New Netgear 802.11n routers for gamers, worth it?

First of all, I realize this post should probably go in the Wireless forum, but since my question is targeted at gamers this is where I am.

I wanted to get some feedback from some of you on these new routers coming from Netgear:

http://netgear.com/Landing/en-US/wirelessn.aspx

Now they cost $129+ but have enhanced performance features, and Netgear believes since Gamers and those streaming HD content eat up bandwidth, people like you will be willing to spend more on this type of router.

What do you think, do the extra features like packet shaping, gigabit wired sides, dual antennas and other "performance" specs make it look cool?

 

Never.

Companies tag on "GAMING" to their merchandise to get (let's put this nicely) dumb people to pay extra for something that performs exactly like the "normal" version. Unless you have 5 people at your house and you're always fighting over the bandwidth, this is going to be just like a normal N router.

 

For ONLINE gaming, firstly, how fast is your internet.. if it EXCEEDs the limit of 54Mbp/s of Wireless G, then yes, you actually need a wireless N router.

If you have say... 6Mbp/s Cable or DSL, then you will see zero difference in speed switching to a router that has an unneccary 270Mbp/s Unless you play on LAN alot while tranferring massive files between computers over your home network..

I've heard that routers that tag themselves with "gaming" really aren't any better. again.. it's just a marketing ploy to attract gamers with a massive and bulging wallet/credit card..

 

Dlink DGl4500
Worth the money.
Actually This router has really nice Qos engine i have notice difference in ping over the last one dgl4300.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30250/96/

 

Unfortunately... this is strictly theory.

I do not claim to know more about networking than anyone else, but I do have experience. I had a "b" network, but my net was only about 2 megs (11-2=9) When I upgraded to "G" (54) my internet speeds all over the house went up. Packet loss, signal strength, or whatever it was... even though my speed should not have changed, it got faster...

When I go to work where we have a D-Link N router (the "extreem" (spelled that way) router with three antennae) and my connection with an N adapter is faster than with a g adapter... even though we only have a single T1 connection.

 

Well yes... it could worth it... just for the bigger range that the N generation offer... but it wont go faster for gaming... from my laptop to my linksys router i have just 1ms... so... if im playing game instead of 100ms i have 101ms.

But maybe if you have more than 1 computer in wifi it make a difference... all my computer are wired except my laptop...

its a old linksys G speedbooster with a custom firmware

 

Okay, thank you everyone for the feedback. I agree some of this is marketing for sure, however if you're in a home with Mom, Dad, Billy and Jane all using the Internet at the same time the router does some clever stuff with packet handling and has some nice hardware features.

Somebody at Netgear asked me what gamers in our forums would think of this so I decided to ask

 

A Very interesting topic indeed. I don't have the DLINK N extreem router but I have an n-router that is 1 grade lower which also features QoS engine. My mom spent around 120 dollars for this (Extreem being around 150 or so) and well my speeds haven't really improved drastically compared to my old wired SMC 19 dollar router. On wired, the experience is pretty much the same.

SMC Router on CS 1.6: min- 10 avg- 11 to 16 max-40
DLink N-draft 2.0 router: min- 9 avg - 10 to 14 max - 30

Sure, from these numbers you might tend to think DLINK offers improvements but comparing the price, 19 dollars vs 120 offering a 1ms boost is really not worth it.

However, I must say that these numbers may be slightly off since my mom didn't get her computer setup on the network until recently. I do feel however that QoS engine does help gaming a bit since it prioritize gaming packets to the highest and browsing much lower.

IMHO, unless you live in an mansion, you don't really need 3 antenna n-draft router. Mind you, a full n specification is yet to be released. This means, we're all lab rats of these companies.