Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Review & Buying Guide 2021

If you thought 3 or 4 antennas would help boost 802.11ac wireless networking performance, Netgear’s Nighthawk X6 AC3200 router has six and makes the almost all of them with excellent range. At $300, that is just about the most expensive routers out there, but worth it if you wish wireless data everywhere.

Design

Also called the R8000, Netgear’s all-black router’s design is sharply angular with a geometrically patterned grille that means it is appear to be a spaceship. At 11.5 x 8.8 x 2.2 inches, the R8000 is among the biggest Wi-Fi routers around, and unlike a lot of its peers, it requires to be create horizontally or screwed right into a wall.

Down the center of the router’s top there are no less than 13 LEDs that show which bands and ports are active, and be it turned on and comes with an Internet connection. It could appear to be a Christmas tree, but there’s a switch in the trunk to turn all of the lights off. You may also restart the R8000 with a convenient on/off switch.

In a position to handle three independent lanes of Wi-Fi data traffic, the R8000 includes a single 2.4-GHz channel in addition to a couple of 5-GHz channels, among that can be reserved for high-speed traffic. The router’s six rectangular antennas use beam-forming ways to sculpt the signal to match the getting antenna.

Instead of stubby cylindrical antennas, the R8000’s fold out, extend up to 3.3-inches and will be adjusted up to 140-degree angle. Unfortunately, unlike the Linksys WRT 1900AC, the R8000’s antennas can not be replaced.

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Setup

Using Netgear’s Genie software, the R8000’s setup wizard takes about five minutes to configure the router. After plugging it into your broadband modem and turning the R8000 on, open a browser window set to “routerlogin.net” and the router detects the sort of connection you have and creates just about everything for you personally.

Rather than an insecure generic network name and passcode, each R8000 includes a unique network name and code programmed involved with it. That way, the router can be utilised immediately, although you should change these things to be on the safe side.

Features

If you feel up to it, the R8000 could be manually configured. The router can be create as an access point, and the firmware permits you to enter from IP V.6 details to Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size. Discuss customizable. Each one of the router’s three operational bands can have its network name, security setting and top speed.

The R8000 linked on the first try with a number of devices, from desktops and tablets to phones, printers and an Internet radio. You can either enter the passcode manually or utilize the router’s Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) protocol.

As well as the expected quartet of gigabit Ethernet ports for wired connections, the R8000 has USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports that may utilize a printer and an external hard disk drive. I favor the faster e-SATA connection that’s on the Linksys WRT 1900AC. However, I really do like this the drives linked to the Netgear router support Apple’s Time Machine for networkwide backups. The router may also create a personal URL for gaining remote usage of the drive’s contents.

The R8000 has up-to-date security that may protect the network. Not only is it in a position to block specific clients and sites, the R8000 uses the most recent security protocols, right up to WPA2/Enterprise encryption. It supports by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and also including both Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) and Network Address Translation (NAT) firewalls. As the router includes a Guest network that may allow Web browsing while blocking usage of network drives, it generally does not use industrial-strength LDAP client authentication for an extra level of security.

Genie Software

In addition to obtaining the router ready to go, Netgear’s Genie software can demonstrate what’s up and adapt the network’s settings; there’s desktop and mobile versions for Android and iOS devices, too. The programs show a good dashboard that includes the quantity of linked devices, info on the network and the firmware version used.

Along with parental controls, you will see a list or map of linked clients. Genie includes a Traffic Meter, which ultimately shows upload and download speeds along with local activity. You may also see which Wi-Fi channels are being used together with differentiate between yours as well as your neighbors. Genie can send you a contact whenever a new client logs on.

Performance

In the R8000 is a 1-GHz processor along with 256MB of RAM and 128MB of flash space for storage for firmware, passwords and settings. The router never got a lot more than warm to touch and doesn’t need the annoying cooling fan on the WRT 1900AC.

The wonder of a tri-band router is you could manually apportion bandwidth among its channels, keeping older devices from slowing newer ones. The R8000’s Smart Connect feature can do it automatically, but you will have to give both 5GHz channels the same network name.

The R8000 includes a theoretical maximum throughput of 3.2 Gbps. In real-world testing using ixia’s ixChariot software, the R8000’s two 5-GHz and one 2.4GHz channels added up to peak total throughput of 702.4 Mbps 5 feet from the router. That’s good, but 5 percent slower compared to the combined output of the Linksys WRT 1900AC tri-band router (732.3 Mbps).

Far away of five feet on 802.11ac, the R8000 could deliver 302.3Mbps of bandwidth, well off the Asus RT-AC68U’s 361.3Mbps plus the 323 Mbps of the Linksys WRT1900AC.

At 140 feet, the R8000’s throughput of 177.3 Mbps on 802.11ac was again slower compared to the ASUS (291.7 Mbps) and the Linksys (261.8 Mbps).

In 802.11n mode, the R8000 could move 182.1Mbps at 5 feet, faster compared to the D-Link DG-5500 (179.9 Mbps), but slower compared to the class-leading Asus RT-N66U (216.5 Mb