Hey everybody, I have a 1000/50 Mbit connection via cable and was looking for a powerful OpenWrt Gbit router.. and I do cloud gaming a lot so things like Bufferbloat and packet loss are very important in my use case. so is there any reviews out there or personal experiences with the Belkin RT3200? how is the throughput wired and via 5Ghz (AC or AX)?
2 Likes
Hi you can see test for bufferbloat in forum for rt3200
AussieBB? Why not install a RPi4 and dump AP(s)? How important is throughput in your case vs latency?
the question comes around which AP to use, currently my cable company stock router delivered 600/60 Mbit throughput but with a bit higher latency and a bit of packet losses. if I can get something delivers the same throughput or a bit less with good latency and no packet loss I'll do that
Just run from a MacBook Pro connected to my AP approx. 4m. away, I think:
@grim$ ➜ ~ iperf3 -c openwrt.lan
Connecting to host openwrt.lan, port 5201
[ 7] local 192.168.1.189 port 55690 connected to 192.168.1.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-1.00 sec 75.8 MBytes 636 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 1.00-2.00 sec 75.5 MBytes 634 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 2.00-3.00 sec 76.9 MBytes 645 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 3.00-4.00 sec 76.8 MBytes 645 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 4.00-5.00 sec 73.1 MBytes 613 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 5.00-6.00 sec 75.9 MBytes 636 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 6.00-7.00 sec 83.1 MBytes 697 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 7.00-8.00 sec 78.2 MBytes 656 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 8.00-9.00 sec 80.6 MBytes 676 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 9.00-10.00 sec 80.3 MBytes 673 Mbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-10.00 sec 776 MBytes 651 Mbits/sec sender
[ 7] 0.00-10.01 sec 773 MBytes 648 Mbits/sec receiver
iperf Done.
1 Like
It can route at wire speed (940 Mb usable on a GbE port) on wire. I have seen over 700 Mb from the fiber ISP to a 2x2 ax client.
Note that running iperf3 within the router uses quite a bit of CPU just by iperf3, so it is likely to report low.
On cable it's important to run SQM on the uplink since it's a lot easier to saturate the 50 Mb, also that speed is likely to drop when the cable plant is busy with your neighbors uplinking.
Colour me impressed. I know it's only 40% of the theoretic speed of 1,681 Mbps for that type of link but it's really good compared to 2x2 ac clients.
@amteza one last thing you could really help me with, how is the buffer bloat? maybe while running iperf3 try to see if there is any packet loss while the router(AP) is under stress? or maybe a speedtest on http://www.dslreports.com/ to see the bufferbloat rating?
Hi, there,
Something like this? First one, baseline it:
@grim$ ➜ ~ iperf3 -b 0 -c openwrt.lan
Connecting to host openwrt.lan, port 5201
[ 7] local 192.168.1.189 port 58673 connected to 192.168.1.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-1.00 sec 89.1 MBytes 747 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 1.00-2.00 sec 87.5 MBytes 734 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 2.00-3.00 sec 89.1 MBytes 747 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 3.00-4.00 sec 88.2 MBytes 740 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 4.00-5.00 sec 88.8 MBytes 745 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 5.00-6.00 sec 88.3 MBytes 740 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 6.00-7.00 sec 90.7 MBytes 761 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 7.00-8.00 sec 90.2 MBytes 757 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 8.00-9.00 sec 90.3 MBytes 758 Mbits/sec
[ 7] 9.00-10.00 sec 90.3 MBytes 757 Mbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 7] 0.00-10.00 sec 892 MBytes 749 Mbits/sec sender
[ 7] 0.00-10.01 sec 890 MBytes 746 Mbits/sec receiver
iperf Done.
