TP-Link Archer C2600 vs D-Link DIR-882 as an AP

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

So i've been using a couple of Archer C2600 for a long while as an access point. I always used vanilla openwrt standard builds for it. Now with the latest release of openwrt, i wasn't able to upgrade while keeping my config, so this would mean i would have to re-setup the device, which meant that it was just as much work to possibly change to different devices. Why u ask?

The c2600 is a great device, but from the beginning it lacked NSS core support in vanilla openwrt builds, so i was never able to fully utilize the devices full potential. So when i would choose for NSS enabled openwrt, i had to go for a custom build. Now i noticed that with DSA becoming a common thing (and apparantely it won't go away), not only would i need to run a custom build for it's NSS cores, i also need an extra "custom" build for NSS enabled with swconfig. This is just too much away from vanilla openwrt for me. I want to keep things simple and feature proof.

So now i have these C2600 devices which can be used, but not optimal, and not with all hardware features enabled in vanilla openwrt.

Now i had the opportunity to buy a couple of D-Link DIR-882 devices for real cheap. And i'm wondering if they would make a good candidate to use instead of the archer c2600. Since the DIR-882 is mediatek based, i assume it has real good openwrt support.

To compare both devices:
TP-Link C2600 (ac2600 class):
-cpu: Qualcomm IPQ8064 1.4ghz dualcore arm v7 with two nss cores (unusable)

D-link DIR-882 (ac2600 class):
-cpu: Mediatek MT7621AT 880mhz dualcore with multithreading (4hw threads) mips 1004KEc

So both are ac2600 class wifi 5, have multiple gigabit ethernet ports, have dualband wireless.

So in features they really are alike. My question would be: will the DIR-882 give me about the same performance as the tp-link c2600? I have no idea how i would compare those qualcomm arm v7 cores to the mediateks mips cores, do they differ in performance (being completely different architectures)?

As @apccv pointed out in his post, the archer c2600 really underperforms when it's NSS cores aren't enabled. So one of my questions would be: will the DIR-882 perform about the same as the Archer C2600 with it's nss cores enabled?

Another question would be: if i'm considering going to different devices to use as an openwrt enabled accesspoint, will Wifi 5 (ac) suffice or is it recommended to make the step to AX wifi 6? I currently don't own anything that is wifi 6 compliant and to me the ac2600 class really is more then i will need for the fortcoming years? Or does wifi 6 have other benefits that i'm not familiar with? Because making the jump to wifi 6 would probably mean going something filelogic 830 based, which isn't available in the used market thus making things pretty expensive.

So basically, to round things up: will the DIR-882 make a good openwrt accesspoint with good openwrt support for the fortcoming years without the need to run custom builds, and have good performance, comparable to the archer c2600 with nss cores enabled? Thank you.

2

As APs, NSS or not, shouldn't make any difference?

I was able to reach 650mbit (give or take) via wifi, wouldn't expect the D-Link to beat it.

3

Apparantely it does. Please look at the link i posted from @apccv . The difference appears to be huge, really hundreds of megabits.

Screenshot from 2023-05-19 20-32-15
Screenshot from 2023-05-19 20-32-15692×446 33.8 KB

4

Where's the speed on that diagram?

Like I said, I reached 650mbit with non-NSS builds on C2600s.

5

I've been very thorough, it's a matter of clicking the link i provided.

6

Look... apologies for all the contention..

When I ran my test (and I added tons of caveats on that post) it was with 22.03.5. With my very peculiar build (repo still there if you are curious). I had no clue what I was doing (could argue I still don't). Plenty people had said NSS did nothing for an AP. I found NSS for an AP made a difference so I posted the results. For a C2600. On my network. With my client (oldish Ubuntu). With a 8086:9df0 Wireless adapter (Wireless-AC 9560, it says) on a (now) 6y Intel i5 old laptop). Did a few runs... results were consistent.

That's water under the bridge. 24.10 or Snapshot have much better kernels and process schedulers. Maybe newer board drivers. Newer firmware. Vitamins, minerals and electrolytes. Heck, what do I know?

@dipswitch Maybe you could retest... if you have time to play with the C2600. Just SpeedTest (or something better) w/vanilla and repeat with latest NSS builds. There are some "RRUL graphs" that I never quite figured out how to get (let alone understand) that could show if indeed NSS cores are up to hype. Nice science experiment if you're up to it.

