Product Listing

ASUS RT-N56U Wireless-N Dual-Band Router - Bringing Sexy Back

By Andy Sim - 22 Nov 2010
Launch SRP: S$259

Performance - 5.0GHz

Chariot and QCheck Performance Testing

   
ASUS RT-N56U Performance Results - 5GHz Band
Average Downlink Throughput (Mbps) - Chariot Average Uplink Throughput (Mbps) - Chariot Downlink TCP Throughput of 1MB (Mbps) Uplink TCP Throughput of 1MB (Mbps) UDP Streaming (kbps) Time to transfer 1GB Zip file
2m

100.955

139.658 89.888 103.896 997.144 (0.0% loss) 1 min 43 seconds
10m
72.522 134.780 27.586 115.942 997.045 (0.0% loss) 1 min 12 seconds
25m
89.449  97.535  68.376  115.942  997.144 (0.0% loss) N.A.
2m with WPA2-AES
108.013 

140.517 

98.766  114.286  997.442 (0.0% loss) N.A.

When we first heard about ASUS' Ai Radar technology, we were a little doubtful if it was merely marketing speak or did the Taiwanese "directional transmission" technology really hold water. After giving the router a good shake up on Chariot and QCheck, however, it appears that higher signal gains and faster throughput speeds were indeed a possibility. With regards to data speeds, we rarely record more than 100Mbps during our real world tests, even with wireless-N routers. On the contrary, it appears that ASUS is going to break that mold with its solid performance quotient. If you could glance through our results above, the N56U did come up with better than decent data speeds, both, at close and long range. In fact, the relatively newer and tighter WPA2-AES encryption didn't seem to affect the router's performance as well. The only anomaly is downlink speeds recorded at 10 meters were significantly lower than the rest. What is most evident, realistically, is that the RT-N56U's upstream prowess on the 5GHz band is truly commendable amongst the current breed of wireless-N contenders.  

Judging from the Chariot graph for the 5GHz band, downstream throughput levels were more efficient at close range (2m), hovering between the 100 and 120 Mbps window mostly. However, the signal was visibly more prone to interference at a further range of 25m (green line). Transfer of a 1GB file was blistering fast at 72 seconds.

 The drop in uplink data speeds becomes apparent at 25 meters (purple line). Nonetheless, the router demonstrated stable and healthy throughput results throughout our tests.

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9.0
  • Design 9
  • Features 9
  • Performance 9
  • Value 8.5
The Good
Attractive Design
Simultaneous Dual Band
Feature-packed
Exemplary Performance On 5GHz
The Bad
Expensive
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