[Maylyn's Preview ~ Networking] ASUS RT-AC56U

[maylyn]

First up

Some understanding on what is used in the manufacturing of the ASUS RT-AC56U

Front and Back





~ World's first router with shielding around the USB 3.0 port (noise) to reduce interference on WiFi 2.4GHz

Reference ~ USB 3.0* Radio Frequency Interference on 2.4 GHz Devices

~ Utilizing the latest generation Broadcom BCM4708A0 (800 MHz) ARM Cortex A9 dual core processor
~ 256MB RAM
~ 128MB Flash
~ Broadcom BCM43217 2x2 802.11b/g/n transceiver (2.4GHz)
~ Broadcom BCM4352 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac transceiver (5GHz)
~ First ASUS router to utilize the Dockon high efficiency compound CPL antenna design to provide greater efficiency, better gain and reduce interference.
~ Explicit Beamforming

 

[opt1m4l]

Any news on this?

 

[maylyn]

Any news on this?

The ASUS RT-AC56U is still on track for Aug/Sep launch.

I should be able to do a proper preview in due time as currently the ASUS RT-AC56U is still under product NDA embargo/firmware development NDA, although RMerlin and I have already been testing with it for quite time.

For the time being, you can follow some newer information updates on my other thread with RMerlin's input as well.

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/n...dual-band-wireless-ac1900-router-4116125.html

 

[yiptw89]

Available from mid August 2013, the RT-AC56U Dual-Band Wireless AC1200 Router will retail at S$279.

Source: ASUS Launches the RT-AC56U Dual-Band Wireless AC1200 Router - HardwareZone.com.sg

 

[Arrow32]

Would be good to have a comparasion btw RT-AC56U and RT-AC66U...

 

[maylyn]

ASUS RT-AC56U first official firmware ~ 3.0.0.4.372.184

ASUS RT-AC56U first official firmware release Enough of ASUS RT-AC56U for the time being.

Next stop, ASUS RT-AC68U flagship AC1900 router exploration



Some new addition

2.4GHz Professional Tab

World's first router with reduce USB 3.0 interference function on 2.4GHz



5GHz Professional Tab

Explicit Beamforming

 

[maylyn]

Would be good to have a comparasion btw RT-AC56U and RT-AC66U...

If intend to buy?
Benefit of USB3.0 wise to get the AC56U or forget about the USB3.0 and get cheaper AC66U?

What kind of comparison would you like to see?

General performance of the ASUS RT-AC56U > ASUS RT-AC66U due to the fact it's running on BCM4708A0 (800 MHz) ARM Cortex A9 dual core processor over Broadcom BCM4706 (600 MHz). ASUS has spared no effort in optimizing the firmware to utilizing two cores to work in tandem. Let's take it even ASUS RT-AC56U is only running on a single core, Doesn't 800MHz > 600MHz? in theory?

As for wireless, ASUS RT-AC56U is the first ASUS router to utilize the Dockon high efficiency compound CPL antenna design to provide greater efficiency, better gain and reduce interference + ASUS exclusive AiRadar to better WiFi coverage.

+ Those i have posted before

Taking a break off the usual testing and catching up some rest, I'm back with more reporting

Since I'm on the dual core ARM Cortex A9, some might wonder is there a need for routers to move to multi cores to provide better performance? IMHO, it's definitely YES in our local context especially for FTTH aka Fiber users and the multiple tasks that users use their routers these days

Up for thoughts and discussion.

Just quoting some interesting quotes from RMerlin for the night and some updates.

The areas where this new CPU will be of benefit:

- People using the VPN server (either Asus's PPTP, or Tomato/A-M OpenVPN)
- People with a lot of clients sharing files over USB
- People who can't use HW acceleration because they use QoS. (lack of HW acceleration drops max WAN speed from 700+ Mbps to around 150 Mbps on an RT-N66U, about 240 Mbps on an RT-AC56U).

Note that the R6250 does not have both CPU cores enabled, so it's not a good test case.. No idea about the DLink/Linksys products.

