# gaming routers! are they really worth it?!



## SsXxX

I see gaming routers being sold for crazy high prices up to 300$! but are they really worth for some one whos gonna play using wired internet?!

i mean i know a fast router might have a positive effect on your ping and latency if your gaming on wireless specially when there are many users using the same router too, but if I'm using wired internet for my online gaming, will those expensive so called gaming routers be of benefit to my latency or ping?

I game online a lot, currently I'm playing csgo and overwatch, soooo hyped for battlefield 1 and titanfall 2 yaaaay


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## vaserial

id say no a 50$ router is just fine in most situations a lot are just overkill and as far as wired goes you might see 1-2ms difference if that between a 50$ router and a 300$ router


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## SsXxX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *vaserial*
> 
> id say no a 50$ router is just fine in most situations a lot are just overkill and as far as wired goes you might see 1-2ms difference if that between a 50$ router and a 300$ router


thanks for the past response bro









still waiting for more opinions preferably from people who experienced both high end and low end routers and whom have used wired internet


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## Cloudforever

He's 100% correct. As long as you're using 1Gb ports, your fine... You will not have any issues.

Linksys EA6350 AC1200+ Dual-Band Smart Wi-Fi Wireless Router is a great router, installed numerous of these and its super nice and easy to set up. They're like 80$ I believe and competitively (my local best buy) has them for the same price surprisingly lol.

Just a suggestion though, do not purchase TP-link routers. the C7 AC1950 or 1700 routers are nice, however just believe in quality vs quantity parts. You get what you pay for (my motto)


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## Simmons572

@SsXxX

The biggest benefit you typically see with these higher-end "gaming routers" is improved WiFi tech. I.E.- better range, better throughput, MIMO, etc.

IMO, you are spending too much money on your router if you are spending over $140 on it.

I agree with what @Cloudforever has stated above.


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## Zero4549

Lot of nonsense in the specifics people are throwing around here.

For instance, 1Gb ports can help an otherwise good router expedite file transfers from one computer to another on the same internal network, but aren't going to make any difference whatsoever for a typical internet connection. A router with better internal processor and better firmware (or better yet customizable firmware) on the other hand can significantly reduce buffer bloat and other issues that result in you getting less out of your connection than the ISP provides.

As for completely ignoring the wireless functionality of a router because your main gaming system is wired, that only makes sense if you do not use any wireless devices at all. A router with poor WIFI is going to be wasting precious bandwidth and processing time on packet loss and subsequent re-transmission, and a multitude of other issues, if wireless devices are accessing the network. This will end up directly eating into your wired performance. You might not care if the connection between your mom's tablet and your router is awful, but if that same network is feeding your wired gaming machine, her youtube videos are still going to kill your bandwidth and skyrocket your latency.

So what if we remove wireless connections entirely. You now just have a few computers, all hard wired. Great, you can now ignore the wireless aspect of a router, but you still need to deal with hungry devices competing for limited bandwidth. A router with well implemented QoS can ensure that every device gets its fair share of network access, and that higher priority tasks or systems actually get served first.

Ultimately if you are like most households, something in the $50-100 will serve you well. Which specific model you get however depends on a number of factors that you will have to evaluate yourself (or at least enlighten us on so that we can more specifically assist you). It certainly doesn't need to be branded "for gaming" or anything like that, but quality does matter.

Oh, and ignore that nonsense about TP-Link routers killing you in your sleep. They aren't any more evil than any other brand, and very frequently offer nearly identical internal components as their competitors for 20-30% lower costs. People who have only ever bought $10 TP-Links and compare them to $150 Linksys or Asus routers are obviously going to have a very skewed perception. $10 Linksys sucks just as bad (well, they would if you could find them. In reality you're going to pay 20 bucks for Linksys' lowest model, which will still suck just as bad). Not saying buy a TP-Link, just telling you not to buy into the fear-mongering that goes around now days by people who have never used the products they speak poorly about.


