Budget gaming router

Assuming you're talking about the R6220, it's based on a 1004Kc (in-order) single core CPU with SMT at 880 MHz. I doubt it will be much faster than the 74Kc (out-of-order) at 775 MHz of the Archer C6 v2, besides being more expensive and not supporting MU-MIMO (802.11ac Wave 2).

Thanks for all the suggestions. So far, the Archer C6 v2 seems like the best option.
The Netgear 6220 is not available here in Brazil :frowning:

The CPU doesn't matter unless you're doing other stuff e.g. vpn encryption on the router instead of pc. Instead you want the best drivers for the router. And the mt76 routers are pretty much it these days. I think?

BTW https://m-br.gearbest.com/wireless-routers/pp_424942.html ?

Actually, SQM is all about the CPU, to the point it's fundamentally incompatible with hardware NAT acceleration and/or flow offloading (for the forseeable future, at least, but I'd love to be proven wrong).
That said, I have an Archer C6 v2 managing four wi-fi networks (private, guest, Tor-transparent-bridged and public, also bridged to Tor), three WireGuard endpoints, connected to a 200/20 Mb/s WAN, with SQM on three interfaces, and it runs just fine, even though the CPU load hits around 95 % at the line rate.

Wireless drivers are another story, yet you're comparing mt76 with ath9k and ath10k, which are extremely good (ath9k is the absolute best, IMHO). mt76 is progressing quickly, but I wouldn't say it's on par yet (@nbd?). And the MT7612 on the R6220 also doesn't do MU-MIMO.

You have a good point, at the author's requested speeds an ath9k device is probably best. With it being the only 100% open source driver and the original target of all the buffer bloat optimization focus it's going to be great for gaming. Also, since it is older without 802.11ac support, which isn't needed at 30/3 speeds, it'll be the most affordable.

The mt76 platforms like the 6220 can do SQM at 30/3. A more powerful CPU would just be idle/future proof. IIRC it goes to about 100. I think somebody recently posted benchmarks?

I have been through three routers in six months, wrt3200acm (couldn't use due to wmm bug), Netgear 6220 (now at my girlfriend's to replace the wrt3200acm), and an archer c7 (for the sake of buying myself something different to replace my 6220). The current ath10k device feels less reliable in terms of ping. The common case it is great. However I have had ping random spikes I never noticed with the mt76. I've definitely died in games, looked up to my on screen ping and noticed my ping is huge with the c7. Ultimately a gamer needs 100% consistency.

Benchmarks at Comparative Throughput Testing Including NAT, SQM, WireGuard, and OpenVPN

I think the whole ath9k vs. ath10k, open-source-based, debate is about "religion", not about performance or reliability.

At 33 Mbps, aggregate, any MIPS-based device with a clock speed over ~500 MHz, from a reputable manufacturer, should be sufficient for routing, NAT, and SQM. (As would any current, ARM-based all-in-one.)

For gaming, as noted, lag spikes can be deadly. A multi-core device can help mitigate this, if budget and availability permit.

WRT32X has gigabit lan and handles over 500Mbits with SQM no problem and get straight A+ on dslreports.com/speedtest testing including bufferbloat. I also get 60-80MB/s with USB 3.0 storage so I have a network drive on it for Kodi etc. Normally I wouldn't suggest it because it's pricey but I'm using the renewed one on Amazon that is only $100 USD.

I don't think 100 USD is 'budget', not even in a richer region like the US or Europe, let alone in Brasil.

I would not recommend any Marvell stuff either for now, nobody knows what's going to happen with the wireless (driver development looks stalled) Marvell is selling off to NXP - support-wise, that is.

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How’s the WiFi on this router? I’ve read that Linksys wrt routers WiFi drivers isn’t getting support or something along those lines, not too sure.

if you can buy from ebay here in the states, you can get the r6220 from netgear used for about 20 dollars US . that is THE one to get for less than 75-100 meg with sqm in my opinion. there are a lot of them on there too, always

Are they actually forcing you? Lots of ISP's use sneaky tricks to make people BELIEVE that they are being forced to use the backdoor'd junk, but with a little bit of investigation, it often turns out that you can scrap the spy box and use your own openwrt in its place.

Bell Canada, for example, requires that everything be tagged with VLAN 35. Once you set that up, then its either straight up DHCP, or PPPoE (depending on which of their services you use) and off to the races.

Apparently it depends on who you speak to. The answer I had always received was to just plug it into their router.
I contacted them today and they said they would give me the username and password to connect using mine.

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The routers I've seen in Brazil (mostly crappy Intelbras stuff) allow you make a configuration backup. It's in plain text, which makes it easy to find the PPPoE credentials therein.

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It's true Marvell stopped supporting the 'mwlwifi' open source drivers so wifi will no longer gets updates. That said they work fine for me, there are some problems with wifi IoT devices and they don't support Mesh or MU-MIMO, otherwise fast and stable. I would avoid Marvell in the distant future when I replace this with a WiFi 6 or 7 device, there is really nothing that competes with this right now.

The rest of the router is top tier performance in OpenWrt. Get 500Mbit/s SQM and 80MB/s USB 3.0 Storage with my 3TB external network drive, faster than most NAS. Get straight A+ test results including bufferbloat on dslreports.com/speedtest which is critical for me since I game too. Happy with my WRT32X overall.

On a Zbtlink ZBT-WE1226, I get these results on a 50/10Mbps DSL line:
SQM: 0/10000/pppoe, layercake, 8byte overhead
50.3/9.77 Mbps, A+/A+/A+/A Overall/Bufferbloat/Quality/Speed


27/34/28 msec idle/ld/ul avg
27/52/30 msec idle/ld/ul max
Streams 8/6 d/u
Browser CPU fast (47269)

There are only 2 LAN ports, but the price is around $20US.

Is this the v2 one?
https://www.amazon.com.br/Roteador-Gigabit-Archer-C6-Roteadores/dp/B07GVR9TG7/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_pt_BR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=roteador+archer+c6&qid=1582728641&sr=8-1

I'm not sure if there even is a V1. Every discussion of an Archer C6 is the V2.

Something with an MT7621 chip like the ZBT WE-1326 would be my choice though. The use case of 100 Mbps ISP and gaming is likely too much for a single core.

Sadly it is not available here in Brazil.

The RPi4 is available worldwide no? It's by far the best overall router at the moment in terms of speed, space, wide availability, network performance, and cost. But doesn't really do access point. So if you have a wifi enabled device already, dedicate it to an access point and get the RPi 4.

It costs around 100$ here. 25$ more expensive than the Acher C6