What's your favorite enthusiast LEDE/OpenWrt device?

Still shitty WiFi so no.... R7800 way better

Is Netgear Nighthawk R7800 AC2600 still a good choice? Would be about 150EUR in amazon.

I would run this over POE.
Is the power input 12V or 19V? In Wiki it tells that 19V but replacement power adapters are 12V.

It would act as a router for 250/50 connection with SQM (later maybe 1000/100). How is the OpenVPN performance?

Edit: looks like I checked wrong device D7800 is 19V and R7800 12V

ZBT WG3526 seems quite good.

2x880Mhz, 512 of RAM and 16 or 32 of ROM.

with:
USB 3.0
sd card slot
Sata adaptator inside

can't route 1Gbps but no problem for 100Mbps

Yes R7800 with hnyman's OpenWrt 18.06 build is a top choice right now. That or the WRT3200ACM with davidc502's OpenWrt 18.06 build. People say they are almost flawless.

Speaking of your WRT1200ACS Wifi, what build are you running? LEDE 17.x is very outdated for wifi drivers now. There hasn't been an official release in forever. Try davidc502's latest: https://davidc502sis.dynamic-dns.net/

I'm at trunk with latest mwlwifi. However the issue with the wifi was not caused by mwlwifi but phones wifi instead.

Ok but now I have Linksys wrt1900acs and Netgear r7800 :smiley:
Both are great. Maybe wrt1900acs range is bit better but I have high gain antennas in it.

Also tp-link Archer c5 I have is very good in WiFi but for +250Mbps routing speeds it is not enough with SQM enabled.

Really or did you mean shape of a 1Gbps connection?

yeah a shape of 1Gbps.

I just got the Archer C7 v4, and I'm very impressed. I'm certain I would have been equally impressed with the R7800, except with power usage. I typically get disappointed when I get a new router, that's its not that much better than my old. The Archer C7 runs circles around my ancient Netgear WNDR3700v2, in WiFi coverage around the house and outside. Even with two Netgear WNDR3700 I didn't have good coverage in my 180m2 house, this has complete coverage and great coverage 10m around the house. Coverage seems identical to original TP Link firmware.

Power consumption
I suspect the Netgear R7800 use 11w based on other devices. The Archer C7 uses 4.2w idle with both radios on (5.2w during load), according to my measurements, see other measurements here.

Max LAN speeds
I tested LAN max speeds with Android WiFi Speed Test + OnePlus 6 + Python server on wired pc. I use the current LEDE snapshot. My WiFi speeds at 2.4 GHz radio was: 65 Down / 99 Up Mbps in same room, and 5GHz the speeds were 425 Down /362 Up Mbps. I use WiFi Region DK, which lowers 2.4 GHz TXPower to 17db, but does not seem to affect 5 GHz. I don't think it affects close proximity tests.

I havn't tested original firmware LAN max speeds, but Ookla speed tests in edge zones were similar.

@Bogey yes absolutely. The top "enthusiast" choices right now are the R7800 or WRT3200ACM (or WRT32X same hardware). They are roughly the same price and both very active on the forums and solid support on OpenWrt 18.06 or Master branches.

@Bogey there is even a 15% student discount, if you're subscribed to Amazon Student (or someone you know). Got mine for roughly around 125€ a few weeks ago.

That beeing said, at the same price, I'd prefer the Zyxel NBG6817 over the R7800. There is a magnitude of difference between the Zyxel's and Netgear's WLAN coverage and stability; atleast in my environment. R7800 has its advantages though, like the community support. While it takes a good amount of manual work for the Zyxel to run LEDE properly, people like @hnyman make using the R7800 a breeze.

I'm looking for a new router and am considering the R7800 based on the comments here. Does anyone happen to run openVPN on an R7800 and know the speeds it is capable of with it?

My current router is pretty old and very slow when running openVPN (I am aware that routers in general run openVPN much slower than a computer for many reasons) but I am hoping there will be some improvement if I upgrade.

Here you'll find some openssl benchmarks, including the nbg6817, which uses the same SOC (ipq8065) as the r7800. While that won't directly translate into OpenVPN (which will be slower, due to the context switches needed) performance, it helps to put it into perspective.

Also keep in mind that there is no such thing as "the OpenVPN throughput", what you'll actually get depends on many configuration specific factors - the chosen crypto algorithms in particular, but also about the crypto backend you picked (OpenSSL vs mbedtls), the way you set up the networking (tun vs tap) and many other quite custom choices.

There are many variables to consider here, but for what it's worth: I've used my R7800 with OpenVPN @AES-128-CBC and Private Internet Access as a VPN provider. The maximum wired speed I reached with my particular configuration was about 45 Mbit/s (72 Mbit/s without OpenVPN).

I'd really recommend the Buffalo AirStation WSR-1166DHP, used it costs less than 30$.

Linksys WRT1200AC! I'm not really savvy about the specs of other routers, but a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM + 802.11 AC/5GHz router that you can readily get on the internet for about $50 is quite incredible to me. You can cross-compile ARM-based linux programs and run them on your router. Firmware installation very easy. I'm not an expert, but I like this one.

I think with a good build, like mine at https://cdn.corifeus.com/openwrt , there is no hickups at all, I can iperf3 at 600 mbits for both devices and the are like a dream.

I was looking to get the R7800 to replace by wndr38300, but only the D7800 is available in my country. I then looked into the WRT3200ACM but that is also not available, but the wrt32x is.

I did some research however and it seems there are a lot of complaints about the stability of the wifi, as well as other general complaints about it not really being stable.

Is the WRT32x stable and reliable for any one?

Hardware wise, WRT3200ACM and WRT32x are identical (but the former tends to be slightly cheaper). Both QCA9984 (ath10k, r7800/ nbg6817) and MWL88W8964 (mwlwifi, wrt3200acm/ wrt32x) are generally supposed to work well, but neither are perfect and have different quirks and warts (still, they're the best 802.11ac options available).

Also take a look at the ZyXEL Armor Z2/ nbg6817, which is virtually identical to the r7800 (bigger flash, but no eSATA).

Qotom Q355G4 configured with;
Intel i5-5300U
2 GB DDR3-1600
16 GB mSATA

Doing dslreports speedtest sirq never goes above 10%
I do have irqbalance installed with /usr/sbin/irqbalance in /etc/rc.local

I turned off hyperthreading because google searches suggest it increases latency for routing and I was concerned about Spectre, Meltdown, and Foreshadow vulnerabilities on a device connected to the internet

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@Dr_Fambo is one of the few thinking about what is really "enthusiast" grade, in my opinion.

Don't forget about the used market either.

Used Lanner FW-7582A, 6 Intel 82583V nics, PCIe x8 slot, USB 2.0, serial, RTC, LCD character display in 1U box. Came with i3-2120 and 4 GB memory -- US $89 on eBay

Upgraded to Xeon E3-1265L V2 -- US $99 on eBay (lower power consumption, higher performance)

Used Archer C7 v2 as "dumb AP" -- US $40 through Craigslist

2x8 GB memory sticks, DDR3 1333, from my junk drawer

Even with the original i3-2120 and 4 GB RAM in there, I pretty much guarantee it runs circles around any of the high-end home wireless routers on the market, at under US $140 (including the Archer C7). It can easily handle 2 Gbps throughput without breaking a sweat.

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