Linksys EA8500 MaxStream AC2600 MU-MIMO Smart Wi-Fi router: Heralding a new Wi-Fi era

MU-MIMO is here

We are entering an exciting age in Wi-Fi technology and the newest and most important abbreviation you need to know is MU-MIMO or Multiple-user Multiple Input Multiple Output. It’s a new technology that can improve overall wireless network performance and it does so by transmitting data to multiple devices at one time (more on this below).

Actually, MU-MIMO routers are not entirely new. The first wave of AC2350 and AC2400 routers were all advertised as MU-MIMO ready. Why “ready?” That’s because while the hardware supported MU-MIMO, the firmware wasn’t yet ready as there was a lack of compatible devices in the market. Routers like the ASUS RT-AC87U as well as the Linksys EA8350 were technically capable of supporting this new tech. However, even until now, the firmware to enable MU-MIMO support is still not ready for prime time.

On the other hand, the latest Linksys EA8500 MaxStream AC2600 MU-MIMO Smart Wi-Fi router (a veritable mouthful and therefore known simply as the Linksys EA8500 from this point on) suffers from none of those problems. In fact, it is the first consumer router in the world to ship with support for MU-MIMO technology right out of the box.

MU-what?

Before discussing the Linksys EA8500, it is first necessary to talk about MU-MIMO. It’s a topic we covered in our guide to wireless 802.11ac networking, but it is worth going over again here. In any case, you should also check out the guide to get up to speed on all the latest developments in the wireless technology space.

Let’s start from the very top. MIMO refers to Multiple Input Multiple Output and refers to the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitting and receiving ends to improve wireless performance. Using multiple antennas to transmit and receive data improves reliability and speed. And today, all modern wireless devices make use of MIMO. This is why you sometimes see routers or client devices being referred to as 1x1 or 2x2 or even 3x3 devices. The first number denotes the number of transmitting antennas, while the second refers to the number of receiving antennas. For the most part, most routers and client devices use a symmetrical design.

However, the next part is unknown to most users and it deals with how most routers in the market today work. The vast majority of routers in the market in the market today are SU-MIMO only or Single-user Multiple Input Multiple Output. As hinted by the name, SU-MIMO technology can only transmit to a single user at a time. This is why performance degrades rapidly as more and more devices are connected to the router. The router has to quickly serve one device and go on to the next, and if there are many devices connected, the “waiting time” is increased.

As you can probably see, this severely limits the performance of the router. Take for example the following devices:

• The Linksys EA8500 router  (4x4 device, supporting four streams and a maximum of 1733Mbps on the 5GHz band)
• A handphone (1x1 device, supporting a single stream and therefore a maximum of 433Mbps on the 5GHz band)
• A tablet (1x1 device, supporting a single stream and therefore a maximum of 433Mbps on the 5GHz band)
• A notebook (2x2 device, support two streams and therefore a maximum of 867Mbps on the 5GHz band)

Because SU-MIMO technology restricts transmission to a single device at any one time, the Linksys EA8500 router without support for MU-MIMO would only be able to transmit 433Mbps when it is time to transmit data to the handphone or tablet, which also means that the remaining bandwidth goes to waste. Likewise, when transmitting to the notebook, the remaining 867Mbps is unused even if theoretically there is sufficient bandwidth for additional devices. This becomes even more damning when more and more devices are added to the network, as the length of time of time it takes to complete a full cycle and serve all devices becomes longer.

This is where MU-MIMO comes in and you will soon see how it is a significant step forward in wireless technology. Using the same devices above as an example, MU-MIMO allows the router to transmit data to multiple devices as well - hence the “MU” or Multi-user. What this means for the Linksys EA8500 MU-MIMO-enabled router is that it can make full use of its 1733Mbps bandwidth to transmit data to the handphone, tablet and notebook simultaneously with no need for waiting in between.

The technology is promises to greatly improve overall performance, but biggest downside to MU-MIMO is that it requires clients to support it too, and it is not just a matter of a simple patch or firmware update. This means that few existing devices will support MU-MIMO unless they were already equipped with the latest wireless adapters. Some examples of devices that claim to support MU-MIMO at this point are Xiaomi’s Mi 4i smartphone and Acer’s new E series notebooks.

The Linksys EA8500 router

At first glance, the new Linksys EA8500 router bears more than just a passing resemblance to the older E8350 router. Indeed, their cases are almost identical, with the only notable differences being the EA8500’s considerably larger antennas, all-black design and lighted Linksys logo on the front panel that serves as a rudimentary status indicator.

Like the E8350, the EA8500’s chassis is a potpourri of holes and vents. And like the E8350, the EA8500 router looks a little boring and dull, especially when compared to routers like the D-Link DIR-890L router and even Linksys’ own WRT routers like the recent Linksys WRT1200AC router. Its looks really doesn't hint at the cutting-edge wireless technology that it possesses. However, it is rather compact and takes up a slightly smaller footprint than most of the new high-end routers that we see today.

