ASUS RT-AC66U Dual band (802.11ac) and USB-AC53 Dual band USB adapter review (802.11ac)

Conclusion

The ASUS RT-AC66U Dual band is the first product that we review supporting the 802.11ac. I like the performance of the router for it’s speed. This is especially so when you are connected via the ASUS USB-AC53 USB stick. Not only does it excel with 802.11ac USB stick, it works pretty fast with the normal 300MHz 802.11n USB sticks. The performance is slightly faster than our WD N900 Central. Another thing I noticed is the reduced boot up time after you reconfigure the router. You don’t have to wait for 3 to 5 minutes before it starts serving the wireless clients.

The ASUS RT-AC66U generates strong WIFI signals be it in the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band. At last, I can login to the 5GHz from my PC upstairs. The stronger signal is probably thanks to the 3 ugly antennas that stick out from the back of the faceplate. We are able to detect on the iPhone 3GS the SSID and login almost 50 metres away from the router which is housed indoors. The signal is simply too strong which I find it a bit unbelievable. For me, I would prefer if there is an option for me to tune down the signal level especially at night.

As for the USB-AC53, this USB adapter is not automatically detected in Windows 8. You will need to get ready your installation disk to install and configure it. Although it supports 802.11ac which can achieve as high as 1Gbps in theory, the performance is hampered by a USB 2.0 interface which gives you a maximum throughput of 480Mbps. A USB 3.0 version might be better to reduce potential bottleneck during multiple streams of data.

In Conclusion, we feel that 802.11ac is ready for the market, and ASUS is ready. Is your pocket ready for that new performance ?

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