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## ShamrockMan

If your tech savvy, you are better off with low end pro gear from Ubiquity if you are looking at spending $300 (edgeRouter lite and a UniFi for wireless). While they don't have the hype of the gaming consumer gear, they still can do all the same things but you have to configure it manually rather than have a "make games faster, youtube slower" button. I personally use them for my home setup and haven't had as many issues as I did with consumer gear.


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## SsXxX

so in short if im using wired internet there is no meaningful difference between a high end and low end router, right?

im currently using a cheap router, im not sure which brand it is and im not sure it has QoS in it, but all i know is that when i first got it a few years ago i limited the wifi bandwidth (from router setup) to only 2gb and reserved 18gb to the wired internet (my ISP provides me with a total of 20gb), rarely any of us needs wifi any way.

i play online from time to time but mostly im into single player offline games, but lately i have invested a lot of time in online gaming specially overwatch and starcraft, and planing for more with gears of war 4 and the coming battlefield 1 and titanfall 2, thats why i was wondering if a high end router would improve my ping and latency (which is very important specially for shooting games) but apparently from what i understand from the replies its not going to when im using wired internet and limiting the wifi bandwidth like im doing atm

so i guess i will be keeping my current cheap router unless someone proves to me that expensive routers are worth it for online gaming using wired internet









thanks to all for the replies


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## moonroket

I have microtik as a router its cost around $100 and my big bro have good knowlage of networking. He also like playing online game like mmo and he setup the router to prioritizing our gamming data transfer and its actualy work.. Bring down latancy from 200-300 to 100-200 (while im connecting from sea to na or eu server). But the setup must be done in both pc and router, ot wont work if we only set it on router alone.
So i dont belive a router alone can give difference.


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## IchiRuki

In my humble opinion - anything labeled as "Gaming" is just a marketing gimmick and yields small, if any difference compared to a regular item.


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## shlunky

The only thing I have to add other than what was already stated, is making your own out of pfSense or DD-wrt is a better option, IMO.
Now, I have a full 1gbps symmetrical connection to my house, so I could really tell a difference in going from a solid A/C TP-Link to a pfSense installation and turning the TP-link into an AP only device. Even the wireless was much more responsive.

But, you stated that you don't use the wireless much, so the AP aspect of it wouldn't benefit you as much.
Still, if you have an old laptop/desktop laying around, it is great fun to learn and use....

§


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## givmedew

For gaming it doesn't matter. That said if you need to turn on QoS or do a lot of torrents or other types of serving then it makes a big difference.

A $30 100mbit router is going to be just as good as a $300 gigabit router with beam forming when playing first person shooters. However let's say you have several people in the house and you need to turn on Quality of Service systems because you have kids or roommates or a wife... For example your roommate downloads torrents, people use Netflix and you game... Your going to want to set up a Quality of Service system that allows your friend to have 90+% of the max internet speed when nobody else is using it yet immediately throttle it down when you start up Netflix so Netflix doesn't buffer... Yet when you game your going to want all your traffic to take priority over Netflix.

All this and if you use tormenting just the constant traffic and 100s of open connections is going to be trouble enough.

What does all this Quality of Service and Open Connections mean?

It means processing power, ram and heat. Better routers have faster processors, more ram and better cooling. Some routers are technically "fast enough" to do most things but if you run the processor at 50-100% for several hours it will lock up from overheating or it will do this on specials hot days or just in the summer or maybe it takes a perfect storm of hot day, Netflix Bing watching on 2 TVs, and a game on your computer using P2P file sharing protocol to download an update (yes there are several games that do this!)

So just figure out who you are... No QoS and no torrents and pretty much any router will do! You could have 10 computers hookup up to a hub hooked up to a cheap router all playing world of warcraft with 0 problems!!!! Or you could have 2 roommates trying to make a limited amount of bandwidth provide good download speeds while at the same time providing good latency for for a game and no buffering on Netflix and this is possible on a good router.


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## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *moonroket*
> 
> I have microtik as a router


Mikrotik is pretty good for the money, especially the hEX. For anything that would need a more powerful router, you'd be better off building your own.


