Joined: 30 Jan 2015 Posts: 676 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2015 19:09 Post subject: Nighthawk X8 R8500 AC5300 router available $400 msrp.
Today, Netgear is announcing the Nighthawk X8 (R8500) based on the second generation XStream platform. Unlike the announcements from other vendors, the R8500 is available for purchase today.
As a recap, the tri-band Wave 2 XStream platform integrates two 4x4 5 GHz radios (at 2.1 Gbps each) and one 4x4 2.4 GHz radio (at 1 Gbps). The setup is capable of using 1024 QAM (Broadcom-proprietary NitroQAM, works only with clients having Broadcom Wi-Fi receiver chipsets) to boost performance. Most of the
Wi-Fi aspects have been covered in our D-Link and Asus router launch articles, and I won't go into detail here. Instead, the focus of this piece will be on the differentiating aspects in the Nighthawk X8.
The most striking aspect of the R8500 when compared to the other XStream Gen 2 routers is the presence of only four external antennae instead of eight. Netgear has opted to go for four external and four internal ones. Physical appearances aside, the four external antennae are all active ones. This is the first time that we are actually seeing active antennae being deployed - the Wi-Fi amplifiers are moved from their usual location in the router's motherboard to the top of the antennae. This reduces cross-talk on the board and also avoids signal loss in the transmission between the antennae and the board.
The other interesting feature is the availability of 6 LAN ports in addition to the WAN port (all GbE, obviously). Two of the 6 LAN ports come with 802.3addynamic link aggregation support in-built into the firmware. For select devices (such as certain ReadyNAS models), connecting both wired ports to ports on the device will automatically configure everything to take advantage of the teamed link. For example, it will be possible for two different wired clients or multiple Wi-Fi clients to stream out simultaneously from the NAS and get more than 1 Gbps of effective throughput from the NAS.
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 14:51 Post subject: Stable so far.
I am also running V1.0.0.42_1.0.23. Very stable for me. Have not restarted since I first set it up almost a week ago. Replaced an R7000 that was flaky with both stock latest firmware and dd-wrt. I had to reboot it every couple of days.
Since R8000 has DD-WRT version already , I wonder if can be ported to the R8500 or do they need to create a new version for this Router.
Thanks in advance
Like for every model we need to add detection, init code, button definitions etc., our current driver base already has support for the new radios in this unit, thus no big deal to add support for it if we receive a unit. The question is if the current driver is in any usable state, first broadcom mu-mimo device.
Look at the last big switch to arm. R7000 etc. it took for ever until the random reboot issue was fixed and factory firmwares had these issues too.
Last edited by <Kong> on Sat Nov 14, 2015 20:47; edited 1 time in total
Since R8000 has DD-WRT version already , I wonder if can be ported to the R8500 or do they need to create a new version for this Router.
Thanks in advance
Like for every model we need to add detection, init code, button definitions etc., our current driver base already has support for the new radios in this unit, thus no big deal to add support for it if we receive a unit. The question is if the current driver is in any usable state, first broadcom mu-mimo device.
Look at the last big switch to arm. R7000 etc. it took for every until the random reboot issue was fixed and factory firmwares had these issues too.
Hi Kong
Thank you for the information , patiently waiting for this device implementation it will be a game changer this Router is very promising
Like for every model we need to add detection, init code, button definitions etc., our current driver base already has support for the new radios in this unit, thus no big deal to add support for it if we receive a unit. The question is if the current driver is in any usable state, first broadcom mu-mimo device.
Look at the last big switch to arm. R7000 etc. it took for ever until the random reboot issue was fixed and factory firmwares had these issues too.
That's awesome news, thank you Kong for your efforts
One of these arrived here for me today, and I'd be happy to test DD-WRT with it.
Since Netgear did not send me anything new I asked Linksys if they can spare a EA8500 and they sent one right away.
As far as I can tell now the EA8500 will keep me busy for some time, it is more work than expected.
As they say first come first serve. Thus don't expect a build for the R8500 in the near future.
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 Posts: 295 Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 0:10 Post subject:
<Kong> wrote:
DaveTheNerd wrote:
One of these arrived here for me today, and I'd be happy to test DD-WRT with it.
Since Netgear did not send me anything new I asked Linksys if they can spare a EA8500 and they sent one right away.
As far as I can tell now the EA8500 will keep me busy for some time, it is more work than expected.
As they say first come first serve. Thus don't expect a build for the R8500 in the near future.
crap...i wasnt gonna buy a R8500 until Kong added support...just means it will be cheaper when that time arrives.. _________________ NETGEAR R9000 | RT | 40134 NETGEAR R7800 | AP | 40134
One of these arrived here for me today, and I'd be happy to test DD-WRT with it.
Since Netgear did not send me anything new I asked Linksys if they can spare a EA8500 and they sent one right away.
As far as I can tell now the EA8500 will keep me busy for some time, it is more work than expected.
As they say first come first serve. Thus don't expect a build for the R8500 in the near future.
Well, rats! If I had known (and been given the choice) I would've had them send you the one they sent me. Ah well. So it goes!
One of these arrived here for me today, and I'd be happy to test DD-WRT with it.
Since Netgear did not send me anything new I asked Linksys if they can spare a EA8500 and they sent one right away.
As far as I can tell now the EA8500 will keep me busy for some time, it is more work than expected.
As they say first come first serve. Thus don't expect a build for the R8500 in the near future.