I can see in the latest FW code I got from Asus last week that they are making efforts to specifically optimize the FW for taking advantage of the two CPU cores.

The faster CPU will not have a big impact on your actual wireless performance, but it will have a measurable effect for people heavily using a shared USB disk or using features that disables HW acceleration.

Netgear specifically states on their site that the R6250 has a dual core cpu.

'The dual-core 800 MHz processor delivers high-performance connectivity'

Maybe the other core comes online under heavy load only?

No. It was deliberately disabled by them. I got confirmation of it from an inside source.

Same thing with the missing 128 MB of RAM - router should have 256 MB, but Netgear only enabled the first 128 MB.

29/06/2013

Under a week's time since his ASUS RT-AC56U 3.0.0.4.372.30 beta 2 firmware, RMerlin has released his 3.0.0.4.372.30 beta 3. Numerous bugs fixes are done @ nvram level and by far it's the most comprehensive customised next generation Broadcom dual core ARM Cortex A9 DDWRT firmware.



As we are kinda running out of bugs to find so the next stage for us to correlate stability tests and results.

IPv6 6to4

I was sidetracked in trying out the IPv6 6to4 using HE tunnelbroker on SingTel Fiber as well

 

[maylyn]

Understanding the ASUS RT-AC56U

Some understanding on what is used in the manufacturing of the ASUS RT-AC56U

Front and Back





~ World's first router with shielding around the USB 3.0 port (noise) to reduce interference on WiFi 2.4GHz

Reference ~ USB 3.0* Radio Frequency Interference on 2.4 GHz Devices

~ Utilizing the latest generation Broadcom BCM4708A0 (800 MHz) ARM Cortex A9 dual core processor
~ 256MB RAM
~ 128MB Flash
~ Broadcom BCM43217 2x2 802.11b/g/n transceiver (2.4GHz)
~ Broadcom BCM4352 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac transceiver (5GHz)
~ First ASUS router to utilize the Dockon high efficiency compound CPL antenna design to provide greater efficiency, better gain and reduce interference.
~ Explicit Beamforming

 

[maylyn]

Raw Power

Raw Power

What can you expect out of an ARM A9 dual-core CPU?

OpenVPN throughput benchmark:
iperf -c 10.16.0.1 -M 1400 -N -l 64K -t 30

The iperf and OpenVPN servers were on the router, and clients were a Win7 laptop connected to the WAN port.

RT-AC66U (FW 3.0.0.4.270.25):
AES-128-CBC [152]  0.0-30.0 sec  79.5 MBytes  22.2 Mbits/sec

RT-AC56U
AES_128-CBC [156]  0.0-30.0 sec    217 MBytes  60.7 Mbits/sec

For OpenVPN, this router is a beast

Here's the raw OpenSSL performance. openssl speed test:

RT-AC66U:
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-128 cbc       9398.56k     9941.17k    10138.71k    10195.09k    10234.54k

RT-AC56U (with ARM ASM optimizations backported from OpenSSL 1.0.1):
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-128 cbc      25596.63k    28151.82k    29251.64k    29363.88k    29587.09k

That's right. OpenSSL raw performance is nearly 3x faster on the RT-AC56U.

 

[maylyn]

ASUS USB-AC56U USB 3.0

RMerlin's ASUS RT-AC56U USB 3.0 results

Tonight I did a few file transfer benchmarks (over Samba). The results are quite nice.

I copied a 1.2 GB video to, and from a USB 3.0 disk plugged to the router. The disk is a pretty standard 750 GB laptop HDD inside a 2.5" NexStar 3 enclosure. The disk was formatted as ext3. The client was a laptop using a gigabit cable plugged to a LAN port. The speed as reported by Windows 7's copy dialog:

Write speed: 30 MB/s
Read speed: 50 MB/s

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting such a high read speed. The actual network throughput according to the System Monitor was around 450 Mbits throughout the read test.

 

[maylyn]

Raw Speedtest with HW acceleration disabled

Enough of RMerlin references for now, people will be thinking i'm plagiarizing RMerlin's work as mine, which I never have done so and don't even need to do so so why do i reference to RMerlin's results is to show what the ASUS RT-AC56U is capable of in other aspects and functionality which some and others don't even use it at all.

