Linksys WRT32X a gamer-first router
Linksys has announced war on latency having its own new Linksys WRT32X gaming router. Even the bane of internet gamers, high latency ends in the lag that they experience while playing internet flash games, notably people hosted on servers in different locations. The WRT32X incorporates Killer Networking technology from Rivet Networks. When it detects computers armed with the Killer chip-set at your house network, the modem automatically optimises gaming network traffic for these apparatus, resulting in lower latency.
Compatible devices consist of gambling laptops out of popular brands such as Alienware, Gigabyte, MSI and Razer. Regrettably, game consoles are not encouraged, though you can still by hand prioritise them. In accordance with its laser focus on gambling, the WRT32X lacks main stream router characteristics, such as parental controls or wireless bridge functionality. It will have guest programs, as well as enthusiast features including static IP and port forwarding.
A cell app to control the router has been also apparently termed extraneous - you will have to make use of its Web browser port as an alternative. This port was built from the ground up and specially for your own WRT32X. It's extremely responsive - fluctuations are employed nearly instantly. The router itself reboots faster than the normal models I have analyzed, presumably due to its thin firmware and a quick 1.8GHz quad-core chip.
To test the Killer gaming prioritisation feature, Linksys loaned me an Razer Blade gaming laptop together with the supported Killer networking hardware. There is no demand for any setup up as the Killer Control Centre applications on the Razer notebook mechanically found that the Killer hardware on the WRT32X. When the Razer Blade is directly linked to the WRT32X, then a router option becomes available from the notebook's Killer Control Centre and also it is possible to handily login into the router port from inside the program.
To test the WRT32X, I attempted to emphasise my Internet connection by streaming a 4K video from Netflix on my television set and also played a 1080p YouTube video on a tablet. On another computer, I also started downloading a game in Steam (at an interest rate of around 30MB/s) as well as multiple files via BitTorrent (at approximately 10MB/s).
Despite all this traffic, the Team Fortress 2 game that was running over the Killer-enabled Razer Blade laptop chugged along smoothly with no lag. More importantly, it had remained unchanged from earlier I had begun to overload my Internet connection. In short, my gambling experience was not influenced by the streaming and downloads happening at the exact same moment.
In comparison, the latency doubled when I tried the identical scenario using my own home router. In this case, the game was still playable with no noticeable lag. But the slumping of latency might be troublesome for internet games hosted in overseas servers at which the bottom latency ranges from 100 to 200ms even with the most optimized settings. As for its general performance having a non-compatible client, the WRT32X performed similarly to some other high routers with a typical download speed of 535Mbps.