SmallNetBuilder

Features

For those of you who won't rest until you know that guest networks are really supported, here is the screenshot to prove it.

R6300 guest network settings

I also stumbled across a Performance Boost option in the Advanced Wireless settings page that is highlighted in the screenshot below. There is no explanation of what this does in the online help or User Manual. But here's what NETGEAR had to say about it:

The Performance Boost feature reduces the CPU utilization for WLAN processing on the router.

The typical scenario where it will help improve WiFi performance is where CPU is the bottleneck:
- Dual band concurrent performance
- Full speed 802.11ac performance

We recommend keeping this feature enabled for best performance.

R6300 guest network settings

Not all routers support the same channels in 5 GHz, so I've summarized that and other wireless setting information in Table 2. Note that unlike the Buffalos, the R6300 doesn't support Channel 165 in 5 GHz, nor does it have an Auto channel setting in that band.

Table 2: Wireless settings summary

Also unlike the Buffalo draft 11ac router and bridge, you can't adjust the R6300's transmit power, nor can you set the advertised base rates. You do, however, get the ability to adjust Fragmentation length, CTS/RTS Threshold and select short or long preamble. You can also schedule radio on/off periods for both radios on a daily basis and set wireless access filtering (MAC address) using a handy client pick list.

If you need a walkthrough on the Genie feature set, Craig's feature review of the WNDR3800 should give you what you need.

Routing Performance

[This is copied from the First Look for your convenience.]

Routing performance for the R6300 using our standard test method is summarized in Table 3, 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 3: 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

Storage Performance

I ran quick Windows filecopy tests using the standard NAS testbed to the R6300 with our standard Iomega UltraMax Pro drive configured in RAID 0 and formatted in FAT32 and NTFS. I pulled results from a few other high-end routers for comparison into Table 4.

Table 4: File copy throughput

Cisco's E4200v2/EA4500 is still the champ for everything except FAT32 writes. But it looks like the R6300 has improved NTFS read and write performance over its WNDR4500 sibling. Since the two routers use the same CPU, I suspect that if I went back and retested the WNDR4500 with current firmware I might it now equals the R6300.