Behind the Linksys EA8500 router, users will find the usual assortment of ports that are on all high-end Linksys routers. There’s a single Gigabit Ethernet WAN port and four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports as well as a single USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0/eSATA combo port. There’s also a button that lets users instantly turn off the wireless network and also two other buttons for WPS setup and for router reset.

Inside, the Linksys EA8500 shares the same processor as the E8350, namely the 1.4GHz dual-core Qualcomm IPQ8064. It also has the same 512MB of RAM and 128MB of flash. However, instead of Quantenna’s QSR 1000 chipset, the EA8500 router uses Qualcomm’s QCA9980 MU | EFX chipset on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios. This new chipset supports up to four spatial streams on both frequency bands, thus enabling up to 800Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 1733Mbps on the 5GHz band. More importantly, this is the first chipset to support MU-MIMO technology out of the box.

The Linksys EA8500 is branded as a Smart Wi-Fi router and so features Linksys’ Smart Wi-Fi user interface and software stack. We have mentioned previously that this is arguably the most user-friendly setup interface in the market and that has not changed. If you have used any other Linksys Smart Wi-Fi router before, you’ll know what to expect. For those unfamiliar with Smart Wi-Fi, it offers a good balance of ease of use and control, and offers features such as traffic monitoring, QoS, parental control, cloud storage and more. A lot of thought has gone into the design and an example would be Linksys’ QoS management system, which gives users the option to prioritize connections based on devices as opposed to simply just specifying applications and the ports they use. This is both easier and considerably more practical for most users, and is something that we are seeing rival router companies beginning to implement in their own setup user interfaces.

Linksys' Smart Wi-Fi also lets you remotely control and access your router. This can be done in two ways: via the Smart Wi-Fi app that is available for free on both iOS and Android, or online through the Smart Wi-Fi portal. Both will let you remotely control and edit your router settings, change passwords, enable Parental Control, view IP cameras and even access content on external storage devices connected to the router. This can be useful especially if you need to troubleshoot your home network or even change its security settings while you are away.

On paper, MU-MIMO looks mighty promising and could have the potential to greatly improve our wireless networking experience. But does it fulfill on its promise? We tell you in the next page!

Test setup

Our routine test setup includes a desktop PC, the reviewed router, and a laptop to simulate a wireless home network. The desktop system takes on the role of a host machine, while the router acts as a gateway. And lastly, an external Wireless 802.11ac adapter attached to the notebook is used to fulfill the role of a wireless remote client. The router is locked down in N-only mode for the 2.4GHz band, and 802.11ac for the 5GHz band, mainly to prevent the use of varying 802.11 standards. Typically, a channel bandwidth of 40MHz is selected where applicable, while 80MHz is used for the 5GHz AC band.

We'll be using Netgear's A6200 802.11ac USB adapter for our throughput tests to reduce the number of variables involved. The Netgear A6200 USB adapter supports up to two spatial streams for a maximum data transfer rate of 867Mbps - the maximum for USB adapters currently. Hence, if your system has a more advanced wireless chipset that supports three spatial streams, you can expect even higher speeds.

To evaluate, we will be using a mix of synthetic benchmarks and real-world testing. The synthetic benchmark we are using is called LAN Speed Test. As for real-world testing, we will be measuring the routers’ speeds in transferring a 1GB zip file. We will do multiple tests at different distances to simulate use around a typical home. For the 5GHz band, we also measured how performance is affected if two clients are connected and uploading and downloading data at the same time. Here are the test distances we used and what they represent.

• 2m - Right beside the router.
• 5m - In the adjacent room.
• 13m - In the room opposite.
• 17m - To simulate extreme distances

An important thing to note is that we will be steadily phasing out 2.4GHz testing from our benchmarks. For one, 802.11ac is now being widely supported by most if not all mobile devices. If your device supports 802.11ac, it makes absolutely no sense to connect to the router via the slower and more congested 2.4GHz band. Speaking of congestion, our test environment currently has no less than 19 different 2.4GHz networks being broadcasted. The amount of noise and interference makes it very difficult for us to properly evaluate 2.4GHz performance. As such, we'll only be presenting performance from the 5GHz band.

Important additional test

Since MU-MIMO only works with clients with compatible MU-MIMO adapters, we are including additional tests using three specially prepared notebooks outfitted with Qualcomm’s QCA9377 1x1 MU-MIMO adapter (single stream and up to 433Mbps). We will first test transfers speeds using a single notebook and then with two and finally all three notebooks simultaneously. If MU-MIMO works as advertised then what we should see is that transfer speeds should not differ greatly whether the router is transmitting to only a single device or three. Since the Linksys EA8500 router supports up to four spatial streams, it has more than sufficient bandwidth for these three notebooks and their single stream Wi-Fi adapters. But of course, this is all theory. As we all know, networking performance in practice is often far from theoretical ideal - the environment and positioning of the notebooks can all affect performance. For this test, we placed the three notebooks at a range of about 2m in front of the router and in a fan shape, to keep the distance of the notebooks from the router equidistant.

