Performant 1Gb Ethernet Only Router for cheap?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
21

You mean the RPI4 onboard WiFi? It's really a.....bad one, I had given up that even I have 3 x RPi4 at home, my super old Buffalo WCR-1166DS is doing even better (though it has only a 100M uplink).

I have VPN subscription that needs OpenVPN if I want to ditch their client (Wireguard might be possible but their config changes all the time), so to avoid the hassle I have to leave myself an option for OpenVPN connectivity.

Now there is GL-INET MT-3000 (Beryl AX) if you also want to have WiFi, it's actually a very good one, I own the previous generation MT-1300 (Beryl) as travel router, I can even game with it without issue, the AX one is a much beefy version.

22

Electricity bill is always an issue, I have a free Lenovo X201 laptop (with i5-M540 with 4GB ram) can be modified into an OpenWrt, I don't even want to look at it.

And for $28 I got the Netgear WAX206 which I think it's kind of unbeatable at this price point (tested with 160MHz 2x2 AX, it can give me 1.3-1.5Gbps WiFi to WAN speed)

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23

Routers based on MediaTek MT7986A

ASUS TUF-AX6000 give 1700 Mbps with SQM: Asus TUF Gaming AX6000 support - #284 by whitedd

  • ASUS TUF-AX6000: price $200
  • ASUS TUF-AX4200: price $130
  • Xiaomi Redmi AX6000: price $75

ASUS RT-AX59U: price $110...$220

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24

Eh, you can do better than that. May possibly be a little bit over $100 but you can grab a reasonably modern Dell OptiPlex barebone off eBay, equip it with a cheap Core i3 CPU and low-end SSD, and if needed, an PCIe ethernet card for extra ports. Power consumption should be within the range of 20-25W.

For example, I am currently running a Dell OptiPlex 7050 SFF with a Core i3-7100T and a I340-T2 dual-port Ethernet card that cost almost exactly $100 to assemble.

25

It is not an RPI, it is a Seeed rerouter, using a CM4 (compute module 4) and with an antenna connected to the board the signal is pretty ok!

I use it to extend to the furthest room in the house that had poor signal and it can easily saturate the Wifi connexion on my wife's laptop...

26

OK, the official page didn't mentioned any extra WiFi, so it's likely just extending the onboard wireless with ext. antenna (you can try to see if you can enable both 2.4GHz + 5GHz AP mode together?)

27

I like Cudy WR3000 router. Search for routers that are manufactured to support openwrt.

28

Got this from AliExpress: T9 Plus Mini PC Intel Alder Lake N100 16GB DDR5 1TB NVMe SSD Dual LAN Three HDMI Firewall Server WIFI 5
Paid less for it then currently advertised but am very happy with it, running OpenWRT 23.05.2 without issue. To be honest, it's overkill, but power enough to do anything.

29

nice but out of scope - as t9+ is more than 100$ - around 132 for me

30

I saw that, but prices fluctuate and depending on the urgency, discounts and coupons one could decide to track prices and see if prices come down.
Also, this may be interesting for folks who visit this thread and who have a slightly bigger budget.

31

An Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X would work. Under $100, 5 ports and OpenWRT works fine.