configure a Wi-Fi network, quick encryption settings, which can be selected from five options. For ASUS RT-AC68U, the setting is for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
The next default setting is Guest Network. It allows you to create multiple guest accounts for your friends and relatives. You no longer have to change your password every time your guests leave.
Next comes the traffic and monitoring manager. You need it if you want to configure ports for devices on your network. For example, you want the ports for the browser to be more priority than all the others, and the torrent will be a lower level. That is, it will be possible to simultaneously download torrent and watch your pages without sacrificing performance.
Next up is Parental Control. With it, you can limit the access of children to any specific resources. Next - "USB-application", that is, you can install several proprietary applications from ASUS. There are five of them in this firmware version. For example, "Print Server", 3G / 4G and Downloadmaster, which is a torrent. When installing it, you will need a connected hard drive or flash drive. After installing it, it becomes possible to download files downloaded by torrent directly to the hard drive using a router.
Next comes the management of the AiCloud cloud service. This service is designed to store your data in the cloud. If you connect a hard drive to your router, then this service will allow you to access information on this drive from anywhere in the world that has Internet access. This is very convenient if you are on a trip away from home.
Additional settings
In the ASUS RT-AC68U software interface, wireless configuration is the first thing to do. Here all the general settings are fairly standard. There is also a separate item of professional settings that allow you to more finely configure the router, set some rules - for example, when Wi-Fi should work and when it should not. But basically, the general settings are enough for comfortable work with the device. Here you can select them separately for range ac and separately for range n.
After that go the local network settings. Here we configure the IP address of the router, DHCP server. You can configure one port for an IPTV set-top box. You can select the provider and port that will be used for IPTV. There is also a Switch Control setting here. With it, you can enable hardware acceleration, as well as large frames.
Next are the Internet settings. Here we can choose the type of Internet connection, login / password, which is required by your provider. One of the coolest things about this router is that it has a dual WAN. With this function you can make a reservation. For example, if there is no Internet via the main cable, you can connect either via a 3G modem or through one of the LAN ports. Another huge plus of dual WAN is that now you can connect the Internet from two providers to one router. There is also port forwarding, DDNS settings.
Then go the IPv6 and VPN server settings . IPv6 is off by default. VPN server settings will help you if you want to connect to your home network via VPN.
Next are the Firewall settings. There are many of them, so you can always set a fairly high level of security for any user. There is a URl address filter that allows you to block some unwanted website addresses. You can also block by keywords or network services. For example, you can block IP-telephony or ICQ.
After that comes the administration tab. It allows you to select an operating mode. The default setting is a wireless router. There is also a repeater mode, access point mode and Media Bridge, when your router connects to another router that distributes Internet via Wi-Fi. In this case, you connect your devices to the LAN ports of your router. In the system settings, you can change the administrator password, set the time zone. In the settings management, you can save or restore your settings.
Next is the system log. It displays all the ongoing processes. Here you can see the frequency of the processor, DHCP clients, etc. The Wireless tab provides fairly accurate monitoring of the wireless network: who is connected, signal strength, transmission and reception speed, etc. In another tab, you can see the routing table.
It ends with the Network Utilities tab. With their help, you can, for example, "wake up" a device in the sleep mode via the network.
What else?
I also want to note the proprietary technology to increase the coverage area of the AiRadar wireless network. It allows you to select the priority areas in which the Wi-Fi signal will be distributed. Another worth mentioning is the Quality of Service function, which allows you to prioritize the use of bandwidth by various applications for ASUS RT-AC68U. Reviews on the network about these functions cause only positive emotions.
Comparison with competitors
Now I would like to compare this wonderful router, ASUS RT-AC68U, with other devices from its price range. The fact is that he has a competitor in the market. This is a Netgear R7000 router. Here we will do a small comparative review of routers from Asus and Netgear.
You can start with the processor. Asus has Dual 800 MHz and Netgear has Dual 1000 MHz. The difference, in principle, is small. In practice, this can result in a slight increase in the performance and power consumption of the Netgear router. And there is. The power of the power supply at Asus is lower than that of Netgir: 19V / 1.75A versus 12V / 3.5A. This gives 33.25 watts versus 42 watts. The power of the power supply also affects the power of the transmitter. The more powerful the power supply, the more reliable and better the Wi-Fi signal is transmitted, and the transmission range may be higher. All this can be verified in practice. Next, we will conduct several tests on the speed of Internet connection and signal transmission range. We will also connect several hard drives from different manufacturers and check the data transfer speed through the USB-3 port.
For tests, we will use a dedicated Internet line at a speed of 100 Mb / s, and for measuring speed - the site speedtest.net. To test the speed of the hard drives, we will use two hard drives: Segate at 5400 rpm and WesternDigital at 7200 rpm (black). Both drives are connected via USB 3.0, and Disk Speed Test will be used to test data transfer rates.
When connecting the Internet directly to a computer, the download speed is 93.6 Mb / s, and the data transfer rate is 78.86; Ping - 8 ms. Now we connect the cable to each of the routers and test the speed of the Internet via Wi-Fi.
ASUS wireless router shows the following test result for reception / transmission: 15.40 / 74.88 at a frequency of 2.4 GHz. At a frequency of 5 GHz, the speed slightly increased and amounted to 19.43 / 76.83
Next, we will connect hard drives to ASUS. Let's start with WD. When connected to a router, the hard drive is detected, but the connection does not occur. This is due to a lack of nutrition. Even with a second USB 2.0 power cable, this is still not enough. The second hard drive - Segate - connects and works fine.
Now check the speed of the device over the network. The test gives the following results for writing / reading - 9.8 / 16.2 MB / s. This suggests that when working with video content over the network, difficulties may arise.
Next, we’ll test Netgear. The USB 3.0 port is located on the front panel. At a frequency of 2.4 GHz, the speed test shows reception / sending - 41.29 / 72.51. When connected at a frequency of 5 GHz, the speed for receiving / sending was 92.8 / 78.41
Next, connect the hard drives to this router. When connecting via USB 3.0, the WD Winchester also refuses to work. This router also does not have enough power to run and operate this powerful hard drive. When connecting Segate, everything works great. The test for the data transfer speed from the hard disk showed the following result: 11.9 MB / s for writing and 16.4 MB / s for reading. For the purity of the experiment, connect the disks directly to the computer and do the test. Segate showed the following results: write / read - 56.8 / 78.2 MB / s.
Such indicators are quite enough for a comfortable and productive work with the hard drive. This test clearly shows that low data transfer rates from the hard drive are not a disadvantage of the hard drives themselves. With a good speed of the connected Internet line and high speed of data transfer via Wi-Fi, the slow disk operation is connected with the inadequate operation of the controllers in routers. Manufacturing companies should take note of this and bring to mind this piece of software.
Total
About ASUS RT-AC68U reviews go very different. The following conclusions can be drawn from this review:
1. The appearance, ergonomics and technical capabilities of the ASUS RT-AC68U router are on top.
2. The speed of data transmission over Wi-Fi is quite high.
3. The device firmware interface is intuitive and straightforward. It is possible to carry out both superficial and deep settings.
The ASUS RT-AC68U router has its drawbacks. This is the bad work of the hard drive connection controller. The slow speed of data transfer from drives over Wi-Fi is most likely due to software flaws.
Also, when choosing a NAS server, you need to be quite serious about choosing a hard drive. The fact is that powerful Western Digital hard drives of black color have a high speed of 7200 rpm and are designed to work with media content. Given that they need large energy resources, power from any USB port is not enough for them. But you can use a hard drive powered by an external electrical network. Less "gluttonous" hard drives will work fine.