Linksys WRT1200AC AC1200 Dual-band Smart Wi-Fi Router - A premium AC1200 class router

Making a case for AC1200 routers

If there was ever such a thing has an iconic router, the Linksys WRT54G router from 2002 would be a top contender. The WRT54G also happens to be one of the best-selling routers of all time, having shipped over 50 million units in the past 13 years. Today, Linksys continues to manufacture and sell a variant of it called the WRT54GL.

Early last year at CES 2014, Linksys, under the new ownership of Belkin, revived the WRT line with the WRT1900AC router. It was a stunning router, offering retro good looks, ease of use, and stellar performance.

And at CES 2015 early this year, Linksys followed up with another WRT-class router, this time the WRT1200AC, a dual-band AC1200 router. An AC1200 router? Why not an AC2400 or even AC3200 class router? Surely the WRT name should offer blistering performance, so why a router that offers “only” up to 1200Mbps of throughput?

There are two reasons to this. To begin, Linksys explained that they will only release a WRT router when the technology has matured. And for them, they view AC2400 and AC3200 as emerging technologies that require time to mature and further fine-tune. There’s some truth to that. For example, there is still a serious lack of compatible 4x4 clients that can fully maximize the performance potential of AC2400 class routers.

The second reason is that most 802.11ac compatible clients (smartphones, tablets and notebooks) in the market right now only support one or two spatial streams, which means they cannot maximize the performance potential of even AC1750 and AC1900 class routers. And these routers have been in the market for years!

For example, modern notebooks such as the Dell XPS 13 and high-end gaming notebooks like the Aftershock W-15 and the MSI GT80 2EQ Titan SLI have Wi-Fi adapters that support only two streams and hence a maximum throughput of 867Mbps on the 5GHz band - which is exactly what the Linksys WRT1200AC offers. To date, the only notebook that we have tested that has a Wi-Fi adapter that support three spatial streams and 1300Mbps data transfer rates is the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Additionally, remember in our guide to 802.11ac networking we touched on congestion caused by multiple devices? This is because routers today only support SU-MIMO (Single User Multiple Input Multiple Output) can only serve a single device at any one time. This means performance is ultimately dependent on two things: client compatibility (i.e. number of streams) and the number of devices connected to the network.  Of course, all of this changes when talking about MU-MIMO routers, but that technology, which is built into all AC2400 class routers, is not ready yet. And sure, an AC1900 or higher class router can offer more in terms of redundancy of signals even when compared with single or dual stream clients, but this should only come into play at extreme ranges or if your environment is "noisy" and saturated with signals from neighboring Wi-Fi networks. In all, what we are saying is that unless you have a 3x3 client, you will not be missing out much on performance when using an AC1200 class router.

The Linksys WRT1200AC router

On the outside, the Linksys WRT1200AC is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the WRT1900AC router from last year. The WRT1200AC router has the same stackable design as the WRT1900AC router that is inspired by the WRT54G of old. It also has identical colors and even LED status indicators. The only meaningful difference between the two is the number of external antennas - the WRT1200AC has two whereas the WRT1900AC has four.

Round the rear, the WRT1200AC router has the same ports and connections as the WRT1900AC router. There’s a single Gigabit WAN port and four Gigabit LAN ports, a single USB 3.0 port, and an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port. There’s also a reset button and a WPS setup button.

Underneath, the WRT1200AC router is powered by Marvell’s latest ARM-based dual-core Armada 385 SoC that runs at 1.3GHz. Linksys informed us that this is a more powerful processor than the 1.2GHz Marvell Armada MV78230 SoC in the older WRT1900AC router. It also runs cooler, so there's no need for fans like the WRT1900AC router has. Radio duties are handled by the Marvell 88W8864 chipset with support for two spatial streams. This means data transfer rates of up to 867Mbps on the 5GHz band and 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz band.

The WRT1200AC also gets a whopping amount of RAM, 512MB to be exact, the most we have seen in any consumer router and double that of the WRT1900AC router. Finally, the WRT1200AC router has 128MB of onboard flash, identical to the WRT1900AC router and sufficient for whatever custom firmware you might want to load onto the router.

The WRT1200AC router comes with Linksys’ Smart Wi-Fi user interface, which is, in our opinion, one of the most user-friendly and powerful setup interfaces. As we have mentioned in previous reviews of Linksys’ Smart Wi-Fi routers, the interface is easy to navigate and use. For example, the QoS management system lets users prioritize connections based on devices as opposed to specifying ports and applications, which is considerably more practical and easy.

