Performance Testing

This section will continue to evolve and change depending on how the reception is to the category, and depending on whether we manage to get our hands on some useful tools that will help better measure the performance of routers and other Wi-Fi systems in general. As it stands today, a combination of the excellent, freely available iPerf3 on my Windows 10 desktop PC, my laptop, and even an iPerf3 Android app helped measure throughput for the NETGEAR Nighthawk XR500 router, with a ruler/tape measuring the distance from it and a Wi-Fi analyzer using my Essential PH-1 phone Wi-Fi antenna and connection to measure signal attenuation as I moved from right on top of the router to further and further away inside my residence. Please note that signal attenuation depends heavily on a number of factors apart from just distance, including any barriers between and other devices operating in the bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, etc). With a common test location, the variable being tested is the router/Wi-Fi system itself, and it would as such be valid to compare results to others products tested thus.


The chart above shows how the antennas in the Nighthawk XR500 router cope with connected clients at various distances from it. The client was positioned at varying points away in a 3D space with the shortest distance measurement taken between the two. Given the nature of the bands supported, the test here was conducted for Wireless N at 2.4 GHz and Wireless AC at 5 GHz to best replicate end-user applications, as in my own case, and we can see that the signal loss is heavier for the 5 GHz network relative to the 2.4 GHz network, which is as expected. There is a minor decrease in signal strength in both cases as you move even only slightly away from the router, which then drops more drastically as you get further away and eventually past an inner wall, which creates a barrier to the network field strength.


By removing the actual Internet speed connection out of the equation, a TCP throughput test done at these same spots away from the router paints a more useful story, while also helping with a comparison of those numbers across test residences by having the X-axis as the signal's attenuation instead of distance away from the router. The Nighthawk XR500 router is rated for a maximum of 866/866 Mbps on Wireless AC and 800 Mbps on Wireless N, but those are ideal numbers that are unlikely to be seen in practice. Indeed, the two 5 GHz bands here do not add up cumulatively no matter how the AC2600 numbers come up, which, rather, just means that a larger number of wireless AC clients can be supported without having to prioritize one over another. The slowest of the server (the router in this case) and client will dictate the overall speed of traffic as well, and here, the maximum throughput (downlink) was 267 and 795 Mbps respectively for wireless N at 2.4 GHz and wireless AC at 5 GHz. They remained close to the maximum, especially on the 2.4 GHz wireless N network, following which a large drop down to, respectively, 51/162 Mbps started. This is where the mesh networking feature available in Wi-Fi systems comes in handy, with additional satellite units aiding in a slower depreciation of throughput with distance, especially with those having a dedicated backhaul channel as with NETGEAR's own Orbi systems.


As of when this product was tested, I had tested three other routers for comparison. In order to best compare them across the possible variables, the decision was made to chart throughput at a set distance, 5 meters in this case. The Nighthawk XR500 is a decent performer, but not significantly so compared to the older, less expensive D-Link DIR-880L I had from a few years ago. You need to step up to a mesh network or something with significantly stronger antennas in all direction to gain large performance increases.


The power-draw comparison chart helps identify whether specific routers are vastly different from others, which ends up being the case here. A Brand Electronics 4-1850 power meter was used between the power adapter for the router unit, and then, subsequently, the satellite unit and wall socket. Simple Kill-A-Watt units are good for basic checks, but not reliable enough for tests in my opinion. Each router was set up for a minimum of 24 hours of use across multiple days, and power consumption was averaged across a period of idle (inactivity at night) and normal operation during the day. Note also that night mode in the AmpliFi HD mesh router turns off the screen and lighting, which will help its case. Regardless, while all four systems fare similarly at idle, it is during normal operation where we see the two units of the RBK50 Wi-Fi system take up significantly more power combined. This is one of the drawbacks of such Wi-Fi systems involving multiple products, and also where the Nighthawk XR500 consumes only slightly more than the other standalone routers.

Finally, a note on geo-filtering. This is arguably the single largest feature that helps differentiate the Nighthawk XR500 from the other routers tested thus far and supports its claim of being a gaming-grade router. TechPowerUp is a PC-centric website, however, and my fellow PC gamers here are aware that we get the luxury of dedicated servers and even hosted servers by end users for most, if not all, popular online games. As such, we can select the server of our choice to host a game session on and as such, the geo-filtering feature in DumaOS is not going to do a whole lot. NETGEAR suggested spectating games hosted on different continents than my own to gauge the impact of geo-filtering, but I had something better in mind. It was around this time that God of War had released for Sony's Playstation 4 (PS4) with rave reviews and word of mouth getting me interested. I had a friend with a PS4, and I borrowed it to (a) play the game, and (b) test geo-filtering with a few online games. Indeed, Sony has been notorious in not allowing a lot of cross-platform gameplay online with games such as Fortnite, and their high market share in the current console generation means there are tens of thousands of people jumping into random server-hosted games and suffering from poor ping and lags galore. This is where geo-filtering came in very handy, and being able to restrict gameplay to within a 1000 miles of my location improved my gaming experience tremendously. I will mention that there was also a reduction in available game slots and fellow players alike as a result of this, but this was to be expected. If you are in a country that is large and not densely populated, you may not want to turn on any geo-filtering. The other case where the Nighthawk XR500's geo-filtering feature won't be handy is, as discussed before, for PC gaming as a whole.