Netgear Nighthawk X4 AC2350 WiFi Router Review – Quad-Stream X4 Architecture
Netgear R7500: Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The Netgear Nighthawk X4 AC2350 Smart Wi-Fi Router runs $249.91 shipped and really is packed with a ton of features that would normally make it a flagship networking device for anyone other than Netgear. Released this past fall, the R7500 is the latest release from Netgear in the Nighthawk series of high-performance routers. The Nighthawk X4 is specifically designed for gamers and users who do a ton of video streaming.
As mentioned, the Nighthawk X4 is equipped with many features, but the ones that stand out its unique approach to prioritizing data that comes into the network. Netgear equips this router with what they call, Dynamic QoS which was first introduced in the $299 Nighthawk X6 R8000. The X6 would actually move to reallocate a device to a radio channel that was underutilized instead of bogging down one of its radios. The Nighthawk X4 R7500 only has two radios so it actually has to be smarter in how it allocates its traffic. Not only is the X4 smart enough to detect the type of data is being transmitted, the R7500 is also device-aware able to recognize gaming consoles, smart TVs, PCs and mobile devices. The only way this can be done is if you have a robust processor. From our testing, the Qualcomm chip passes this test with flying colors.
The Netgear Nighthawk X4 is capable of theoretical combined speeds of up to 2.33 Gbps with a combination of 1733 mbps on the 5 GHz radio and 600 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz radio. Netgear chose the new Qualcomm Atheros IPQ8064 dual-core chip running at 1.4 GHz which supports 802.11ac Wave 2, 4×4, MU-MIMO (Multi-User MIMO) WiFi standards that maximize wireless performance.
One of the things to point out here is that the new generation of MU-MIMO devices will not only give you fast wireless-AC speeds, but their speeds will not be affected by the amount of traffic on the network. In other words, if you have an AC-device running at 500-600 Mbps as we did in our speed tests, when you add another device on the network, the router will not drop the speed of your original client at the same time it maximizes the new clients speed.
The good folks from Quallcom Technologies gave us a first-hand look at how these devices will work in the real world. From the chart below, you can see how two device are running on a network and a third device loses and gains signal. The most interesting thing is that the first two devices are not affected by the third device struggling with inconsistent connection speeds.
The bad news is that even though the Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500 is the first MU-MIMO capable router that we have seen and it was released seven months ago to the day it still does not have MU-MIMO support activated in the firmware. For this review we used Firmware Version V1.0.0.82 (after upgrading from V1.0.0.76). The Netgear R7500 router fully supports MU-MIMO on the silicon level, but Netgear has not received the needed firmware from Quantenna to activate their technology on the Quantenna QSR1000 802.11ac Wave 2 chipset. Once Netgear gets the firmware from Quantenna they then need to validate it on the router and see how the performance looks and to make sure it of course works properly in their router. The good news is that MU-MIMO support isn’t that big of a deal right now as to utilize the technology both your router and your wireless device must have MU-MIMO support. Those devices will be coming in the Fall of 2015 and will first be seen on Qualcomm powered mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. It will be some time before see internal adapters with MU-MIMO functionality when it comes to desktops and laptops. So, even though Multi-User MIMO capabilities arent activated yet, the Netgear R7500 should be ready for it in the months ahead.
Even without MU-MIMO enabled firmware, this is a feature-packed router that will cost you $249.99 which might give a person on a tight budget a heart attack. For a few dollars more, you are near the cost of Netgears flagship model, the triple-band R8000. At this point our recommendation is to really think about your networking needs before you spend a bunch of money. If you dont have tremendous traffic on your network, then you might not want to spend the money for an R8000. We would definitely recommend the X4 R7500 since it really is built for a number of different types of connected hardware working together. A typical home network will have 1 or 2 wireless devices that need running at top 802.11ac speeds and numerous other devices running at slower legacy speeds (802.11b/n/g). With todays routers these legacy devices would affect the entire network slowing other devices. In time and with MU-MIMO being unlocked on the R7500 slower devices on the network will not affect the fastest devices.
Legit Bottom Line:
The Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500 is one of the most fully loaded and speediest routers we have seen. We recommend this router specifically for the upcoming enhanced MU-MIMO capabilities the R7500 will take advantage of in the near future.