cable router/modem to take adv. of 500mbps line?

makeorbrake

A friend of mine abroad is in the fortunate position to have the use of a 500mbps synchronus cable broadband line. The best performance in terms of ping time is the most important factor to him.

How does he determine what is the best modem/router to use - that will not cause a bottleneck - and fully utilise the connection available to him?

The Jester

He'll need a few things.

- A Gigabit LAN port on his PC
- A Gigabit Router ( With Wifi-N if he does use wifi, and a Wifi-N card in said device)
- His Cable Modem would have to have a gigabit port
- CAT6 Ethernet Cable All round.



I have all of this, but I only have a 7Mb connect

makeorbrake

Thanks for the info Jester. This is the router they have supplied him with - so I guess in the first instance, this is not optimal as it doesn't have gigabit ports.
I see you mentioned cat6. Whats the upper threshold of cat5?

bhickey

To be honest, no "consumer router" will be able to route at that speed no matter what type of ports it has. Just to route and NAT (plus any other firewall functions that are required) at that speed would require something much more upmarket. I've never personally had a connection remotely near this speed so sorry but I cant actually recomend any make/model in particular.

Cabling will be critical if 500Mbps is to be delivered to every device on the LAN. It's easy to say thet CATx will deliver a certain speed but reality rarely matches the maximum theoretical speeds.

The Jester

This Router.

http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/product/14_ROUTER/18_NETWORK/ZKB_01COM/productdetails/20000107/NETGEAR_RangeMax_Dual_Band_Wireless_N_Gigabit/WNDR3700_100PES/default.aspx

A few of these cables.

http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_01COM/12_CABLES/14_NET_UTP/productdetails/15119805/Patch_Cable_UTP_CAT6_Grey_1m/C6_155GY_1MB/default.aspx

This NIC Since you said about latency.

http://www.dabs.com/products/killer-2100-bigfoot-networks-pro-gaming-network-card-73VZ.html

And if hes really interest a Wifi-N Adaptor for a laptop or whatever.

http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_01COM/18_NETWORK/12_NIC/productdetails/80000296/Belkin_N_WIRELESS_USB_ADAPTER/F5D8053DF/default.aspx

Since this is all good quality kit it should be able to handle the 500Meg without too much hassle.

Also the CAT6 is rated at 1Gbps so it should also be fine, CAT5e can do 1Gbps but it rarely gets there.

bhickey

The Jester wrote: »

This Router.

http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/product/14_ROUTER/18_NETWORK/ZKB_01COM/productdetails/20000107/NETGEAR_RangeMax_Dual_Band_Wireless_N_Gigabit/WNDR3700_100PES/default.aspx

Sorry Jester but the request was "what is the best modem/router to use - that will not cause a bottleneck - and fully utilise the connection available to him?". This router will not come anywhere close to handling a 500Mbps WAN connection. As for wireless - forget it as any connection expecting to pass 500Mbps will have to be cabled.

makeorbrake

@the jester and bhickey: thanks to you both for your comments.

Just to clarify - the most important thing here is minimising latency. There will be very little traffic as such but its important to achieve optimal ping time.

Given that we are talking about a scenario with very light traffic otherwise, should he still get cat6 cable?
Otherwise, gigabit ethernet cards for sure.

As regards wireless, thats not important. Its the speed of the wired connection thats vital. Does this change the choice of router?

The Jester

Sorry I pasted the wrong router link.

http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_01COM/18_NETWORK/14_ROUTER/productdetails/15494130/D_Link_Wireless_N_Storage_Router_DIR_685_/DIR_685_E/default.aspx

I own this router, and I can tell you that it can handle the bones of about 700Mbps, I have it hooked it up to my NAS, A server, and a HTPC, all linked together with CAT6.

Don't skimp on the cable, because it will make a difference to squeezing out the last few megs and save those last few ms of latency. :rolleyes:

makeorbrake

I know theres going to be a valid reasoning but have to ask...

Whats the difference between the cheapo 'gigabit' ethernet cards on ebay and the cards I see offered for €80-90 (such as the one in the link above)?

Just checking out that router on this router performance comparison site here. and it scores very well for throughput. One query though. One of the benchmarks here - is for maximum simultaneous connections.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding that fully. If you have an application that involves >200 'simultaneous connections' (my understanding of this phrase is 200 connected clients), the router will not function correctly, sub-optimally or will crash??