Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 19:32 Post subject: Broadcom's equavalent of R7800?
Hello there,
I was talking to my friend who owns an Xfinity modem about getting himself his own modem/router combo to save up $168-180/Year (insane, right?)
Now the only issue is, that my friend's household has almost all Apple devices, and I know from reading in the forum that the R7800's Atheros does not play well with apple devices(Correct me if I'm wrong), and they're not the tech savvy type so I don't want them to run into any compatibility issues, which is why I'm posting this on Broadcom's sub-forum.
The other issues is that their internet speed is 1 Gbps+ from what he tells me, so I wasn't sure about recommending him a R7000 since I hear QoS doesn't play nice with speeds higher than 200-250 Mbps.(He's a gamer, so the lower the ping and bufferbloat the merrier).
So, what I'm asking is for a router recommendation for such speed (1 Gbps), and I'll find him a good and cheap DOCSIS 3.1, feel free to toss one my way if you know one. (No intel Puma 7 please, since it causes bufferbloats.)
Joined: 21 Jan 2017 Posts: 1619 Location: Illinois Moderator
Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 21:44 Post subject:
It's not that Atheros doesn't work and there are lots of issues, it's more because you're using the same brand chipset and it "in theory" should all play nice out of the box where Atheros has slightly different implementations.
For sure, one bug that broadcom never fixed is that if an atheros router has MU-MIMO turned on the bcm chipset will revert to 1x1:1 stream vs. 2x2:2 stream. This has never been fixed by BCM, so you simply have to turn off MU-MIMO on the atheros.
I only have one apple iOS device active in my house and it's the kid's ipad... no issues on it with my R9000 (big brother to R7800).
I would stick to Atheros as it has much better driver support from a router perspective.
Otherwise, the R7000 seems to be the best bet in the BCM world. The newer BCM routers all seem to flake out with wifi due to driver support.
Hopefully another avid BCM user can chime in for a "better" router.
As far as gig speed, not even the R7800 can handle gig speed with Q.o.S turned on. Even the cheaper and older routers hit gig speed fine with shortcut forward engine turned on- the R7000 should be just fine...just no q.o.s. at that speed for any router. _________________ FORUM RULES
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 4093 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 22:05 Post subject:
R7800 has no problems with various Apple devices...personally tested it, as well me myself, I have Iphones/pads only...no idea what you've read and where...
No idea what buggy Broadcom card, they tried too...
Same for R7000, never had issues with its Wi-FI performance...my R7800 is in student accommodation, where there are various clients, many differnt...come and go everyday...no complains...also i've put many R7800 here and there, best router, so far...very versatile, great price/performance/ddwrt support....
Most favourable, among the forum members... _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 -----DD-WRT 44538 BS AP,NAT
TP-Link WR740Nv4 -----DD-WRT 44251 BS WAP/Switch
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 ---DD-WRT 45229 BS AP,NAT,AP Isolation,Firewall,Local DNS,Forced DNS,DoT,VPN,VLAN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 ---DD-WRT 44849 BS AP,NAT,AD Block,Firewall,Local DNS,Forced DNS,DoT,VPN,VLAN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 ---Gargoyle OS 1.12.0 AP,NAT,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm/IPQ8065
Netgear R7800 -----DD-WRT 44719 BS AP,NAT,AD-Block,AP&Net Isolation,VLAN's,Firewall,Local DNS,DoT
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 -----DD-WRT 45420 BS AP,Wi-Fi OFF,NAT,AD-Block,Firewall,Local DNS,Forced DNS,DoT,VPN
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stubby for DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
It's not that Atheros doesn't work and there are lots of issues, it's more because you're using the same brand chipset and it "in theory" should all play nice out of the box where Atheros has slightly different implementations.
For sure, one bug that broadcom never fixed is that if an atheros router has MU-MIMO turned on the bcm chipset will revert to 1x1:1 stream vs. 2x2:2 stream. This has never been fixed by BCM, so you simply have to turn off MU-MIMO on the atheros.
I only have one apple iOS device active in my house and it's the kid's ipad... no issues on it with my R9000 (big brother to R7800).
I would stick to Atheros as it has much better driver support from a router perspective.
Otherwise, the R7000 seems to be the best bet in the BCM world. The newer BCM routers all seem to flake out with wifi due to driver support.
Hopefully another avid BCM user can chime in for a "better" router.
As far as gig speed, not even the R7800 can handle gig speed with Q.o.S turned on. Even the cheaper and older routers hit gig speed fine with shortcut forward engine turned on- the R7000 should be just fine...just no q.o.s. at that speed for any router.
Thanks for the clarification msoengineer.
I own a R7800 and was quiet worried about how I'd implement it back home in the Middle East since my family mostly uses apple products. Your reply saved me a lot of headache and clarified a lot. Since this is the case I'll explain to my friend the differences and have him choose between the R7000 and R7800.(with his budget in consideration.)
I technically own a 2x R7000 in the ME (Hence, my R7800 here in the US and a R6400 that's collecting dust till I install it back home for greater wifi coverage after the renovation is complete. House's made out of cement and all.)
Alozaros wrote:
R7800 has no problems with various Apple devices...personally tested it, as well me myself, I have Iphones/pads only...no idea what you've read and where...
No idea what buggy Broadcom card, they tried too...
Same for R7000, never had issues with its Wi-FI performance...my R7800 is in student accommodation, where there are various clients, many differnt...come and go everyday...no complains...also i've put many R7800 here and there, best router, so far...very versatile, great price/performance/ddwrt support....
Most favourable, among the forum members...
From memory, I recall few users in the Atheros forum always had some issue with it and were almost always apple users. msoengineer's post pretty much broke it down for me to understand and indirectly solved another issue of mine
I totally agree with you, the R7800 is a beast of a router, and I'm very happy with mine. As stated above, I own 2xR7000 running back home with solid performance.
P.S. I've used your guide on Stubby and your update on the guide helped me figure out why stubby didn't work after the update! Big thanks
I really appreciate both of you taking the time to explain this to me.
One note about performance, I am not sure the R7000 will hit gig speed with SFE, (The R7800 does).
I do not have one to test at the moment but my R6400v2 has the same CPU (1 GHz dual core Arm A9) and hits about 650 Mb/s with SFE.
That was my first assumption based on the CPU. He said it was a gig, but I asked him to confirm it with his father since his father is the one paying for it and do a speed test close to his modem with his phone. Once he confirms it with his father, I'll suggest the R7800 for their speed + DOCSIS 3.1 modem, if it is anything lower than 650 MB/s, I'll suggest him the R7000 + DOCSIS 3.0 modem.
