TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router $39AR

Quote from roror : I briefly experimented with Gargoyle on WDR4300. The interface is not as nice as the dd-wrt IMO. Unsure about performance compared to the latest stock firmware, which is very good. The dd-wrt support for these is still very experimental. Reverting back from alternate firmwares to stock is tricky. You have to use a modified stock firmware. Otherwise you'll brick it.

Oh, I guess that's fair to say. The interface might be less easy to navigate.

Most of the complaints I heard before were about features like QoS and CoDel, which was just plain wrong since OpenWRT had more complete support of CoDel.
And I've found OpenWRT development is more organized and actively updated than DD-WRT.

Might jump on this and use an E2000 as a bridge... i hate not having simultaneous dual band.

How is the speed on this for wireless? I want to get one but the Amazon and Newegg reviews scare me. There are a lot of 1 or 2 stars saying the router doesn't work.

I have a WRT54G w/ DD-WRT that has been rock solid but need N speeds to try and speed up video files.

How is the range of the 5GHZ band?

Does DD-WRT decrease the speed of this router?

Was also looking at the Asus AC router but that also has bad reviews on Newegg.

Quote from jkenned70 : Can anyone comment on the range of this router? I have a dual band simultaneous router that is known for SH&T RANGE and it's even worse in my older (lath and plaster) home. Cisco E4100 BLOWS BIG TIME!

If you really want good range, you'll have to get one of those pricier APs with high ~20+db and/or higher amps like the Ubiquiti APs.

Quote from jkenned70 : Can anyone comment on the range of this router? I have a dual band simultaneous router that is known for SH&T RANGE and it's even worse in my older (lath and plaster) home. Cisco E4100 BLOWS BIG TIME!

Have in cart ready to pull trigger....would love to know the answer to this question. It's the only thing I'm concerned about....I don't care about tomato's etc...

deleted - Commented on WRONG ROUTER. Intended about Belkin N600. MY MISTAKE!

For people wanting dual-band speeds reaching the theoretical maxes, you're going to be disappointed no matter what router you get. All the standards are still up in the air, causing results to vary.
The only way you will get the actual theoretical max that makes full use of all antennas is to buy similar chipset from same company wireless adapters and routers.

The process by which dual-band pairs is still not fully standardized, so different models and companies use different algorithms which end up even hurting speeds. You'll see complaints about the WDR4300 because of this.

Note: This does not explain the issues people are having with the WDR3600 or when not using wireless. I'm not sure why this is the case, since this unit has CPU/RAM much higher than comparably priced models.

Quote from ctsinc : Save your money -- this N600 is slow as hell. I have a Linksys WRT310N-V1 that I was going to replace because it doesn't work in N mode any more. For your Internet connection, you should expect much slower transfer rates, and local transfers are also quite poor. On 40MHz and 5GHz 802.11n band, it was barely able to keep a 150-160Mbps connection rate, and the 5GHz signal is so poor it barely works across 1 floor with hollow walls. Another oddity is that the feet on the router doesn't come off, so you have to stand it upright like a book, as opposed to laying flat like the majority of other hardware allows you to do. I returned it the next day. The router sucks -- it's ridiculously slow.

Can you explain a little more? I'm curious as well.

Did you buy the WDR4300 or WDR3600?
What N adapter are you using (chipset or model is fine)?
Did you try using only 2.4ghz band?

deleted - Commented on WRONG ROUTER. Intended about Belkin N600. MY MISTAKE!

Quote from yazyazoo : How is the speed on this for wireless? I want to get one but the Amazon and Newegg reviews scare me. There are a lot of 1 or 2 stars saying the router doesn't work. I have a WRT54G w/ DD-WRT that has been rock solid but need N speeds to try and speed up video files. How is the range of the 5GHZ band? Does DD-WRT decrease the speed of this router? Was also looking at the Asus AC router but that also has bad reviews on Newegg.

If you put an open source firmware on this bad boy its worth every penny... the people complaining about the router probably don't have a clue about it.

Quote from ctsinc : 1. The speed is like shit -- I went from 1.7MB/s on my WRT310N-V1 using 802.11g to 1.2MB/s on this, using 802.1n on both 20MHz and 40MHz frequency and both 2.4 and 5GHz bands. The range of the 5GHz is strong to about 3 feet, on the other side of the room, it's at 60%. On the other side of the house, you can either not connect or you get 10%. My cell phone is a Samsung Galaxy S2, and using it as a wifi router on 802.11n, I get better range than this router. I recommend you save your money because this router SUCKS. EDIT: forgot to mention that there have been several reports of DDWRT taxing the router too much to the point that it overheats, so some people have been coping by putting fans on the router, or doing custom heatsink/fan installation.

Over at DD-WRT, there are a lot of positive reviews of this router (with the custom firmware of course). No mention of installing fans or anything lol. Where did you read that?

EDIT: For those reading this, the quoted post above was a mistake - those issues DO NOT occur with this router!

What is the performance difference between 6x internal antennas and 2x external antennas? My environment is an apartment complex with much wireless congestion. I am hoping to be able to stream HD TV ~ 20 Mbps locally.

I am looking at the Cisco Linksys EA3500 [1] and this one. Any thoughts on which I should choose?

[1] http://slickdeals.net/forums/show...p=56614084

Quote from CoBrA2168 : Over at DD-WRT, there are a lot of positive reviews of this router (with the custom firmware of course). No mention of installing fans or anything lol. Where did you read that?

Just want to note same with OpenWRT users even from back in the first SD FP deal when it was relatively new.

Quote from jith_hago : What is the performance difference between 6x internal antennas and 2x external antennas? My environment is an apartment complex with much wireless congestion. I am hoping to be able to stream HD TV ~ 20 Mbps locally. I am looking at the Cisco Linksys EA3500 [1] and this one. Any thoughts on which I should choose? [1] http://slickdeals.net/forums/show...p=56614084

The differing chipsets will probably not allow you to make full use of that. And only the WDR4300 has six antennas. This one's 5Ghz antenna only has 2x (so technically 5x). I made a post a while back where I found a bunch of wireless adapters with similar generation chipsets and asked people to try it out.

EDIT:
I forgot to add. The extra antenna on the WDR4300 will help a bit if you have a lot of 5Ghz N devices. But less than a few devices it may end up hurting performance rather than helping.

Oh, you only said 20Mbps. Either router will suit you fine.

# of antennas will not really help your range. 5Ghz has less range than 2.4Ghz.
If you need strong range you will need to look into an access point with 20db or higher, or an adapter with higher amps.

Quote from CoBrA2168 : Over at DD-WRT, there are a lot of positive reviews of this router (with the custom firmware of course). No mention of installing fans or anything lol. Where did you read that?

I made a mistake and commented on the wrong router. Please disregard my previous comments. I have no experience with this particular router, nor could I form an opinion base on a lack thereof.