Second one pushing it using UDP to get packet loss numbers:
@grim$ ➜ ~ iperf3 -u -b 750M -c openwrt.lan
Connecting to host openwrt.lan, port 5201
[ 7] local 192.168.1.189 port 57980 connected to 192.168.1.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Total Datagrams
[ 7] 0.00-1.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64727
[ 7] 1.00-2.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64757
[ 7] 2.00-3.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64742
[ 7] 3.00-4.00 sec 89.3 MBytes 749 Mbits/sec 64697
[ 7] 4.00-5.00 sec 89.5 MBytes 751 Mbits/sec 64791
[ 7] 5.00-6.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64717
[ 7] 6.00-7.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64775
[ 7] 7.00-8.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64722
[ 7] 8.00-9.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64740
[ 7] 9.00-10.00 sec 89.4 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 64744
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Jitter Lost/Total Datagrams
[ 7] 0.00-10.00 sec 894 MBytes 750 Mbits/sec 0.000 ms 0/647412 (0%) sender
[ 7] 0.00-10.01 sec 891 MBytes 747 Mbits/sec 0.010 ms 2129/647398 (0.33%) receiver
iperf Done.
And, finally the dslreport: http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/70177684
Not aware of any OpenWrt routers will hit 1Gbit using QoS/shaping like SQM to remove bufferbloat. My WRT32X hits around 500Mbits or so with SQM cake enabled, gets A+ bufferbloat rating on dslreports.com/speedtest, even though it's older it's still one of the faster devices. The router market seems stagnant right now for this reason. For a wireless access point just get a WiFi 6 one like the Ubiquiti US6-Lite-US which is $99 and it'll do gigabit easy with all the new low ping tech like OFDMA, MU-MIMU, TWT, Mesh, etc.
If you must do 1Gbit routing and eliminate bufferbloat with SQM, you might want to look at an x86 based box and install pfSense or OpenWrt. Something like the pfSense Netgate 6100 does it since it runs an Intel Atom CPU.
RPi4 is the way to go, mine routes 940 Mbps without problems with SQM enabled. Cheap and easy. What is in my graph and iperf3 test is a Unifi NanoHD (running OpenWrt) connected to a MBP (3x3 1,300 Mbps link). So not too bad for a WiFi 5 Wave 2 device, IMHO.
Didn't realize the Rpi4 was that fast for routing with SQM. That's maybe the best option for the price then, but of course you need a seperate gigabit switch, gigabit USB ethernet adapter, and wireless access point. Already have a great WAP so if I ever replace my WRT32X I'll give that a hard look.
There is a thread post confirming that the RT3200 can handle 1Gbit SQM with normal sized MTU, so long as irqbalance is enabled.
I use this router (well actually I have three for mesh/wds). Rock solid. Good WiFi. Extremely happy with it as are many on this forum.
See e.g.:
1 Like
RT3200 (at least wireless) is in early stages so you might want to take that into account if you're concerned about stability. You might also want to consider RK3399 based alternatives because of PCIe support instead of USB for NIC(s).
hello. Would you happen to know if extra configuration was applied to reach 1Gbit with SQM enabled? I have the same router (RT3200) running the latest snapshot and enabled irqbalance and even packet steering but with cake I only get around ~350mbps download. The only way to even get close to 900mbps is to use fq_codel.
hello jimmy no I have the same result as you more or less I have activated irq balance and packet steering too, with fq codel it reaches but SQM I manage to reach max 550 /550 up and down, I no longer use luci sqm but now qosify 
i can give you the config i have if you want,
i has test with fiber of my oncle actually i has vdsl2
1 Like
Hi @Dopam-IT_1987 ! Ah, I see. Maybe qosify is the game changer. Do you experience better results with that instead? And yes, please share that configuration! I appreciate it 
I am trying to move away from docsis to Verizon 5g home internet because of lower price plus gigabit download speeds (although uploads are still around 50 mbps), so I need something good to tame the beast that is bufferbloat.
1 Like
Hi keep docsis and test QoSify you will the best result inthink with 
haha if you want, I can compare between the two services and report back if you guys are interested. Of course, all done with the RT3200. Thanks again for all the help!!!
2 Likes