Flagship AX routers

[Daniel Golle]

On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 11:26:58PM -0600, Philip Prindeville wrote:
> 
> 
> > On May 18, 2021, at 10:57 PM, John Crispin <john at phrozen.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On 19.05.21 00:09, Paul Spooren wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >> 
> >> On 5/18/21 11:52 PM, Philip Prindeville wrote:
> >>> Hi all,
> >>> 
> >>> I noticed that there are several AX routers from TP-Link, Netgear, D-Link, etc. and some of them have even had OpenWRT ported to them.
> >>> 
> >>> Which of these various platforms has the most CPU/RAM/FLASH? A few are discussed, but I'm not seeing consensus on "the best one currently is this..."
> >> 
> >> I'm using both a Belkin RT3200 and a Linksys AX3200 (aka E8450), which are conveniently pretty much the same thing and I'm having a pretty good time. Would flash again.
> >> 
> >> Best,
> >> Paul
> >> 
> > 
> > this is the goto unit for AX right now ...
> > 
> > https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/linksys_e8450
> > 
> > consider using this to flash the unit
> > 
> > https://github.com/dangowrt/linksys-e8450-openwrt-installer
> > 
> >     John
> > 
> 
> 
> Thanks, both of you.
> 
> Is that the one that only has USB 2.0, so if you wanted to add a hard drive for NAS or DLNA, you're bandwidth limited?

Yes, it got only USB 2.0, I guess because for USB 3.x you got to decide
to either live with 2.4~2.5GHz interference (like most IPQ devices I've
seen having USB 3.0 so far) or spend more for filters and evaluating a
board design.
It's definitely not meant to be a NAS, it's just an AP/Router, not even
too useful as a modem-router (USB 2.0 port supplies only 500mAh afair).
When using as dual-band AP, also the Gigabit Ethernet of the E8450 can
become a bottle-kneck, UniFi 6 LR got that Aquantina 2.5GBase-T PHY
(and also combines MT7622x with MT7915E, like the E8450).