Hi,
I'm looking for some router suggestions.
90$ and lower, as close to gigabit as possible and about 4 lan ports.
Obviously with openwrt support and in stock.
Any suggestions are welcome, thanks in advance.
Did you checked the two pinned threads in this Category? I guess they give plenty ideas?
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/whats-your-favourite-cheap-lede-openwrt-device/
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/whats-your-favorite-enthusiast-lede-openwrt-device/
In which regards? For NAT throughput close to 1 Gbit?
Even for that there is already a thread
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Yeah it's pricier than i thought but also not many replies there.
Thanks, i already did, the cheap one is too cheap and the other one is good but it's all over the place so i just wanted some short suggestions to research further.
Most of the recommendations are from 2017-2018.
Can't even get the Netgear R7800 today only the R7000
I can get a good deal on the TP-Link Archer A7 which should be the same hw as C7 but that will only give me around 500 not 1000.
Or i can spend more money for
The R7000 or ZyXEL Armor Z2, the armor has some bad reviews while the 7000 vs 7800 basically screams 7800 which isn't available anymore so for that price range i'm not sure if the 7000 is still good for that 1 gigabit
Well 500 MBit NAT would be quite ideal numbers. If you use wifi and other services on it you may not even reach that.
Well, that sucks but thanks for the help so far.
Nanopi R2S plus the AP you want. You may take the archer A7 and use it as AP+switch. If you don't use it as NAT it will get gigabit speeds over wired ports + 300-400 over wifi
Actually i have a friend with the A7 and he only gets 460 over wired ports while his ISP package is 500 so it is still capped, CPU i think since it's single core. but the router is advertised as 1300.
The Nanopi R2S only has 1 lan port i need at least 4, so that will require a switch too or a different router like you already mentioned, but i'm not sure what is the max speed on the nanopi, i mean the actual one.
If i understood correctly you said with the nanopi as nat it gets a gigabit + if i use a router as an AP and a Switch i will get 300-500 on wireless while supporting 5gz and 2.4 and 4 gigabits lan ports?
BTW any reason to get cat6 vs cat5e?
Yes, that's what I say. Nanopi can do gigabit speeds without any problem, but it has just one port for lan and no wifi. That why you want the archer, it will give you 4 gigabit ports that should work at gigabit speeds as it will be just a switch.
You can buy nanopi+metal case+sdcard for something like 30€, and for example archer C6 is at 37€ in my country. Cheap components but very powerfull together.
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Thanks, in that case this is indeed a great option.
Nanopi rs2 1gb + Archer A7 as AP
Those prices are similar to the ones i get online for them.
I read some posts about the nanopi overheating fast, is the metal case really enough to solve those issues ? do you know if it comes with extra cooling in the case or is it just a bare bones case?
Metal case is just enough. It is a passive heat sink, so it gets hot but nothing to worry. With it i have no problems with temps, you can stress it without worrying about throttling
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That's its wireless rating. And those are link speeds - not (ever) actual transfer rates.
Great! Thank you, really appreciate the given suggestion about the nanopi 
Good point, any idea how can i find out the actual rates apart from people's comments?
Half if you're lucky. Wireless is half duplex and there's still some protocol overhead to account for as well (just like with Ethernet).
E.g. a transfer here with an 802.11ac 2x2 radio will net me 47 MBps more or less (peak speed), which translates to 375 Mbps, which is almost close to half of 866 Mbps, the theoretical maximum on a two-stream AC radio.
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I was actually asking about wired performance, routers usually advertise the wireless speed i.e. 2.4 + 5.0 max rates = XXXX, how do i know the real numbers for wired?
With OEM firmware they're usually full gigabit for NAT, for gigabit devices. This is an excellent thread about wired speeds on OpenWrt:
The Archer A7 i mentioned earlier doesn't get a full gigabit as an example, that's why i asked in the first place
But that thread you added is really really good, the A7's SOC is there and the test results are accurate, too bad the thread stopped getting updates but generally it's good.
@EnfermeraSexy
Since you have a nanopi, do you mind running the test mentioned by @Borromini
This is the git for it
It's doesn't have that SOC in the thread so i'm just curious here.
You mean on OEM firmware you don't get full gigabit on wired LAN to WAN NAT?
Correct, Capped at 460
Sorry but i don't know how to run that test or the necessary dependencies it needs. Nanopi R2S route gigabit speeds without problems and i get like 100 Mb over openvpn running on it.
Take a look at this topic NanoPI R2S is a great OpenWrt device - #74 by _FailSafe
The only dependency is flent but it's ok, i will try my luck in that thread (really good info there)
Thanks again