Ultimately, shared my two cents on my humble opinion. Summarizing:

  • Don't replace the C2600 if you don't need better WiFi. It is a good router. Not as good as the R7500 (that has marginally better WiFi due to a better wireless chipset) but good nevertheless.
  • C2600 (for me) saw a benefit of using NSS when used as an AP.
  • Still with that benefit, the hassle of not using vanilla builds and spend hours pampering my own build was a deal breaker to me

Besides... throughput is nice. But latency probably matters more.

Anyhow... to each their own. This is probably a good thread to compare two 11ac devices, one Qualcomm the other MediaTek. Let's see what comes up.

1 Like
7

Thank you. This is exactly what put me of going on with the c2600. I'm trying to make things in my life being as simple as possible. Messing for hours with openwrt doesn't fit that goal. So this is why i'm hoping the DIR-882 wil make a good candidate to move forward with.

8

bump. nobody? I was under the impression that mediatek was the way to go these days? Especially after felix's "rant"....

9

Well, i finally did it. I took the plunge and replaced my Tp Link Archer c2600 for D-Link dir-882, risking sacrificing bandwith.

I first started with an iperf test using my laptop connected to the Tp Link c2600 at approximately 2 meter away. My laptop has an Intel ac7260 wireless card, which can go no faster then 866mbit. This resulted in:

[ 5] local 192.168.0.186 port 57003 connected to 192.168.0.6 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-1.01 sec 31.1 MBytes 257 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 1.01-2.01 sec 29.4 MBytes 246 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 2.01-3.02 sec 29.2 MBytes 245 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 3.02-4.01 sec 32.6 MBytes 274 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 4.01-5.01 sec 31.1 MBytes 261 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 5.01-6.01 sec 31.8 MBytes 266 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 6.01-7.01 sec 29.9 MBytes 251 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 7.01-8.01 sec 31.1 MBytes 261 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 8.01-9.01 sec 27.8 MBytes 233 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 9.01-10.01 sec 30.5 MBytes 256 Mbits/sec

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 304 MBytes 255 Mbits/sec sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 304 MBytes 255 Mbits/sec receiver

Then a grabbed a (new in box) D-Link DIR-882, flashed it with Openwrt 25.10.2, set it up als dumb ap, made an identical config as the Tp Link c2600, replaced the c2600 with the DIR-882 and screwed the DIR-882 to the wall in exactly the same place. Then it was time for a new iperf test, which resulted in:

[ 5] local 192.168.0.186 port 56957 connected to 192.168.0.6 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-1.01 sec 31.5 MBytes 261 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 1.01-2.01 sec 32.8 MBytes 275 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 2.01-3.01 sec 36.8 MBytes 308 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 3.01-4.01 sec 33.0 MBytes 277 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 4.01-5.01 sec 31.9 MBytes 268 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 5.01-6.01 sec 33.0 MBytes 277 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 6.01-7.01 sec 26.8 MBytes 224 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 7.01-8.01 sec 30.1 MBytes 253 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 8.01-9.01 sec 31.1 MBytes 261 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 9.01-10.01 sec 29.9 MBytes 251 Mbits/sec

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 317 MBytes 265 Mbits/sec sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 317 MBytes 265 Mbits/sec receiver

I ran multiple passes on both the c2600 and the DIR-882, sometimes the c2600 was slighty faster, but the next time the DIR-882 was faster. So i'm not seeing a big difference.

For me this is a great accomplishment. An ipq8064 soc with two 1.4ghz arm cores versus a dualcore mips 880mhz quad thread soc, that give approx the same througput. I did not expect that good of a result.

So basically i'm very happy with the outcome. I now have my partially unsupported ipq8064 devices replaced with Mediatek based ones, which are very good supported in openwrt and probably will be for a long time. I no longer have to look at custom firmwares or are confronted with having to completely reconfigure my c2600 devices duo to firmware changes. I now can just simply run the latest openwrt vanilla builds without having to do much.

I was even able to add the wan port from the DIR-882 to the lan bridge adding an extra port, which seemed pretty simple to setup.

I only seem to have noticed that the DIR-882 not always wants to boot succesfully the first time. I once made it reboot in openwrt but it got stuk, having to manually reboot the device. Another time i did a cold start for the DIR-882, the green light started to light up continuesly but the device got stuck and was unresponsive. A cold restart made it start succesfully. It now has been running for a couply of hours without noticeable issues. Hope it keeps running this way.

So my humble verdict is: a MT7621AT based D-Link DIR-882 device can make a pretty good access point and i do not seem to notice very much difference with the popular ipq8064 based devices (running openwrt vanilla without NSS support).

I can imagine that custom ipq8064 nss enabled swconfig builds might perform better, but running custom openwrt builds was just what i was trying to prevent.