EnGenius ESR-9850 Wireless Router

Performance and Conclusion

To test the performance of this router for local transfers, I transferred a 4.3gb video file between computers on the network; one was connected through an Ethernet port always, and the other was tested both with an 802.11n adaptor and a gigabit Ethernet connection. As you can see, the N-only mode did perform somewhat better than mixed mode, with average speeds of 1.28MB/sec for N-only and 1.14MB/sec for mixed mode. Gigabit Ethernet performance was respectable as well, with an average throughput of 11.3MB/sec. During these tests, web access from other wired and wireless clients proceeded at full speed, with no noticeable lag.

As the only available Internet connection was a 9Mbit/1Mbit DOCSIS 2.0 cable connection, I was unable to see any performance benefit from the Network Turbine feature. Throughput and latencies were good, however, even with four flash videos, two BitTorrent downloads and a Netflix streaming video running at the same time. BitTorrent downloads were faster in general, as the 50,000 simultaneous session support meant that my client was never waiting for a stale connection to time out and free up its slot. Swarms with 20+ seeds stayed at or near the 1.1MB/sec download limit for most of their run.

Overall, I am quite impressed with this router. Most home gateway routers in the sub-$100 category provide lackluster performance, restrictive configuration options, or both. This router delivered consistently high performance, and setting up my own peculiar, detailed configuration was a snap. I would highly recommend this router to anyone looking for an economical way to boost their network performance.

  Previous Page         1. Introduction2. Setup and Features3. Performance and Conclusion4. View All         Next Page