Wireless Reviews

Wireless Performance

Updated 4/28/15

This section has been updated to reflect results from a retest of the 2.4 GHz band. The results are more in line with other AC1200 class routers. I must have left the router in Auto mode, which enabled 40 MHz bandwidth mode. I apologize for the error.

The WRT1200AC is Wi-Fi Certified. It was tested using the Revision 8 Wireless test process with 1.0.3.166464 firmware loaded. The router comes with WPS enabled. I connected a Windows 8.1 notebook to the router's 5 GHz SSID and was prompted for WPS PIN with a pushbutton alternative. A pushbutton session quickly resulted in a WPA2/AES connection.

The router defaults to unique SSIDs and auto channel select for each radio and 80 MHz bandwidth for 5 GHz and 40 MHz bandwidth for 2.4 GHz.

For performance testing, the router was first reset to factory defaults. The 2.4 GHz radio was set to Channel 6 and 20 MHz only bandwidth mode. The 5 GHz radio was set to Channel 153 and left in 80 MHz channel width to enable 802.11ac link rates. The NETGEAR R7000 bridge mode standard test client was connected using WPA2/AES encryption.

Our standard practice is to center the router under test's antennas on the turntable, both front-to-back and side-to-side in the chamber. This method is intended to keep maximum distance between the router under test and chamber antennas as the router rotates during test. The photo below shows the WRT1200AC in the test chamber in its starting test position.

Linksys WRT1200AC Benchmark Summary

The WRT1200AC's Benchmark Summary below shows the average of throughput measurements made in all test locations.

Linksys WRT1200AC Benchmark Summary

The charts below, filtered to show AC1200 routers and current test process only, show the WRT1200AC has 2.4 GHz throughput similar to other AC1200 routers tested.

Linksys WRT1200AC 2.4 GHz Average Throughput summary

Moving to the profile plots, I pulled three top-ranked AC1200 routers into the comparison: TP-LINK's Archer C5; NETGEAR's R6220 and Linksys' EA6350. All three were recently tested in our AC1200 Router Round-Up Part 1.

The 2.4 GHz downlink profile shows the WRT1200AC tracking with the NETGEAR R6220 at the start of the test run, but not falling off until it meets the Linksys EA6350 and TP-LINK Archer C5 on their way down. The WRT1200AC stays connected the longest, all the way out to our 63 dB attenuation test limit. Note the throughput boost the Archer C5 gets from its 3x3 radio that isn't link rate limited.

2.4 GHz Downlink Throughput vs. Attenuation

The 2.4 GHz uplink plot shows the TP-LINK above the other three routers, but disconnecting the soonest. Although the WRT1200AC doesn't reach the same peak throughput with strong signals (low attenuation), it again stays connected for the entire test run.

2.4 GHz Uplink Throughput vs. Attenuation