D-Link DIR-825 Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router: Second Time's the Charm?

[Enki42]

Thanks for the review, must have taken a long time to do all that. I do have a few small issues though:

1) I thought you said the second hw revision of the 855 has the AR9100 wireless chipset. Is that not right? This might mean the 2nd hw revision also has the newer chipset for the switch too since everything using one part would be cheaper for them.

2) Assuming point #1 is true shouldn't the 855 then have at the minimum the same performance as the 825. (meaning we can sort of see how much better the 2nd hw revision helped the router) The extra memory and the extra antenna should only help the 855 do better.

3) From the perspective of someone who wants a router with good range and chance you could test the router with a better omnidirectional antenna connected? For example I'm trying to decide between this and the 610 from linksys. The linksys has no replaceable antennas so obviously if I get that then I can't further improve the range but if I get this I can easily buy a better antenna to plug in and get a better range.

4) Any chance you could test with a 3rd party wireless card that stays the same with all the routers? Say the intel card that is part of santa rosa or a newer intel varient? The intel wireless card should have no real preference as to which router it works better with, its the card that comes with most laptops so is more likely to be used by most end users, generally seems like the built in laptop antenna it connects to are better then any pc card, ... The other major advantage is it allows compairing the routers more directly since you aren't chnaging the client side too.

5) Checking how perf varies with other networks in the area. This may not really be so useful to do for every router but has come up as a major factor in my apt situation. There are 10+ 802.11 networks visable all in the 2.4GHz range some are even 802.11b and none are 802.11n or 5 GHzso even though all reviews say 5GHz is worse I have a feeling in my case it will perform much better seeing that it has a clean spectrum vs 2.4

I know those ideas arn't easy to do since it adds much more testing.
Thanks

[claykin]

Picked up a DIR-825 today from Best Buy for $149. Will test this weekend and hopefully it will work in my application. Maybe with firmware maturity some of the issues/limitations Tim found will be resolved.

[thiggins]

Originally Posted by claykin

Picked up a DIR-825 today from Best Buy for $149. Will test this weekend and hopefully it will work in my application. Maybe with firmware maturity some of the issues/limitations Tim found will be resolved.

Don't hold your breath. Perhaps a different client will improve performance a bit. But as you can see from the other products that I compared, the performance really isn't that unusual.

[claykin]

Tim

I'm surprised Dlink chose to use the XSPAN 9001 (or 9100 series) for the DIR-825. Atheros began sampling the 9002 (or 9200) series back in July (also dual band concurrent). The 9002 is claimed to be 3rd generation (as compared to 2nd gen for the 9100 series) and is more integrated and lower cost. Atheros even included a Gigabit NIC.

The 9200 is 2 x 2 MIMO but Atheros claims higher performance when compared to the 9100. That would work well with Dlink's choice for 2 x antennas.

I called Atheros today and they advise that the 9200 series is shipping in quantity.

Maybe we'll soon see a hardware Rev B of the 825 using this newer chipset....

Originally Posted by thiggins

Don't hold your breath. Perhaps a different client will improve performance a bit. But as you can see from the other products that I compared, the performance really isn't that unusual.

[claykin]

The routing performance seems like a problem they can solve. Hopefully!

Originally Posted by thiggins

Don't hold your breath. Perhaps a different client will improve performance a bit. But as you can see from the other products that I compared, the performance really isn't that unusual.

I have a DIR-655 already, which I use for both computing and media streaming. A couple of my PC's and all the media streaming devices (TiVo, AppleTV, Roku box, etc.) are connected wirelessly to the 655 through SMC 802.11n wireless bridges (at 2.4GHz). I am interested in moving the streaming media off to 5GHz and leave the general purpose computing stuff on 2.4GHz. However, one of the locations where streaming media boxes live is quite far away from where the router has to go (up 2 floors with several sheetrock walls in between). I get about 50% signal strength up there with the 655 on 2.4GHz. THe other streaming location is close, and signal strength there is typically close to 100%.

I'm trying to figure out whether to get an 825 or 855 to replace the 655, and whether to get a 1522 or a 1555 to replace the SMC boxes.

Any thoughts? I worry a lot about the newer boxes having fewer (or no) external antennas as well. Any comments on that (expecially as it relates to my situation)?

Running ethernet cable is not a viable option.

Thanks much for any insights.

Bob

[geo]

When you consider that we're starting to get within sight of the two year anniversary of the announcement of the DIR-855, I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with the progress of dual-band 802.11n hardware and firmwares over that period. It's downright disheartening.

[tipstir]

802.11n experimental~ Firmware testing is beta well at DLINK! Oh just maybe one day the engineers at DLINK and the rest of the gang at the other companies will get it right? 802.11g is where most users are at.

[thiggins]

Originally Posted by claykin

The routing performance seems like a problem they can solve. Hopefully!

What needs to be fixed? How many buyers have >100 Mbps Internet connections?

[thiggins]

Originally Posted by Bob Cronin

I'm trying to figure out whether to get an 825 or 855 to replace the 655, and whether to get a 1522 or a 1555 to replace the SMC boxes.

Any thoughts? I worry a lot about the newer boxes having fewer (or no) external antennas as well. Any comments on that (expecially as it relates to my situation)?

I can't predict how 5GHz will do, since every environment is different. I would also consider the Netgear WNHDE111. Even though it didn't have the best distance performance, it did pretty well in this test.

I wouldn't worry much about internal vs. external antennas unless you are going to try to attach higher gain dual-band antennas.