SmallNetBuilder

Routing Performance

Routing performance for the R6300 using our standard test method is summarized in Table 2, along with Buffalo's draft 11ac router. The R6300 has higher routing throughput, if that's important to you. But NETGEAR has kept to its traditional 4,096 limit on simultaneous sessions.

Table 2: Routing throughput

The IxChariot plot for the routing tests shows generally stable throughput, but with a few pronounced dips.

R6300 Routing throughput IxChariot plot summary

Wireless Performance - Draft 802.11ac

For a look at draft 11ac performance, I used a pair of R6300s running V1.0.0.68_1.0.16 firmware. I had to hunt for it, but finally found the non-WDS bridge mode settings on the Advanced > Advanced Setup > Wireless Settings page under the mysteriously named Use other operating mode checkbox (scroll down near the bottom of the page to see it). I couldn't use WDS bridging, because, since it doesn't support WPA2/AES, link rates about 54 Mbps (802.11g) are not available.

Advanced wireless setttings - Bridge mode

Clicking the Setup bridge mode wireless setttings button brought up the screen shown below. There is no site survey function, so you need to know the SSID of the router you want to connect to. As shown, I used a WPA2/AES secured connection for testing.

Bridge mode connection settings

I ran tests in my test locations A, C and D. I was not surprised to find no signal in my weakest signal test location F. Since I now have throughput vs. location data for two draft 802.11ac routers in the database, let's compare! Keep in mind that this isn't apples-to-apples, since I am not using the same client in both cases.

For downlink, the Buffalo pair appear to maintain higher throughput as signal levels drop.

Draft 802.11ac throughput vs. location - NETGEAR R6300 vs. Buffalo WZR-D1800H - downlink

Same appears to go for uplink, especially in Location D.

Draft 802.11ac throughput vs. location - NETGEAR R6300 vs. Buffalo WZR-D1800H - uplink