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## Twinnuke

The real question is can the routers forward the same ports over multiple devices. Especially PC and Xbox now sharing ports for windows cross-play games


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## aka13

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *IchiRuki*
> 
> In my humble opinion - anything labeled as "Gaming" is just a marketing gimmick and yields small, if any difference compared to a regular item.


Could not agree more. Unless you really are into heavy networking for improving your quality of life, a "place-and-forget" solution most manufacturers as dlink for example offer for a laughable sum of money will be more than enough for home use, even if it is heavy streaming from multiple clients.


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## CrazyHeaven

I had a nice router. It was a high end asus. It worked until I moved into a, larger house. My neighbors signal would always be better than mine in my house. I finally broke down and brought a nighthawk 4x. Have not had any problems with this router. In fact it is probably overkill for my needs. But it does what I need it to do and that's what is important.

Picked it up during blackfriday of last year for 120.


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## _Red_Dog_

1st. Build your own router. Its 20bucks for NICs (really one nic, the dual port Intel PRO 1000) and w/e spare junk you can pick in neighbors recycling bin as far as platform is concerned.
2nd... gaming... routers? Ok is this the bottom? Are we there yet? or should I wait for thier "blazing amazing overkill megadeath 1Gb (that's Gigabit with the G!!!) hardcore 8 port unmanaged(!It manages itself folks!) switches"?

... It does make me sad however that as much as I despise the "gaming" label as it most of the time used to peddle junk, I myself mostly use consumer grade gear. And because of this people go overboard in the other direction and try to tell me that, no, one must have a professional graphics card to draw in CAD(don't ask, you don't want the rant that comes after it if you ask... lol). I need to make a list of things that are good on consumer and good on enterprise and precisely for what... but that sounds like work. = \


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## boredgunner

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *IchiRuki*
> 
> In my humble opinion - anything labeled as "Gaming" is just a marketing gimmick and yields small, if any difference compared to a regular item.


Usually but not always the case (e.g. gaming monitors having 120 Hz or higher refresh rate, backlight strobing, variable refresh rate). It is the case for routers.


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## CrazyHeaven

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *_Red_Dog_*
> 
> ... It does make me sad however that as much as I despise the "gaming" label as it most of the time used to peddle junk, I myself mostly use consumer grade gear. And because of this people go overboard in the other direction and try to tell me that, no, one must have a professional graphics card to draw in CAD(don't ask, you don't want the rant that comes after it if you ask... lol). I need to make a list of things that are good on consumer and good on enterprise and precisely for what... but that sounds like work. = \


Of course you can't draw without a pro card. What were you thinking?


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## Andrea87

Most often the gaming word stamped on the router's box is a good way to attract unaware customers to a mediocre product.

First of all, what technology do you use for your internet connection? xDSL? Fiber? In my case, I'm on an ADSL2+ landline (perhaps will be updated to FTTC in the future), so a good router has its benefits. But good routers, as many have said, are often those not depicted as gaming router, but perhaps high-end products like solid Linksys, Netgear, AVM and others.

I've switched from a crappy ISP-provided (Telecom Italia) DSL router, to a good AVM Fritzbox one, dropping quite a big fat chunk off my ping, but well, this is very technology-specific, as local DSL Multiplexers generate different behaviors with different kinds of router chipsets. This will probably apply to other technologies. Not to mention that, a good router, will offer better traffic management and advanced settings, and perhaps QoS.


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## SystemTech

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *moonroket*
> 
> I have microtik as a router its cost around $100 and my big bro have good knowlage of networking. He also like playing online game like mmo and he setup the router to prioritizing our gamming data transfer and its actualy work.. Bring down latancy from 200-300 to 100-200 (while im connecting from sea to na or eu server). But the setup must be done in both pc and router, ot wont work if we only set it on router alone.
> So i dont belive a router alone can give difference.


I also have a Mikrotik. you can also prioritize devices on the network.
Thats what ive done. Just set my PC to be first in the priority list, with media player second and the rest of my network as third. Pretty easy to do.
Mikrotiks offer waay more than what you pay for them but the config is quite complex so not advised for people who do not know much about ip pools, DHCP Servers, DNS Servers etc.


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