MaximumPC 2006 10

S

tandards: Can’t live with ‘em; can’t

live without ‘em. That seems to be

the wireless networking industry’s

collective opinion of IEEE 802.11n, the in-

flux proposed standard that promises to

deliver wireless speeds of 300Mb/s.

It’s a dilemma for us all. As tech enthusi-

asts, we crave speed and power; but as con-

sumers, we demand reasonable prices and

compatibility across brands. Can standards

deliver high price-to-performance ratios,

or does conformity stifle innovation? We’re

retaining our faith in the former, for now; but

the IEEE better get its act together and agree

on a genuine 802.11n standard soon.

—Michael Brown

linKSYS wireleSS-n

wrT300n Ver. 1

If you insist that your high-tech gear look the

part, you’ll dig the paddle-shaped antenna on

Linksys’ WRT300N Ver. 1. In terms of perfor-

mance, though, we found it to be more effec-

tive at swatting

flies than deliver-

ing the promised

300Mb/s net-

working.

You’ll notice

that we took the

trouble to men-

tion we reviewed

Version 1.0 of

the WRT300N.

That’s because

the router we

reviewed is based

on Broadcom’s

Intensi-Fi chipset;

Version 2.0 (which

is not marketed in

the U.S.) is based

on Atheros’ XSPAN.

It’s worth noting that the

Buffalo NFiniti Draft-N wireless

router that so disappointed us

last month also uses Intensi-

Fi; but because we changed

our benchmarking tool and

methodology in the interim,

you shouldn’t compare the two

products’ benchmarks directly.

(We’ll post a four-way compari-

son at MaximumPC.com).

Having said that, Linksys’

Wireless-N gets shredded in

a head-to-head contest with

Netgear’s WNR854T (reviewed

below)—especially at distance.

At close range (within five feet),

Netgear’s router was 21 percent

faster. That advantage grew to nearly 50

percent at moderate range (25 feet away,

with four gypsum walls in between), and it

exploded to 371 percent when we moved

to our outdoor patio (75 feet from the

access point). Bottom line: an underwhelm-

ing effort from Linksys.

neTGear ranGe-

MaX neXT wnr854T

Netgear’s WNR854T commands a $10 pre-

mium over Linksys’ WRT300N, a cost that’s

easily justified by the former products’ fea-

tures and performance.

Let’s tackle performance

first. Netgear’s router looks so

sharp that we were skeptical its

concealed antennae could deliv-

er throughput and range. And

while it’s light-years away from

delivering its promised 300Mb/s

throughput, it approached

wired Ethernet speed with TCP throughput

of 91.2Mb/s at close range, and 78.5Mb/s

at moderate range. Throughput dropped to

16.0Mb/s during our long-range test, but

that’s supersonic compared with the Linksys’

measly 3.4Mb/s at the same distance.

You’ll see slower throughput if you inte-

grate either of these new routers into an

environment with wireless gear that supports

only WEP encryption. But where the Marvell

TopDog chip in Netgear’s router delivers

acceptable performance (70.9Mb/s at moder-

ate range), the Broadcom part in the Linksys

chokes, wringing out just 2.9Mb/s of through-

put at the same range.

Turning back to features, the WNR854T is

the first draft-N product we’ve seen to incor-

porate a four-port gigabit Ethernet switch into

the box; everyone else seems to be sticking

with an old-fashioned 100Mb/s switch. And

if your PC doesn’t have a gigabit network

adapter now, you can bet your next one will.

reviews Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized

8 MAXIMUMPC october 2006

The Quick-Wireless

Quandary

Draft-N: Good investment or nonstandard nonsense?

Best scores are bolded. Encrypted TCP throughput (WPA2 PSK AES) measured using Iperf 2.02.

linKSYS neTGear

wrT300n wnr854T

TCP THROUGHPUT IN ENVIRONMENT 1 (Mb/s) 75.3  91.2

TCP THROUGHPUT IN ENVIRONMENT 2 (Mb/s) 52.8  78.5

TCP THROUGHPUT IN ENVIRONMENT 3 (Mb/s) 3.4   16.0

benchMarKS

$140, http://www.linksys.com

netgear WNR854T

pi Tcher planT

High throughput; gigabit

switch; good looks.

in SecTicide^8

Questionable interoperability,

due to absence of an IEEE

802.11n standard.

$130, http://www.linksys.com

linksys WRT300N V. 1

VenuS flYTrap

Off-the-geek-scale

formfactor.

fl Y paper 5

Unimpressive throughput,

especially at range.

faced with these two wireless routers, we’d pay

the $10 premium for the netgear wnr854T’s faster

throughput and gigabit switch any day of the week.

linksys’ wireless-n

wrT300n looks like a

prop for a sci-fi movie,

but its performance

makes it more appro-

priate for slap-stick

comedy.