In the past, when the network was slow and the number of connected devices was small, most people would only buy a wireless router when they purchased a product that had high sales, brands heard, and looked past. The price would generally not exceed 200. yuan. However, as broadband speeds up year by year, 100Mb broadband has entered the ordinary home; the rapid spread of various smart devices; the increase in the coverage of wireless signal coverage for home users; and game enthusiasts' attention to game network delay and stability. Demand is superimposed, making more and more manufacturers launch high-end wireless router products with strong performance and various functions. The wireless router to be experienced this time is the top product in the US Netgear brand - Netgear Nighthawk X8 AC5300 (R8500). Nighthawk X8 AC5300 (hereinafter referred to as R8500) is the top of the NETGEAR intelligent Wi-Fi router products, the total wireless transmission rate reached 5.3Gbps, modeling can be considered domineering exposed. The large body "occupies a large area" and the wavy top design is also quite distinctive. The R8500 has four external antennas and four built-in antennas. The external antenna uses an active design and cannot be removed. Each antenna has a signal receiving module, a low-noise amplification module, and a power supply module to improve signal strength and coverage. ▲ The large body gives the R8500 more room to interface, and six Gigabit LAN ports and one Gigabit WAN port meet most people’s needs for wired connectivity. ▲ Two USB ports are located on the side of the camera body, and the dust caps are automatically closed when they are closed. When the R8500 is unpacked, its internal chip is covered with a metal shield and a large area of ​​heat sink is placed on the shield. After removing the heat sink on the shielding cover, it was found that the shielding cover used a concave treatment at the main chip, and the thick heat conduction paste was used to further improve its thermal conductivity and details were in place. The R8500 adopts Broadcom's products in its core control chip and wireless chip. The main control chip is Broadcom's BCM4709C0KFFBG, Cortex-A9 dual-core, and has a frequency of 1.4GHz. The R8500 supports LAN1 and LAN2 port aggregation (also called link aggregation). Users can combine two Gigabit Ethernet cables into a single wired connection of up to 2Gbps, which doubles the bandwidth. Since the BCM4709C0KFFBG integrates Gigabit Ethernet switches, this part is responsible for it. For users who have dual network cards and support link aggregation technology NAS, with the R8500 turned on this feature, you can fully reduce the time of photo, video and other data transmission, 4K high-definition streaming media playback in the home, multi-machine playback HD Video is also possible. The R8500 provides six Gigabit LAN ports, while the rest of LAN3~LAN6 are extended through another switch chip Broadcom BCM53125. ▲The large area heat sink covers the metal shield and the overall workmanship material is worthy of its flagship status In the wireless chip part, the R8500 uses three Broadcom BCM4366s, which are responsible for 2.4 GHz and two 5 GHz frequency bands, respectively. The BCM4366, which is responsible for the 2.4 GHz band, adds four sky2623L power amplifiers to increase the signal strength. The BCM4366, which is responsible for two 5 GHz bands, each adds four PA5542s to play the same role. When 802.11ac operates at 80MHz, the 1T1R can achieve a transmission speed of 542Mbps. The R8500 supports two sets of 4T4Rs, so the maximum transmission speed in a 5GHz band can reach 2166Mbps. When 802.11n is operating in the 2.4 GHz band and 40 MHz, the 1T1R can transmit at 250 Mbps. Therefore, when used with the 4T4R antenna of the R8500, the maximum transmission speed of the 2.4 GHz band is 1000 Mbps. System experience mesh nighthawk X8 AC5300 (R8500) The R8500 system is still a NETGEAR genie. Users who have used NETGEAR routers should be able to get started quickly. The system's home page uses a panelized design and is divided into basic and advanced categories. The basic part is divided into six major sections - Internet settings, wireless network management, intelligent management of accessed devices, parental controls, easy sharing, and guest mode. Large icons are used, and the visual effects are good and intuitive. However, in general, the UI design style of the NETGEAR Elves is still text-based, and the graphical design is still relatively small compared to the Internet-branded router products that mainly use the “smart†concept. For users who like professional style, it may be more useful, but for most users who want to have a more concise and clear system interface, the NETGEAR wizard has room for improvement in UI design. ▲ The main page of the system home page uses large icons, which are simple and clear ▲Easy sharing allows users to easily share files via the R8500 The conventional setup and function items are not to say more, say a few more useful features. Dynamic QoS must be turned on. After it is turned on, the system will use the "SpeedTest" to test the network bandwidth and automatically optimize the home network. Priority can also be set, for example, to allow game devices, such as game consoles, PCs that are running online games, to preferentially obtain sufficient bandwidth to meet game requirements. In the easy sharing function, the currently connected USB device is displayed, where the user can change the sharing mode and safely remove the USB device. Through the USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 interfaces provided by the R8500, users can connect external removable storage devices and use wireless networks to access content and easily share files. Of course, there is an Ethernet port aggregation function switch in the system interface. Users of the access device that supports this function do not forget to turn it on. NetGrid also provides NETGEAR Genie App for mobile device users. Both iOS and Android versions are available, and the router can be set via mobile phones and tablets. Its function is the same as landing and entering the system on the PC side. The operation is convenient and intuitive. ▲ R8500's Ethernet port aggregation function with NAS and other devices that have dual network cards and support this function to achieve higher bandwidth advantages ▲ The mobile device can set up the router through NETGEAR Genie Performance Test Since we mainly examined the 802.11ac performance of the R8500, all test results were based on a 5GHz connection. During the test, the router and platform 2 laptops are connected via a gigabit wired connection to form a server. The platform 1 desktop PC is installed with a wireless network card to form a client. The wireless network card receives wireless signals from the router. We fixed the position of the desktop PC, and the router followed the laptop to switch test sites. ▲ Test Environment Overview It can be seen from the measured data of the near field transmission at point A that the wireless transmission rate of the router is close to 900 Mbps. In addition, after solving the problem that the wireless network card matches the top wireless router, if the server connected to the router does not support link aggregation, the bandwidth from the wireless side to the switching part is also limited to a theoretical maximum value of 1 Gbps. At this time, the server-side bandwidth needs to be increased to 2 Gbps through link aggregation to better realize the wireless transmission performance of these wireless routers. Let's look specifically at the results of this router. From the performance test of the wireless transmission rate under the five-thread connection, the R8500 performs very well on the absolute transmission speed and the data after the partition. Both the R8500 and the network card adopt Broadcom's solution, and the compatibility is better. In terms of coverage of wireless signals, the signal strength of the R8500 at the same test point is also very strong. In a home test environment of about 100 square meters, its signal strength can fully meet the needs, and there is no problem to cope with a larger area of ​​use environment. Some experience down, mesh nighthawk X8 AC5300 (R8500) from the performance specifications, workmanship to function reflect its value, tri-band design allows it to easily face more and more wireless devices. At the same time, this product has joined the link aggregation function, which is very practical for users who have NAS to support this function at home, which will greatly increase the transmission speed when they are used. Of course, the low price is more suitable for game enthusiasts, and for home users and enterprise users with higher network performance and living environment. 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