Wireless Reviews

Routing Performance

Routing performance for the WZR-1750DHP loaded with 2.08 firmware and using our standard test method is summarized in Table 4. The 4,096 Simultaneous Connections is very low compared to other current products, but the routing throughput is essentially Gigabit wire speed in both directions.

The IxChariot plot shows nice steady throughput in the unidirectional tests.

Buffalo WZR-1750DHP routing unidirectional throughput

Simultaneous up/downlink throughput showed very high variation as you can see in the image below. You can see that in most instances downlink was favored, although the two plots stay relatively close to each other.

Buffalo WZR-1750DHP routing bidirectional throughput

Wireless Performance

The WZR-1750DHP is not Wi-Fi Certified. It defaulted to Auto channel mode on both 2.4 and 5 GHz radios upon power-up. The 2.4 GHz radio defaulted to 20 Mhz Channel width, while the 5 GHz radio defaulted to 80 MHz. So you won't be upsetting your neighbors if you leave the 2.4 GHz at its default bandwidth setting. The router comes with different 2.4 and 5 GHz SSIDs set, so you'll be able to connect to your desired band without having to change router settings.

WPS is enabled on both bands by default. But our Win 7 test client did not prompt for a PIN or pushbutton session on multiple attempts. However, during wireless testing and after we set WPA keys, we did see prompts for WPS pushbutton sessions when connecting.

Both 40 MHz Coexistence and Fat channel intolerant tests failed, with the WZR-1750DHP continuing to link at 40 MHz rates in both cases, instead of falling back to lower 20 MHz channel width rates.

For throughput testing, the router was first reset to factory defaults and Channel 6 was set for 2.4 GHz and Channel 153 for 5 GHz. 20 MHz B/W mode was set for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz was set in 80 MHz bandwidth mode. The closest surface of the router was positioned 8" from the chamber antennas in 0° and 180° test positions. The 0° position had the front of the router facing the chamber antennas.

The retest Benchmark Summary below shows the average of throughput measurements made in all test locations. The 2.4 GHz values in the summary correspond to 2.4 GHz values (20 MHz B/W) and the 5 GHz values correspond to the 80 MHz B/W - 3 stream values measured with the previous test methodology.

Benchmark Summary

Comparing average 2.4 GHz benchmark values with other AC1750 routers in the Charts, the WZR-1750DHP's 91 Mbps tops the Average 2.4 GHz downlink chart. But its 76 Mbps places fourth from the bottom on 2.4 GHz average uplink. Total throughput in the simultaneous up/downlink test measured 167 Mbps, sitting fairly close to the highest of 172 Mbps, which belongs to the ASUS RT-AC66U.

In the 5 GHz charts however, the WZR-1750DHP didn't do as well. Its 108 Mbps downlink average placed it at the bottom of all AC1750 class results and its 109 Mbps uplink average didn't fare much better at second to last place. The 5 GHz simultaneous up/downlink test yielded only 376 Mbps compared to the top-of-chart D-Link DIR-868L's 609 Mbps.

The Throughput vs. Attenuation plots provide better insight into comparative performance than the simple average benchmarks. I chose to compare the WZR-1750DHP with two other top-ranking Broadcom-based AC1750 class routers, the ASUS RT-AC66U and D-Link DIR-868L.

The 2.4 GHz downlink comparison below shows the WZR-1750DHP with steady throughput in the high to mid signal levels, with no dip in the early going like the ASUS. The odd anomaly is that around 39 dB of attentuation, the WZR-1750 actually has a jump in throughput, and then follows the rate of decline of both the ASUS and D-Link at around 45 dB.

2.4 GHz Downlink Throughput vs. Attenuation

The 2.4 GHz uplink plot shows the Buffalo comparable with the two other products until 30 dB, at which point the RT-AC66U forges ahead while the DIR-868L has slightly lower throughput than the Buffalo, but not by much. The ASUS comes out the best in this comparison, keeping its steady throughput until after 39 dB.

2.4 GHz Uplink Throughput vs. Attenuation