# N router vs. G router



## pmtm2 (Oct 13, 2008)

i am getting ready to buy a new wireless router and i am a bit confused as to the differance in a G router and a N router. the wireless router i have now is a zyxel 802.11G OR whatever the number is. i have 6mbps dsl i know its not great but it does the job. i have a imac a macbook and a xbox 360. the imac is lan the xbox and the macbook wireless. my ? is if the router i have is a G do i have to get a G router or can i get a N. the problem with the old one is range not speed, so i need a router with good range any ideas. thanks for your help.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

A good G router should be sufficient. N is backwards compatible with G, but there really is not much advantage IMO unless you do a lot of internal network streaming/transfers (not from the internet). N supposedly has better range, but that is only with N equipment on both sides and I have found good G routers and adapters to get very close to N performance.


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## pmtm2 (Oct 13, 2008)

thanks what router would you suggest


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## ncxcstud (Apr 22, 2007)

I use this and love it.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

Wireless N has many advantages that go beyond range or gigabit speeds.

Alot of it has to do with mimo, qos, channel bonding, Spatial multiplexing, etc.

SOME of this can be found in wireless g, but wireless n takes it further.

With wireless N qos, I usually get 10-17 ping on ethernet connected devices.

What most surprising of all is that my wireless n pci cards GET 10 PING CONSTANTLY. These are mimo cards, and work amazing on a wireless N network, to the point where they are faster then ethernet!

Wireless N doesn't just help with sending data around a network. A good wireless N router (Along with wireless n pci cards) helps send the data around far more efficiently then wireless g.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

This is the Mimo pci card I have:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833130057

With multiple antenna output input (MIMO, Multiple Input Multiple Output), I can connect to my router easier and without issues.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

For most those features will make little difference is the thing, plus it requires a N adapter on both sides of the connection in most cases.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

So fast connections with no drops are not a big difference now?

And for most these features WOULD make a big difference, they'd make a big difference every time you connect from a wireless pc and stay connected for more then 5 seconds.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Last year I went from a Linksys WRT54G v4 to a Linksys WRT600N, and noticed no real difference. I don't do wireless media servers or wireless gaming so perhaps I'm not in the target to upgrade, but then again, two out of my three functional computers are hardwired, my two PDAs, that I don't really use anymore are only Wireless B and the iPhone is G. Personally, I'd spend the little extra money and future proof yourself. I really had no reason to get a new router, but wanted to get one for when I get a laptop and have real mobile computing power. Plus in the unlikely event I'll ever need to, having access to the 5 GHz band is pretty nice.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

Steve Mehs said:


> Last year I went from a Linksys WRT54G v4 to a Linksys WRT600N, and noticed no real difference. I don't do wireless media servers or wireless gaming so perhaps I'm not in the target to upgrade, but then again, two out of my three functional computers are hardwired, my two PDAs, that I don't really use anymore are only Wireless B and the iPhone is G. Personally, I'd spend the little extra money and future proof yourself. I really had no reason to get a new router, but wanted to get one for when I get a laptop and have real mobile computing power. Plus in the unlikely event I'll ever need to, having access to the 5 GHz band is pretty nice.


Personally if most of what you do is wired, you don't need much of a wireless router at all.

Not having a wireless router, or disabling the wireless connection is more secure even.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Zellio said:


> So fast connections with no drops are not a big difference now?
> 
> And for most these features WOULD make a big difference, they'd make a big difference every time you connect from a wireless pc and stay connected for more then 5 seconds.


Unless you are streaming media or doing lots of large transfers, no it does not make a big difference. You also have to have N on both sides to take advantage of it.

G is very stable if you are using good equipment and is faster than almost all internet connections consumers are going to have. It should not be dropping at all...if your G connection was you had other issues.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Kind of hard to use the iPhone on wifi without a wireless router, plus I have a wireless printer.  If I did have a gaming console or whatever, I would most definitely hardwire it.

