I just set this up to replace an E3000 as the main router. The reason for doing so is that the 5GHZ radio on the E3000 is flaky and doesn't reach my master bedroom. The router is placed at the front of the house in one bedroom with my master bedroom on the other end of a 2000 sq ft house. It's not a large distance as the house is rectangular so it's 50 feet at most, but there are walls in between. The 5GHZ radio was an epic fail on the E3000.
I'm happy to report that this unit solves the issue of the 5GHZ signal death. The signal is now stronger than the 2.4Ghz signal of the E3000. I routinely receive full to half bars on my Ipad on the 5GHZ spectrum in my bedroom where I had none before. This means that I will not have to put money on the AC68U which I suspect will cost at least $50 more for the external antennas. Unless you have a gigantic house, there's no need to get its big brother. As far as I know, the only difference between this and the AC68U are the external antennas and the extra stream radio that requires an equivalent adapter to use. In other words, not worth it as you will be hard pressed to reach the theoretical 866 Mbps of this router.
The unit has 256MB RAM with dual core ARM A9 processors (similar to the earlier Ipads). I have to say that the web interface is much faster than what I was used to. Youtube no longer freezes when it stream (but I still need to test further). However, streaming 1080P video from my HTPC to my Samsung TV the video froze twice. I use the E3000 as a client bridge with its 2.4ghz radio to the AC56U, which then transmit that signal by 5GHZ radio to the TV. I will have to test some more because it should not be freezing at wireless N signal. I may switch out a different router other than the E3000 because I suspect it's not the AC56U that's causing the issue. The E3000 has always been flaky even with DD-WRT.
The RAM usage indicate only about 50MB on usage with 200MB free. With that kind of headroom, I hope that Plex Media Server finally offer up a version for routers. I believe that dual core 800MHZ CPU is now fast enough for routers to become a poor man's NAS (the Marvell of the low end NAS are basically faster clocked A9's). Yes, the router does come with its own DLNA and download software, but it's not good. I will be looking to replace download master with transmission when I have time.
This unit is basically the fastest consumer router on the market so far with full unlocked dual core and 256MB RAM. If it ever offers software package installs like the NAS units currently do, it could finally usher in the hybrid Router/NAS market. Do it, Asus!
I will update this review with issues and its reliability later as I continue to use it. For its main purpose of increasing range along with offering fast and reliable connections, it's a five star router.
