Not at all - at £449 we're at the very top end of consumer routers.At £449 we are at the very top end of routers, so much so in fact that there are very few we could find as alternatives that are priced this high.
Agree on strange choice using SFP+ on a 'gaming' router, only having one seems fine as it is unlikely any 'gaming' category consumer even really needs 10Gigabit speeds and if they do it will probably be for a single NAS, worst case bung a switch in. This router though is most certainly not something I would put in an SMB environment, I don't really even like using their managed switches unless the budget is tight!I'm struggling to see what the real value is in a single 10GbE port beyond being able to plaster it all over their marketing collateral. I'm even more surprised they went with SFP+ as opposed to 10Gbase-T or even 802.3bz
Not at all - at £449 we're at the very top end of consumer routers.
At this price point, not acknowledging that this puts potential buyers amongst SMB gear is a fairly big omission IMO.
IMO the key benefit of 10Gb in a home environment is the point-to-point speed. Even if you plumb a NAS into your 10Gb, you're still unlikely to getting more than a gigabit-plus-change out of it. An extra 1Gb port with LACP support would be of equal or greater value to the user - but not to the marketer.Agree on strange choice using SFP+ on a 'gaming' router, only having one seems fine as it is unlikely any 'gaming' category consumer even really needs 10Gigabit speeds and if they do it will probably be for a single NAS, worst case bung a switch in.
Oh for sure not. Not within a mile of SMB.This router though is most certainly not something I would put in an SMB environment, I don't really even like using their managed switches unless the budget is tight!
Or even better buy the Netgear R9000 for £340 - which is exactly the same as the XR700 hardware wise but without the “gaming features “, load third party firmware such as DD-WRT Or Voxel firmware on the R9000, and you have a powerful router with very slick and advanced firmware which lets you do a zillion and one thingsWhat I mean is, instead of spanking nigh-on-£500 for this to use at home, the potential buyer would be wise to consider SMB alternatives.
Point to point with what? If it is another NAS or whatever then this probably wouldn't be the target audience for this router or you'd have a switch seperately to connect your other devices.IMO the key benefit of 10Gb in a home environment is the point-to-point speed. Even if you plumb a NAS into your 10Gb, you're still unlikely to getting more than a gigabit-plus-change out of it. An extra 1Gb port with LACP support would be of equal or greater value to the user - but not to the marketer.
Point to point between a client and a NAS, pretty much the only place 10Gbit speeds are actually useful in the standard home, or at least the sort of home that's likely to consider a £450 router - which is why the inclusion of just one 10Gb port on this has severely limited value. It's not like you're going to have multiple clients really hammering it to even start to touch the sides of that one 10Gb pipe.Point to point with what? If it is another NAS or whatever then this probably wouldn't be the target audience for this router or you'd have a switch seperately to connect your other devices.
I would imagine the idea is that multiple connected devices could use up some of that bandwidth, I can't see why a gamer would need to have that kind of bandwidth between them and their NAS.Point to point between a client and a NAS, pretty much the only place 10Gbit speeds are actually useful in the standard home, or at least the sort of home that's likely to consider a £450 router - which is why the inclusion of just one 10Gb port on this has severely limited value. It's not like you're going to have multiple clients really hammering it to even start to touch the sides of that one 10Gb pipe.
I would imagine the idea is that multiple connected devices could use up some of that bandwidth, I can't see why a gamer would need to have that kind of bandwidth between them and their NAS.
Nonsense.THE 10G SETUP YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR.
Finally, a router that you can use to create a perfect 10G gaming setup. Speed up the link between your router and gaming PC by up to 10 times faster when playing online
Indeed can't see the point of 10Gb, I wonder if the backplane could even handle 10Gb.h for sure not. Not within a mile of SMB.
What I mean is, instead of spanking nigh-on-£500 for this to use at home, the potential buyer would be wise to consider SMB alternatives.
What brand access point do you use on the ceiling? I'd never seen one pretty enough to put on the ceiling...?For most UK houses, a single AP on the ceiling of the hallway will get a signal to all rooms in the house with only 1 door/wall in the way. If you can get a CAT 6 cable in place for ethernet/POE you can just swap out the AP every 4-5 years as the standards change.
I've done this on my past 3 houses with a single Ubiquiti AP and get 200mbps+ everywhere. They cost ~ £70 and you can get TP link equivalents for about £35 if you don't need the management functionality of the Unifi gear.
"Pretty" is a stretch, but Ubiquiti Unifi APs are mainly inoffensive.What brand access point do you use on the ceiling? I'd never seen one pretty enough to put on the ceiling...?
This is the basic one - they make a long range version and a HD version with the latest standards as well (i've got the LR plus an AC Pro)What brand access point do you use on the ceiling? I'd never seen one pretty enough to put on the ceiling...?
Guessing it's got walls a metre thick or lots of floors? My place is 20m wide (1 story) and just one of them gives usable signal across the whole house, 2 gives strong signal everywhere (reasonable distance to the neighbours, so only see 2 other networks at the extreme ends of the house, no other networks in the middle).However I've found no fewer than three of them are needed to reach every nook and cranny in the house.
Three floors, the odd block wall internally, the rest cavity walls stuffed with insulation - not an idea environment for RF, but then houses tend not to be. I have one per floor in a roughly central position. The top ceiling-mounted AP could make a decent run at going solo for most of the house, but would leave some areas with single-mbit speeds and others with drop-offs, so the other two are excellent at filling those, getting 5GHz into more areas and spreading the load.Guessing it's got walls a metre thick or lots of floors? My place is 20m wide (1 story) and just one of them gives usable signal across the whole house, 2 gives strong signal everywhere (reasonable distance to the neighbours, so only see 2 other networks at the extreme ends of the house, no other networks in the middle).
Oh yes:Should there be any difference at all in a speedtest result depending ones modem/router setup?
I though that was purely dependant on, in my case, two bits of wet string going off into the ether