what are you expecting to get out of your 1 Gbit/s fibre conn?
which services are going to be connected via LAN?
how do you expect to use your WiFi bandwith - connected clients, use cases, throughput?
what does your WiFI environment look like?
why do you consider OpenWRT; what are your configuration / setup requirements?
In general, I wouldn't use any single core CPU device for routing and WiFi at the same time, even with much lower WAN speeds, so the key question for me seems to be why you have a 1 Gbit/s uplink and how you expect to utilise it.
I don't need a connection this fast; I'm simply going to have one because there are relatively few options available, and all the slower connections are through an ISP that charges ludicrous prices (some of their slower copper lines cost more than the fiber, and even the ones that cost less are dramatically worse value). I would probably not notice the difference between 400 and 1000 mb, but I figured that, if I had the line, I might as well make sure the router on my end could make use of some of that extra capacity.
"* what are you expecting to get out of your 1 Gbit/s fibre conn?"
I'm hoping for a stable and fast internet connection for client devices, a couple of desktops, and some internal servers that are not under heavy load as they are only accessed by myself and a small dev team.
"* which services are going to be connected via LAN?"
The only one with much speed is a smallish server, which has a fast NIC in it but really doesn't use much bandwidth. My desktop will be connected via ethernet as well.
"* how do you expect to use your WiFi bandwith - connected clients, use cases, throughput?"
Laptops and phones, mainly. Not things that need much bandwidth, although I'm sure there will be streaming sometimes.
"* what does your WiFI environment look like?"
A relatively small area, with the AP almost exactly in the middle. Range is not at much issue, which is why I wanted to run a 5GHZ network for the increased speed and lower risk of collisions.
"* why do you consider OpenWRT; what are your configuration / setup requirements?"
I mostly want OpenWRT because of its security benefits over random untested router firmware. It doesn't hurt that I've used it for many other (non-gigabit) networks and am familiar with all the configuration tools and setups I've used in the past. Also, it means that it's harder for my hardware to suddenly become obsolete because I can repurpose as required.
I know that gigabit is overkill for the network usage I've described. As I've said before, I don't think I'd notice if I was getting much less than gigabit speeds. I would probably still be fine with a relatively cheap device for that reason, although I'd not mind one that has more capacity for the future.
This leads me to another question. If a router of this level lacks the processing to exceed about 400 mbps, why do they bother having an 802.11AC WiFi capacity? That doesn't even reach the top speed for 802.11N. It's not as if the most expensive one on the table of hardware is that much better (yes, it has two cores and they're clocked much higher than the low-end ones, but even if this was a linear benefit, it wouldn't reach full speeds).
Marketing and overcrowding of the 2.4 GHz band. You also can't push much more than 50 mbps through 802.11n on 2.4 GHz in real-world conditions.
I've had Archer C7v2 units for years and they work well. I'm upgrading to get newer-generation chipsets for the wireless and dual, 5 GHz radios for meshed backhaul (as we can't run cable). I find that the EA8300 (ported to OpenWrt and awaiting merge into master) has better low- and mid-signal performance, even though the EA8300 is 2T2R and the Archer C7v2 is 3T3R.
If you purchase a moderate-priced unit today, you can always repurpose it as an AP for an x86_64-based router in the future. I run three all-in-ones as meshed, "dumb APs" with all my routing and services on x86_64 / AMD64 on appropriate OSes selected for each task and/or hardware.
If you want an all-in-one that has a chance of dealing with a gigabit line, others suggest that the mvebu platform is the only reasonable option. I don't own any mvebu-based devices, so I can comment from personal experience.
But regardless, 450 Mbit/s throughput is enough for a perfect 5 GHz 867 Mbit/s 802.11ac connection, which is the maximum that can be achieved with two spatial streams and an 80 MHz channel.
How many WiFi clients do you plan to serve in that "small area"?
I'm planning to have about 10-15 WiFi clients at one time, but most will not be actively in use (E.G. users' phones in standby). I'm afraid my hardware knowledge is not as much as yours, so I don't quite understand how 450 mbit/s throughput can be enough for 867 mbit/s performance, but as 450 mbit/s would serve the use case admirably, it doesn't matter so much.
Some more key questions then will be, what kind of 802.11ac clients will that be (one, two, three antennas), what do users of the WiFi clients expect when they hit that button which is supposed to start traffic, can you use a 5 GHz 80 Mhz channei without interference, do you expect to download / upload large files... and getting back to "small", how large is the area you want to cover with your single WiFi access point...
