I'm currently using an Asus RT-AX88U (4x 1.8GHz CPU) with Merlin firmware.
I like to play online games and I keep noticing lag spikes every 20 seconds or so. Some users have suggested it might be due to the broadcom drivers. I'm at a stage where I've tried everything and I'm ready to move on from Merlin.
I'm looking for a decent router with enough CPU to comfortably cope with QoS on FTTC broadband 80mbps down / 20mbps up. The latest WiFi standards would also be good. Are there any options that include a built in modem?
The WRT3200ACM looks interesting, but is quite ugly. My router sits on a table right by the front door.
Can anybody suggest a suitable replacement for my current Asus router?
Devices with mwlwifi, such as the WRT3200ACM, cannot be recommended anymore (driver/ firmware development has ceased, thanks Marvell/ NXP, despite being very buggy and effectively broken) - although they're very fast in a wired-only capacity.
That's certainly fair, but I use my WRT32X and it's incredibly fast and reliable with OpenWrt. Especially the 21.02 release candidates so far. SQM at 500Mbits easily. USB storage at 120MB/s. No wifi issues for me either, although I have a simple config on 5GHz and don't use mesh, etc.
R7800 is dated too now that everything is moving to WiFi 6 (with much faster speeds, airtime fairness,
single login for both radios, etc.) and after what 7 years we are just starting to see somewhat stable NSS builds that finally have decent performance.
A very cost-effective + future proof setup is a wired only router and access points. The most popular thing right now for router is RPi4, the ER-X is also popular and would work for your speeds. Access points can be commercial ones or older/used devices running OpenWrt. Now is a good time to stretch older hardware until the transition to wifi 6 is widespread.
I wonder, did you test that with bilateral traffic? I ask because my mvebu turris omnia tops out at bidirectional ~500/500, while unilaterally it reaches up to 1 Gbps.
No sorry I'm not symetrical. I'm 500/35 Mbit with SQM Cake. Not sure about symetrical limits but some users have reported these routers doing 650Mbits+ download, not sure upload speed related but if it's cable modem it's usually a low limit upload.
Would the 2GB version be suitable? I have an Amazon Basics USB3 gigabit Ethernet adapter - which is apparently 'ASIX AX88179 USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet' and a cheap Netgear managed switch (GS308E).
I guess I'd need a wireless access point, but would that be a decent option?
The RPi4 would be total overkill, but a very decent device (RAM size doesn't matter, >= 1 GB is plenty) - just don't expect to use the onboard wireless for anything reasonable.