ASUS RT-AC3200 Tri-Band Wireless Router Review

By Ken Brown

ASUS RT-AC3200: Wi-Fi Speed Tests

Alienware Netgear R7000

We connected the ASUS RT-AC3200 to our desktop PC running Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit and configured the router using Automatic settings for our 5Ghz band and called it LEGIT. We then took our Alienware M17XR4 laptop to use as a client and connected it to a Netgear R7000 Router. We configured the router in Bridge Mode and paired it with each of our 802.11ac routers, including the Netgear X4 R7500. The R7000 is one of the latest wireless-AC routers on the market and works as an excellent bridge.

We took our Alienware M17XR4/R7000 Bridge and didnt tell the client anything more than the SSID name for each router tested and let it automatically choose the cleanest channel to connect to. For the fastest possible data throughput, the routers were set to Unsecure Mode and with WMM turned ON. After connecting, we ran the application LAN Speed Test (LST) to measure file transfer and network speeds. LST builds a file in memory and then transfers the packet without the effects of windows file caching. It then reports the time and calculates the network speed.

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We repeated the test 2 more times rotating the router 90 degrees after each test to make sure that the routers speed was affected adversely by its orientation. We took speed measurements at three different locations of the Legit Bunker: In the Same Room at exactly 5.5 feet away from the test router; in a 2nd Room about 20 feet away from the router through a wooden door; and in a Far Room, one level below (wood framed floor) where the client router/bridge sat. Doing this should really give us a nice taste of how our routers perform in the real-world.

RT-AC3200_SameRoom_1MB

Benchmark Results: The ASUS RT-AC3200 Tri-Band AC3200 Wireless Gigabit Router performed in the middle of the pack when it came to our same room performance test on the 5GHz band with roughly 500Mbps read/write speeds with 1MB data packets. We usually don’t panic too much when looking at the “Same Room” results though. Many times the 5-10 feet distance isn’t far enough for the high-gain antennas to be fully effective. The results from the RT-AC3200 are solid.

RT-AC3200_SameRoom_100MB

Benchmark Results: With larger 100MB data packets the ASUS RT-AC3200 Tri-Band AC3200 Wireless Gigabit Router had solid read speeds that put it near the top of the performance chart, but the write speeds weren’t as good and performed in the middle of the pack again. The larger packet sizes in our tests represent multimedia that is streamed over the Wi-Fi network so the ASUS here gives a very good response if you were primarily interested in watching your HD movies without stutters or drops in picture. The average read/write speed on the 100MB data packet test was 426Mbps.