The devices are mostly laptops (2 antennas) with a few phones (the phones need to connect but they aren't going to do very much on the network so their speed isn't such a big deal). There is a network disk, so there will probably some exchange of large files (on the order of 1 GB or so, but not much larger than that). The 5GHZ bands are not that heavily trafficked, but 2.4GHZ is which is one reason I wanted to do mostly or entirely a 5GHZ network. The area is small enough that the single access point in the middle operating a 5GHZ signal covers it, this from a test with an older and slower 5GHZ device.
Used Archer C7 v2 are really cheap on Ebay. I use them as AP's. They perform very well when used on separate 5GHz channels (I use 40MHz wide channels). I tried 80MHz as well, but there are just not enough space with four AP's to separate them so 40MHz is nice compromise that still gives you honest 30MB/sek iperf3 speed.
If used as a router, you might look into Fast Path (as ordinary CPU-based NAT tops out around 250Mbit).
While that might regionally differ significantly, they're selling -in used condition- for around 40-45 EUR over here, which I wouldn't consider to be cheap for a used device of unknown provenience and usually 2-5 years on the clock.
wrt1900ac wrt3200acm or wrt3200acx For a AP use a C7 OpenWrt works with the v2 v3 v4 and v5. I have a wrt3200acm as my router doing all my adblocking and dns/dhcp + SQM stuff. Then I have a C7v2 as my AP using the 2.4 and 5 ghz radio. The radios on the c7-v2 are slower than the wrt3200acm but more stable imo. The more wi-fi devices you connect the more unstable the radio for the 5ghz on the wrt3200acm gets.
I bought them in bulk and got them for 35-ish EUR. 35-40 EUR for 802.11ac stable 5 x GbE router/switch/AP combo is a bargain IMHO. Mine work perfectly on 5GHz and are only rebooted when I need to update. Zero issues. Also, it is 80MHz-channel capable which is basically what a modern iPhone tops out at.
So it is still a proven,capable and stable platform for small money. MIMO is nice, but as long as your mobile device do not support it, it is pointless. Also, when you have large area many AP's trump one AP with MIMO.
Do not get me wrong, they're solid devices - but I do think that they're overpriced for what they can offer (at least since 2017) for ~70 EUR new (you can get brand new ipq40xx devices for that money) or ~40-45 EUR used; even 35 EUR feels like a stretch.
True, but IPQ4018 still tops out at 887Mbit, just as QCA9880 does (if you use 80MHz channels). It only brings MIMO 2x2 to the table but not even iPhone X supports 2x2 (only new iPad does).
IMHO, when it comes to WiFi I would rather have two C7's than one IPQ4018 device every day of the week. (but I do have dedicated x86 for routing. If you need OpenVPN then C7 CPU is not the fastests).
Two 802.11ac APs in different locations using different non overlapping 80 MHz channels and providing dual streams should offer better coverage and better real world wifi speed than just one AP.
Cause 867 is link rate the actual throughput is much less.
The point is that most client devices are 2x2 at most, individually they won't benefit from new ac AP. However if you have many clients and if they support MIMO then it's a different story.
What about ax? I don't know...but it's too early to buy ax AP at the moment my opinions
Just found this page, quite informative and insightful
Glad you're all worried about the difference between 600 and 800 mbps over wireless, especially with something like the Archer C7 which can't push more than about 400-500 mbps through its Ethernet interface without NAT, SQM, or much of anything else. I find the important questions are can a client connect at all and, if so, does it get decent throughput?
Real-world testing with my Archer C7v2 units and my IPQ4019-based EA8300 shows better wireless performance at low and moderate signal levels with the EA8300. I really don't care what they can do a couple of meters apart. Might as well plug in if that last couple hundred Mbps makes that much difference to you, or if latency matters in your application.
Also there is no OpenWrt support for 11ac MU MIMO at this time, for any OpenWrt SoC target as far as I know. So it is irrelevant for now if the hardware is MU MIMO capable. And even with proprietary firmware the results are not promising, see the link above.
I was looking for a cheaper alternative to the C7 as well and came across the C6. It's like $40 new where I live, has 2x2 5GHz and 3x3 2.4GHz radios, .11ac, a gigabit switch and MU-MIMO support. The only real compromise is the lack of USB ports which given just 8MB of flash could be a problem depending on what you plan on doing.
It really depends on your expectations but for me, it just doesn't feel right to have an Archer C7 as a router. I would more invest at least twice the money and probably invest in a good WFi-less router which you can enjoy for a long time and which takes care of your LAN and WAN with a reasonable performance and reliability, and have an access point.
Is the C7 v5 an access point, well yes it could be, although its net WiFi coverage is average and its throughput is limited as compared to devices having a more powerful CPU.
My speed tests with my C7 V5 @OpenWRT 18.06.2 are a bit disappointing (not even reaching 350 Mbit/s) but I still have to validate that I'm not making a mistake here.