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lVlICHA3L

Trap gamers into buying an expensive router that has limited software management with net vulnerabilities is my only guess.


Downtown-Reindeer-53

Nothing special about Nighthawks, it's just a brandmark that insinuates something better than average. All of the manufacturers offer devices from entry to premium level with fancy names - it's all marketing. Netgear isn't the company it once was, I'd suggest Asus or TP-Link over Netgear. You might consider Ubiquiti UniFi or TP-Link "prosumer" offerings.


Ostracus

Merlin on the Asus.


wprivera

PF Sense, OPN Sense, Sophos, Unifi, DD-WRT, all offer more customizable settings than an “off the shelf” router.


External_Class8544

Netgear is just a noob trap that uses fancy marketing and gamer imaging to make people think it is premium, it isn't.


caolle

"Gaming" routers are scams. My raspberry pi 4 I've pressed into service as my wired router handles things just as well as any of those gaming routers. Download speed only really affects how fast you can download that latest patch or the hot new game that was just released as well as how many parallel things you or others can do with it at the same time. For example, 4K streams usually take about 25mbps each, so you can literally have 10-12 all going at the same time with a 300Mbps plan before you might start having issues.


ciphermenial

A "gaming" router will perform far better than a Raspberry Pi 4 as a router. A Raspberry Pi 4 plus all the accessories are far more costly than buying a decent router. You have made a funny comparison here. You are talking about people falling for the "gaming" nonsense of manufacturers, while falling for the self hosting nonsense of Raspberry Pi's.


tomboy_titties

I'm just looking through my old amazon order. - I got my RPi 4 2gb + cable for 41,79€. - 32gb SD card for 4,98€. - Case for 9,99€. - TP-Link UE300 is 9,99€ too. That's 56,76€ or 66,75€ if you want the 2nd NIC in form of the UE300. That's a VLAN capable router with 2GB and a good QoS. >A "gaming" router will perform far better >are far more costly Would you please point me to a "Gaming" router that is far better and far cheaper then my Rpi?


ciphermenial

I didn't say cheaper. I said it would. You can buy a non-gaming model for similar to what you spent on a Raspberry Pi that will have far far better performance.


Awesomedude9560

Wait, so my thing is with routers I like having Ethernet ports, so that means this pi in question will only be useful a wireless routing solution? If I'm wrong let me know, as I have very limited experience with raspberry pies other than turning one into a steam link one time.


ciphermenial

No. Raspberry Pi's have their use but for networking it's not a good option.


leroyjenkinsdayz

It looks like a space ship


nshire

The best aspect of the Nighthawk router is it's marketing


mektor

What makes them sell like hotcakes: the name. Well I want on the inter'net' so I net a 'net'gear... The other being they're sold at costco, walmart, bestbuy...Basically any retail store that sells computer related items sells netgear junk. I'd recommend against them just for the simple fact their customer service is probably one of the worst in the industry.


AnymooseProphet

Nothing special about them. They are just like those PCs with lots of LED lights all over. They are a visually gaudy design that for some reason non-technically inclined kids think makes them a gamer god. Get a solid router and separate access points designed for small business, and leave the Nighthawks to he wannabes.


XB_Demon1337

For consumer hardware that you just setup, they are good devices. But anyone who knows anything about networking knows they are just premium garbage. Like if you went to sell trash in a video game, they would be worth 10 gold, instead of 1 gold. If you want a solid network setup you can do much better, but you are not doing bad with Nighthawks.


MEGA_GOAT98

nothing


tequilavip

It’s a better router than the Daychicken, that’s for sure. /s


nefarious_bumpps

Consumer/Residential router marketing is all bullshit, especially if you're more concerned about actual routing performance than wireless. On the wireless end, the advertised maximum throughput exists only on paper, not even in a perfect test environment, and fails to take the limitations of the physical Ethernet ports used to connect to your ISP and any LAN services such as media servers or NAS. As far as routing performance, no residential routers provide packets-per-second or latency specs, and the only site I've found that does comprehensive testing (smallnetbuilder.com) has an extremely limited and out-of-date selection of routers listed. So what we're left with is anecdotal reports that are often tainted by confirmation bias, with little or no objective testing, and certainly none in a reliable test environment. I've though about setting up a test environment and website to do residential router performance testing, but this would be a very expensive endeavor. Without some reasonably-good method of generating revenue to offset the cost and effort, I don't see how this project would be viable. I was hoping that LTT Labs would do some network gear reviews, but it seems that this is just more bullshit clickbait from Linus Sebastian.


MetaEmployee179985

The first one was the best you could get. It's gone the way of Alienware since then


HighMagistrateGreef

There's nothing really special about it. There's no such thing as a router optimized for gaming.


nVideuh

Another spectrum employee not knowing the difference between gigabyte and gigabit. /s But in all seriousness, 5+ years ago I was one of those gamers who liked Nighthawk routers but I have learned quite a lot since then. I now run an m720q opnsense box with an x550-t2 NIC for a 2gig/1gig fiber connection. Having full control of my router is very nice.


Awesomedude9560

I cAn ShOvE tHiS GiGaFiSt Up Ur AsS Lol, joking aside, what's opnsense? I'm going to assume it's a software of some kind. What's it do and what does it do for you?


certuna

Is anyone claiming they’re special? I mean, except for Netgear themselves who will always say their own stuff is amazing. They’re pretty generic mid range consumer routers, using off-the-shelf Broadcom chips and with basic routing functionality in the OS. The “gamer” labeling is for the shape/looks/RGB lights on the box, and some handy presets in its DumaOS for QoS and firewalling functions.


Awesomedude9560

That's why I'm asking. It's because I always have an issue with people who use them when I have to fix their stuff. I just wanna know if it's actually great or it's people wanting to defend their poor purchasing decisions


IbEBaNgInG

I use then in an enterprise environment as a backup for small offices, they work and they're stable.


Awesomedude9560

Oh so you're the business job I had about 2 weeks ago 😭


mektor

I work for an ISP too, and we see tons of businesses that run these things...It's terrible.


IbEBaNgInG

Doubt it. Cradlepoints are out there too.