Recommended wireless Router?

[eric92park]

I need a new gaming router because the other one is old...
I have 200 dollar max to spend, i don't want to waste too much money, is there any good ones out there?

 

[eric92park]

And CAT6 ethernet will be good right?

 

[tlarkin]

no such thing as a gaming router, don't believe any hype about advanced features for gaming....

I recommend two routers, Linksys and Buffalo.

Buffalo just put out a really nice one that supports DD-WRT firmware and has a whompign 32mb of memory, which is pretty sweet for a home router. Lots of companies skimp out and give you 8 or 16mb of ram in your router leaving you with a crappy CP and no room to do anything with. Plus the less memory the more possibility it has of being congested or what not.

Do you plan on running any type of third party firmware? And, man $200, thats a pretty hefty price range. You can turn a $50 router into a $700 router just by adding some nice third party firmware.

see here for more info

www.dd-wrt.com

 

[The_Other_One]

Actually, some of the "game routers" do perform better.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/

But honestly, I think a good router with DD-WRT would be about as good as you can get. I mean most run similar hardware and have similar specs(4MB flash, 16MB RAM). I have a Buffalo WLA-G54C and Dad has a Motola 850...something. I guess both are kind of the underdogs, but run DD-WRT like a charm.

 

[tlarkin]

if you read those reviews a lot of the new "gaming routers" just have a more advanced firmware version on them and run things like QoS, which all of that comes standard on DD-WRT.

So, even though you are correct, the other one, but at the same time its kind of a marketing scheme because hardware wise they aren't much different than your regular home router. Then you are paying for that, when in reality you shouldn't need to fork over the extra $$$ when you can use free open source firmware that makes your average router that much better in the first place. So, IMO its still a rip off. Sometimes how technology is marketed really bothers me, because I bet like maybe 5% of consumers would know this, possibly less.