D-Link DIR-880L Wireless AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit Cloud Router

D-Link DIR-880L: Speed Test

We were really interested to see the real-world wireless speed performance of the D-Link DIR-880L so instead of taking the same approach as we have in previous router reviews, we changed some things up starting with the equipment that we used. We connected the D-Link DIR-880L to our desktop PC running Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit and configured the router using Automatic settings for a 5Ghz bandwidth. We then took our laptop to use as a client and connected it to a Netgear R7000 Wireless Router. We put the router into Bridge Mode and paired it with our suite of 802.11ac routers, including the D-Link DIR-880L. The R7000 is one of the latest wireless-AC routers on the market and should work very well as a bridge.

We took our Laptop/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.

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.

Benchmark Results: We first look at 1MB sized packets in the same room and found that the D-Link DIR-800L didnt exactly light up the place. In fact, the 880Ls performance was so low in the same room as our test laptop/bridge, we thought our unit was broken. After confirming the firmware and having a chat with some D-Link engineers, we confirmed the numbers that are published above. Compared to the older D-Link DIR-868L, the DIR-880 is outperformed by a whopping ~300%! We are hoping this is not an indicator of general performance.

Benchmark Results: We like to look at 100 MB sized packets because they are a very good indicator of how our routers will do when asked to transmit multimedia (and other similarly sized data). Here we see that our D-Link routers once again book-end our results. The DIR-868L certainly stands apart from its younger brother,the 880L by providing average Read/Write speeds close to 500 Mbps while the 880L can barely hold 200 Mbps. Quite a difference.