Security is not an issue for me. I had my first router, a Motorola, unsecured for years and according to the access logs, only my devices obtained IP addresses from it. I live in a pretty rural area, one neighbor to the right of me a couple hundred feet away, closest house to the left is a mile or two down the road, and I can't even see the house that's sort of across the street from me. And in the unlikely event we've got some hackers driving by with their laptop, my driveway is about 130' long, I couldn't even get wifi reception down by the mailbox when I had the WRT54G hooked up and had the high gain antennas connected. I don't know why, but now I use WEP, yes I know it's useless more or less, but given where I live, the extremely low probably of getting hacked and my first PDA doesn't support WPA without some major firmware upgrades, which I attempted to do once and thought I bricked the thing, took almost a week to get it working again. I also limit the number of IP addresses assigned by the DHCP to 6 at a time. Which is my three computers, two PDAs and iPhone. I configured the printer manually so don't need one for that.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

Grentz said:


> Unless you are streaming media or doing lots of large transfers, no it does not make a big difference. You also have to have N on both sides to take advantage of it.
> 
> G is very stable if you are using good equipment and is faster than almost all internet connections consumers are going to have. It should not be dropping at all...if your G connection was you had other issues.


Streaming, large transfers?

Um, no. First of all, do you have any idea what ping is? It's how fast you connect to the drop, and to your local area. Better ping means alot more then streaming video, it can be how fast you play video games, how fast web pages load, alot of things.

Also, dropped connections are a big deal. And yes, dropped connections happen alot on wireless G, esp. with the much shorter range.

My wireless N range goes nearly a mile, as an example. And I've tested that, with a laptop in my car...

And this ain't something I'm doing wrong. I've used wireless a/b/g, and now N. N with mimo technology is the best at stability and speed. And it's more then just large transfers, it's everything you do.

If you use a wireless pc for any deal of time, I would go with wireless N.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Yes, I know what ping is, and yes I know what dropped connections are. I am an IT consultant by day and have done a lot of work with lots of wireless equipment including some very high end stuff that will blow the antennas off your N connection as far as stability and range.

I will break down your response:



Zellio said:


> Streaming, large transfers?
> 
> Um, no. First of all, do you have any idea what ping is? (yes) It's how fast you connect to the drop, and to your local area (no, its how much delay there is or "latency". Nothing to do with download speeds. I guess you could call "latency" "speed" but generally in networking terms you do not as it would get confusing). Better ping means alot more then streaming video, it can be how fast you play video games (how fast reactions are), how fast web pages load (how fast the request/response is for each piece of the page...not the actual download of the page), alot of things (actually less than you would think, but yes some others like VoIP are very dependent on it).
> 
> ...


Just so you know, N should have very little to do with your ping/latency/lag. In your case, if you are using the N device as your router as well, you are probably just gaining the benefit from having a router that can do good QoS. G with a good router will be identical, only adding around 1-2ms at most to the connection when you are going over wireless...the same as what N will add.

There are many advantages to N, dont get me wrong. But for most just wanting to connect to the internet from a few B/G devices at home there is not much reason to move up to it unless they are streaming things locally...like Directv MRV...which needs the throughput.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

Grentz said:


> Yes, I know what ping is, and yes I know what dropped connections are. I am an IT consultant by day and have done a lot of work with lots of wireless equipment including some very high end stuff that will blow the antennas off your N connection as far as stability and range.
> 
> I will break down your response:
> 
> ...


I wasn't gonna say this, but you annoy me...

So here goes. You say wireless N doesn't have much of an effect?

This is pc one:










Connected to a 10/100 ethernet switch, via cat 5e cable:










It gets this score:










12.36 D/1.75 U/18 Ping, on a 20/2 cable connection.

This is pc 2:










It is connected directly to the router via cat 5. It gets this score:










21.52 D/1.78 U/14 ping

This is the wireless pc:










It connects via wireless n pci card, not ethernet, as shown:



















It gets this score:










21.32 D/1.86 U 10 ping.

Since you are the 'IT consultant', mind explaining this? I've had good Wireless G routers, and none do what mimo is doing.