Performance analysis

The Linksys EA8500’s results on LAN Speed Test were very encouraging and we saw a marked improvement over the older Linksys E8350 router. Uplink speeds were generally very high and also comparable against the current crop of high-end routers. Performance dipped quite considerably at our longest test range of 17m, but that’s in keeping with other routers as well so there’s no need to be alarmed.

Downlink speeds were good too, but not as strong as consistent as some other routers here. For example, its performance at 5m was a little underwhelming. At 5m, the Linksys EA9200 and WRT1900AC routers outperformed the EA8500 router by 10% to 20%, which is significant. At 17m, the Linksys WRT1900AC router was faster by around 19%.

File transfer speeds were generally quite impressive, especially at closer ranges. However, speeds dropped quite steeply when we got up to 17m. We calculated a performance drop of around 35%, which was one of the highest amongst the router.

In our performance load test, where we downloaded data simultaneously using two notebooks from our host computer, the Linksys EA8500 managed a speed of 72.73Mbps, which was about the same as the other dual-band routers that we see here. Bear in mind that our notebooks were not MU-MIMO compatible, we are not expecting to see any boost in performance. Obviously, it was no match for tri-band routers, which could dedicate individual 5GHz networks to the two notebooks.

As we expected, there was hardly any difference in performance when there was only a single client on the network. With two clients simultaneously downloading data, we can see that although performance took a serious dip, it could have been worse if we had not enabled MU-MIMO. Performance with MU-MIMO enabled is up by around 35%. Even though this was far from ideal, it still marks a significant improvement in performance. With three client devices, we saw performance drop even further. But again, greater speeds were achieved when MU-MIMO was enabled - up to 24%, which is again a considerable amount. 

To jump on the MU-MIMO bandwagon or not?

Who would have thought that you could use the word “exciting” and “exhilarating” to describe routers? But that’s exactly the case with Linksys’ new EA8500 router. Even though the Linksys EA8500 might not look like much, it is one of the most important routers to hit the stands in a long time thanks to its support for MU-MIMO. While 802.11ac helped double theoretical data transfer rates, MU-MIMO has the potential to have the same impact by significantly improving the way in which routers communicate to its connected clients.

Looking at the performance figures here, there’s no doubting that the Linksys EA8500 is one speedy router. While performance was generally good, we found its downlink speeds to be a bit shaky and inconsistent when compared to other routers of similar standing. Its performance at our extreme test range of 17m was also not as strong as other routers. As for MU-MIMO, it did deliver some boost in performance, but they were not as great as we had hoped. Still, the 20% to 35% bump in performance that we saw is certainly substantial and should not be scoffed at, especially in our noisy test environment.

Excellent performance aside, we also applaud Linksys for its robust and easy to use Smart Wi-Fi user interface and software. We mentioned this many times before, but its worth repeating here that the Smart Wi-Fi interface is arguably the most considered and user-friendly router setup interface in the market. User-friendliness aside, it also has a wealth of useful features including remote management, basic cloud storage functionality and more.

At S$399, the Linksys EA8500 is a pricey router, and it matches other premium high-end routers from competitors like the ASUS RT-AC87U and the D-Link DIR-890L, just to name a few. It is also identically priced to another high-end Linksys router, the EA9200. The two are fine routers that offer very high levels of performance and because both support Linksys Smart Wi-Fi, they have identical features too. To decide on which high-end router is right for you, the question to consider is if should you buy into MU-MIMO technology now.

The biggest problem with recommending the EA8500 router is that the advantage of MU-MIMO can only be fully realized with the right compatible devices. And as of today, there aren’t many of these around. As a result, you probably won’t be able to maximize the full performance capability of the EA8500 with the devices you have right now. However, according to reports and people we spoke to, there should be no doubt that we will see more devices supporting MU-MIMO in the very near future. In that case, the EA8500 router can be regarded as the future-proofing route.

As for the EA9200 router, it features technology that works right here and now, and it is pretty effective to boot. Furthermore with its additional third network, it certainly has much better capacity, in comparison to regular dual-band routers, to handle the needs of today’s increasing connected homes.

If you already have an AC2400-class router, then there’s no real need to upgrade at all as AC2400 routers will support MU-MIMO at some point, pending firmware updates from their respective manufacturers. One advantage the Linksys EA8500 has over these routers is faster performance on the 2.4GHz network over the older 802.11n standard - which isn’t really worth the trouble since there’s hardly any device out there which can maximize the full 800Mbps capability of the EA8500’s 2.4GHz band.

To sum up, the Linksys EA8500 represents the very cutting-edge of wireless technology and comes highly recommended for enthusiasts who demand the latest and the very best. For others, the Linksys EA8500 is still worthy of consideration, but don’t forget that there are also AC3200 class routers out there can also significantly and immediately help improve your wireless performance especially if you have many connected devices.

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