Grimlakin
Forum Posting Supreme
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2019
- Messages
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I decided I needed some home networking upgrades. Looking around online your options for home routers with multiple physical network ports, and support for newer devices/larger networks was... either spend ALL of the money (500$ plus range) and still only get at a max 4 2.5 gig network ports.
OR...
Well kludging something together with a stand alone network switch and some tweaks...
So I went with this... for about 350 bucks it is a solid device.
Offers 2 gig of ram... my older Asus router RT-AX82U and it's more anemic ram was at it's max really for my home network of 20 some odd devices. Didn't impact network performance much. Range was... ok... a couple devices had issue keeping network. And speed a the more distant rooms was... ok at best.
the RT-BE88U quick features, 4, 2.5 gig network ports (one capable as LAN/WAN option) 4, 1 gig network ports. 1, 10 gig copper network port (using as my wan to my fiber modem says connected at 10 gig.), 1 SFP port supporting up to 10 gig.
One of the 2.5 gig ports can be set as your 'gaming' port if you need QOS. Honestly at my 1 gig home speed with only a couple people downloading/streaming at a time... not needed.
I love the Ai Protect lifetime security. I saw it being effective on my old ASUS router regularly. (now an Ai Mesh node... and incredibly simple to set up BTW.)
So to go through the process... Brought home the router... logged into the old Router and set it to be an AI mesh node after confirming I didn't need to spoof the MAC of the original Frontier provided router or anything.
Once that was done unboxed the new router, used the provided network cable to connect up to the network port on the Fiber Modem. (NUC I'm not sure of the abbreviation.) Went through the brief setup once the router was powered on by logging into the web portal. Once complete I was online... connected at 2.5 gig. Turned on Ai Protect features. Simple. Connected to the Ai Mesh router (my old RT-AX82U). Moved it to my weakest link area for network connectivity. It shows good and I have devices connecting to it just fine already.
The setup was straightforward. Even did a bios update automatically during the initial setup. (all devices should do this BTW.)
Having an SFP port available for another 10 gig network port is nice... but I've never EVER had good durability experiences with SFP's. They are the most failed component on all of my servers across the 200 or so I oversee. So I might not ever actually go that route.
I did find out the price difference between 2 gig and 1 gig was 7 bucks a month from Frontier.... so I'm opting for the two gig pipe... just so I can watch steam download at 200 megabytes a second. It really will do nothing for anything else I can do. The biggest boon is the Ai Mesh networking giving stability to my bedroom where my wife does 99% of her streaming/surfing from. Improving that will improve my QOL as well.
Some other notable differences between the two. Both had 4 core CPU's, the 88U are 2.6ghz the older are 1.5 GHZ. (more GHZ... better.... right?)
Both have 256mb storage, but the newer sports 2 gig of ram as opposed to the older 512mb.
The newer supports 4096-QAM as opposed to 1024, a quick google means it can pack 4x the amount of analog data into the wireless data stream meaning it can transmit more data but need more recovery bits in order to do so as the higher density waves are more susceptible to interference. In practice this should mean more data density on clean signals by a order of magnitude and in general better performance.
If I'm reading the power numbers it can easily consume 2x the power of the old router. Might need to keep a closer eye on the small UPS I have it running off of.
This is day 1 impressions. Will post more.
Did I want 6ghz network... this router uses WIFI 7 methodologies but does not support 6ghz. I don't think I'll miss it. I wanted multiple ports that support 2ghz more, and the networking functionality that this router has far exceeded my expectations. I'd be annoyed if I bought a more expensive router and had my POS printer consuming a 2.5GHZ port to run at 10 or 100 megabit.
Will gladly answer questions and grab screen shots.
Here is ASUS's page on the router: https://www.asus.com/us/networking-iot-servers/wifi-routers/asus-gaming-routers/rt-be88u/
OR...
Well kludging something together with a stand alone network switch and some tweaks...
So I went with this... for about 350 bucks it is a solid device.
Offers 2 gig of ram... my older Asus router RT-AX82U and it's more anemic ram was at it's max really for my home network of 20 some odd devices. Didn't impact network performance much. Range was... ok... a couple devices had issue keeping network. And speed a the more distant rooms was... ok at best.
the RT-BE88U quick features, 4, 2.5 gig network ports (one capable as LAN/WAN option) 4, 1 gig network ports. 1, 10 gig copper network port (using as my wan to my fiber modem says connected at 10 gig.), 1 SFP port supporting up to 10 gig.
One of the 2.5 gig ports can be set as your 'gaming' port if you need QOS. Honestly at my 1 gig home speed with only a couple people downloading/streaming at a time... not needed.
I love the Ai Protect lifetime security. I saw it being effective on my old ASUS router regularly. (now an Ai Mesh node... and incredibly simple to set up BTW.)
So to go through the process... Brought home the router... logged into the old Router and set it to be an AI mesh node after confirming I didn't need to spoof the MAC of the original Frontier provided router or anything.
Once that was done unboxed the new router, used the provided network cable to connect up to the network port on the Fiber Modem. (NUC I'm not sure of the abbreviation.) Went through the brief setup once the router was powered on by logging into the web portal. Once complete I was online... connected at 2.5 gig. Turned on Ai Protect features. Simple. Connected to the Ai Mesh router (my old RT-AX82U). Moved it to my weakest link area for network connectivity. It shows good and I have devices connecting to it just fine already.
The setup was straightforward. Even did a bios update automatically during the initial setup. (all devices should do this BTW.)
Having an SFP port available for another 10 gig network port is nice... but I've never EVER had good durability experiences with SFP's. They are the most failed component on all of my servers across the 200 or so I oversee. So I might not ever actually go that route.
I did find out the price difference between 2 gig and 1 gig was 7 bucks a month from Frontier.... so I'm opting for the two gig pipe... just so I can watch steam download at 200 megabytes a second. It really will do nothing for anything else I can do. The biggest boon is the Ai Mesh networking giving stability to my bedroom where my wife does 99% of her streaming/surfing from. Improving that will improve my QOL as well.
Some other notable differences between the two. Both had 4 core CPU's, the 88U are 2.6ghz the older are 1.5 GHZ. (more GHZ... better.... right?)
Both have 256mb storage, but the newer sports 2 gig of ram as opposed to the older 512mb.
The newer supports 4096-QAM as opposed to 1024, a quick google means it can pack 4x the amount of analog data into the wireless data stream meaning it can transmit more data but need more recovery bits in order to do so as the higher density waves are more susceptible to interference. In practice this should mean more data density on clean signals by a order of magnitude and in general better performance.
If I'm reading the power numbers it can easily consume 2x the power of the old router. Might need to keep a closer eye on the small UPS I have it running off of.
This is day 1 impressions. Will post more.
Did I want 6ghz network... this router uses WIFI 7 methodologies but does not support 6ghz. I don't think I'll miss it. I wanted multiple ports that support 2ghz more, and the networking functionality that this router has far exceeded my expectations. I'd be annoyed if I bought a more expensive router and had my POS printer consuming a 2.5GHZ port to run at 10 or 100 megabit.
Will gladly answer questions and grab screen shots.
Here is ASUS's page on the router: https://www.asus.com/us/networking-iot-servers/wifi-routers/asus-gaming-routers/rt-be88u/