Now yes, a good mimo wireless g would work, but your argument is that it would cost money for adapters... Which it would anyway if you wanted a good mimo device!

And don't think I'm insulting you by adding ' around IT Consultant. I am asking you, but I am still questioning your motives, etc. I don't doubt that you are an IT Consultant.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

I know I do 

No, my argument was the OP already had client side adapters built into his devices that were G, so he does not need to go out and buy new addon cards that would not even be integrated.

Your first PC is being limited by the 10/100 switch as your internet connection is surpassing the speed that 10/100 comfortably delivers regularly. There is something funky if you are getting a better ping and connection through N than the second PC wired directly to the router...sorry but that is just not right and my guess is something else going on. Probably the test as a few ms difference is typical with an external test like Speedtest.net Wired gigabit still is the king.

I dont think you will find much debate in the fact that gigabit wired is going to be superior to N which will be superior with a good signal to 10/100 which will be superior to G in throughput. But the wired connections usually should maintain the lowest latency. All my wired connections maintain a ping of less than 1ms

Internally pinging your router from the machines is a much better test as it is not effected by your internet connection, speedtest servers, and other factors that can all make the test results from speed test sites vary up and down a bit.

Desktop Gigabit Wired to Switch and then 10/100 to Router <1ms:


Laptop via Wireless G, 64% Signal Strength, to Router 1ms:


N is very good, I am not debating that at all. It is superior to G by quite a lot in many ways. My point the entire time though has been simple "for most just wanting to connect to the internet from a few B/G devices at home there is not much reason to move up to it unless they are streaming things locally...like Directv MRV...which needs the throughput". That does not mean if you are a techy or have a very fast 20mb connection or care about every last ms in ping that you should not go N...it means that for many average consumers G gear is plenty good for getting on the internet and working with their devices that have wireless already integrated.

I dont really understand why that is so hard for anyone to understand


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

Grentz said:


> I know I do
> 
> No, my argument was the OP already had client side adapters built into his devices that were G, so he does not need to go out and buy new addon cards that would not even be integrated.
> 
> ...


I realize that. This test was a quickie, and I still can't figure out why the wireless cards do better.

I will be internally pinging, and running tests for any data loss on the wireless, but it's still odd.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

It also could be the router is prioritizing wireless packets over the wired ones slightly.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

I always wondered if maybe the N routers had to use a better / faster / newer chipset so they might do a little better than say a cheapie g router on pings and overal throughput. eg: there is no cheap chipset out there for n like there is for g that you can spank into a $30 box.


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## ncxcstud (Apr 22, 2007)

I still recommend the D-Link gaming routers. solely for the fact that they prioritize packets much more efficiently than other router I've used before. For example, i can download (and upload) any file I want and still get a ping anywhere between 30-50 on Steam...


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## -Draino- (May 19, 2008)

Zellio said:


> With wireless N qos, I usually get 10-17 ping on ethernet connected devices.
> 
> What most surprising of all is that my wireless n pci cards GET 10 PING CONSTANTLY. These are mimo cards, and work amazing on a wireless N network, to the point where they are faster then ethernet!


Ahh.....wireless???.....that's impossible. Wired is 1ms ping on the local.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

-Draino- said:


> Ahh.....wireless???.....that's impossible. Wired is 1ms ping on the local.


Ya, something is funky there. He was referring to the ping that speedtest.net recorded, which takes into account a lot of connections between his LAN and the speedtest server...but still the differences should not be like that.

My guess, like I said before, is just variances in speedtest.net or a connection between him and them. Happens normally and a few ms really does not effect anything.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Also, don't forget that in most cases using a heterogeneous network (N access point with mixed N and G devices) the router has to throttle down to G speeds, just as G routers throttle down to B speeds in a mixed B-G network.


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