Linksys also offers upgrades to the user interface and the latest updates sees improvements to the main menu options, better device recognition for the network map (a nifty utility that quickly gives you an overview of all devices connected to the router), and support for OpenVPN, which can be used to give you direct access to your router for remote management without the need of going through Linksys’ services. Of course, for most regular users, you can still remotely manage your router by using Linksys’ Smart Wi-Fi app (available free for both iOS and Android) or simply by logging on to the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi portal.

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.

Here is a graphical representation of our network test setup.

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.

5GHz Performance

Thus far, we have only reviewed AC1900, AC2400 and AC3200 class routers. So for comparison sake, we have tested and included results of the D-Link DIR-860L router, an AC1200 class router with similar specifications.

As we had predicted, close range uplink performance of the WRT1200AC router at 2 meters was competitive and comparable to faster routers such as the ASUS RT-AC68U and RT-AC87U. Downlink performance at 2 meters was good too, but a little underwhelming, as it trailed by roughly 5%. As we moved further out, the performance of the WRT1200AC router started dipping much more drastically than other faster class routers. However, it maintained a small lead over the comparable D-Link DIR-860L router. At the farther ranges of 13 and 17 meters, the WRT1200AC router held a good lead of about 15% over the DIR-860L router.

The WRT1200AC router’s file transfer performance was impressive. At 2 and 5 meters it recorded speeds that were comparable to other faster routers such as the Linksys EA9200 and WRT1900AC and was faster than even the AC2400 ASUS RT-AC87U. However, speeds started dipping quite considerably at 13 and 17 meters. Overall, it was comfortably quicker than the D-Link DIR-860L router.

The speedy 1.3GHz processor of the WRT1200AC router proved to be useful in our performance load test. Its recorded speed of 81.63Mbps was higher than other supposedly faster routers such as the Linksys WRT1900AC and ASUS RT-AC87U. However, it was no match for the Linksys EA9200 router, which is a tri-band router designed specifically to stream to multiple devices quickly.

A pricey and niche AC1200 router

Linksys’ decision to have an AC1200 class router is an odd one, but as our results show, unless you have a compatible 3x3 client, you will not be missing out much on performance. In close ranges and up to around 13 meters, our results show that the WRT1200AC router is capable of keeping up with faster AC1900, AC2400 and AC3200 class routers. It was also comfortably quicker than the comparable AC1200 D-Link DIR-860L router, and its fast processor means that it is slightly more adept than its rivals at serving multiple devices at once. Nevertheless, performance did drop quite drastically at farther ranges, which is expected for a router of its class. But note also that our test environment is fairly noisy.

Fine performance aside, the WRT1200AC router also benefits from having Linksys’ robust and excellent Smart Wi-Fi user interface and software. This means the router is easy to setup and manage and also boasts of many other useful features such as remote management, cloud storage functionality and support for OpenVPN.

For those who are tech-savvy, the WRT1200AC router is also customizable by way of open source firmware that can be downloaded from the OpenWRT and DD-WRT communities. For example, there’s a third-party firmware that incorporates ad-blocking functionality, so ads are blocked at the hardware level.

The biggest stumbling block for the WRT1200AC, however, is its price. With a recommended retail price of S$329, the WRT1200AC is easily the priciest AC1200 router in the market. Its closest rival in terms of price is probably ASUS’ RT-AC56U, but it costs only around S$209. The D-Link DIR-860L, which the WRT1200AC router is pitted against here, is much more affordable at S$169 - nearly half the price! And if you are willing to shop further, you can find AC1200 routers from as low as S$135.

In fact, if we take a step back and look at Linksys' other offerings, the AC1900 WRT1900AC and AC3200 EA9200 routers are only a little more at S$369 and S$399 respectively. At this price point, we would argue that stretching your budget for the AC3200 class EA9200 router is the wiser choice, especially if you have many wireless devices at home and if you are not sure if they support two or three spatial streams.

That said, the WRT1200AC router is not without its advantages. If you intend to use the router mainly through a wired connection, the WRT1200AC router offers an entry point to Linksys’ capable Smart Wi-Fi interface and support for open source firmware. Its fast processor and generous amount of RAM would also lend itself well to handling multiple Ethernet connections.

All in all, the WRT1200AC router is a niche router and only really applicable for users who know their devices well and have very specific requirements. Mainstream users who are unclear of their devices’ wireless specifications and want to support a higher number and wider range of devices should definitely look elsewhere - especially when considering this router's high price point.

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