Some of the local speedtest results with HW acceleration disabled, running IPv6 services will disabled Broadcom HW acceleration, it's designed in the way, so i have been told. Another reason why i do this to show that Broadcom BCM4708A0 is capable of running top speeds despite HW acceleration is off.

SingTel Fiber 200Mbps with IPv6 running

SGIX



SingTel



ViewQwest



Results have shown ASUS RT-AC56U is more than capable > 200Mbps without HW acceleration.

 

[maylyn]

DUAL WAN

Here comes the next phase of testing

DUAL WAN

Some teasers

 

[Arrow32]

So generally the AC56U wireless signal is stronger and faster than AC66U?

Then it makes no reason to get AC66U as its more expensive..

 

[maylyn]

So generally the AC56U wireless signal is stronger and faster than AC66U?

Then it makes no reason to get AC66U as its more expensive..

Can you define your wireless signal is stronger = coverage better? (full WiFi bars?)

As for WiFi coverage, the ASUS RT-AC56U is comparable to the ASUS RT-AC66U but the ASUS RT-AC66U has better wireless transfer rate due to the fact it's a 3T/3R AC router and the ASUS RT-AC56U is only a 2T/2R AC router.

If you are referring what the model that succeed the ASUS RT-AC66U, it's the upcoming ASUS RT-AC68U.

 

[benzene55]

Unfortunately majority of the clients in my house are still N supporting 5ghz with 3x3 adapter. So only beneficial when using a 3T3R router, looks like AC56U is a pass for me.

Meanwhile, have heard some news of AC68U having teething issues with unstable connection when a tester by the name of la*****e tested it. I wonder if he is who I think he is.

 

[maylyn]

Unfortunately majority of the clients in my house are still N supporting 5ghz with 3x3 adapter. So only beneficial when using a 3T3R router, looks like AC56U is a pass for me.

Meanwhile, have heard some news of AC68U having teething issues with unstable connection when a tester by the name of la*****e tested it. I wonder if he is who I think he is.

Hmm.... where is your source from? does this tester la*****e has access to the physical ASUS RT-AC68U? hehe

RMerlin and myself are still awaiting for our development ASUS RT-AC68U to come from ASUS HQ soon.

As for the teething issues with unstable connection, i can't confirm or concur anything as we are bound with NDA on testing observations and results

 

[maylyn]

ASUS RT-AC56U

Bringing out my smart Gigabit switch (Cisco SG200-08) for some new tests pairing with the ASUS RT-AC56U





Have gotten a lot of more of these Buffalo CAT 6 flat cables as well new revision (break-proof latching tab)



Speed test on single fiber connection, looking so good

 

[maylyn]

ASUS RT-AC56U AiCloud function

ASUS AiCloud function

Setting up a cloud disk and sharing is easier than before You can remote back to access stuffs/documents without having switching on your PC, just need to hook a USB hard disk to the ASUS router and some easy 1-2-3 configuration and that's it

Setting up

Just need to plug in a USB hard disk to the ASUS RT-AC56U USB port 2.0/USB port 3.0.

For this illustration, I'm plugging my USB hard disk to the USB 2.0 port.



The ASUS RT-AC56U is able to detect the USB hard disk is shown on the network map.



Proceed to WAN tab ~> DDNS to setup the DDNS service, there is a list of DDNS service providers to choose from



Next, go to AiCloud tab, to enable cloud disk, smart access, smart sync or all if needed, various functions are all self-explanatory.



Next, go to the USB applications to set up your shares.



After this, you are done with setting up

 

[maylyn]

ASUS RT-AC56U AiCloud function

I'm going to copy some music video files from my SSD to the USB hard disk, transferring speed is 20+MB/s. Looking good



Enter the DDNS url on your browser, it will display as follows or alternatively, you can download the ASUS AiCloud app from Google Play or Apple appstore for your smartphones and tablets.



Playing the music video file

 

[ArcticCheetah]

Seriously?
Is that the best you can do?
Britney Spears?