Linksys WRT32X-UK AC3200 Dual-Band Wi-Fi Gaming Router with Killer Prioritisation Engine

I bought this to use alongside a Netgear DM200 modem which I will talk about in a separate review. The Linksys WRT32X gets a lot of mixed reviews. It would seem to have a lot of good reviews on many tech sites, but actual customer reviews seem very mixed on Amazon. From my experience I was replacing a BT Smart Home Hub 6 which I had been using for my BT Infinity connection. The BT Hub 6 has been a reasonable performer but far from stellar. I had been experiencing a lot of connection drops and lacklustre wifi performance of late and decided that it just had to go. So my quest for a reasonably priced high performance router began.I stumbled upon the WRT32X whilst searching Amazon and immediately like it looks along with the greatly discounted price. On reading reviews it seemed a mix bag with most of the negatives criticizing the router firmware as just too basic and the positive ones hailing it as great when flashed with custom firmware OpenWRT being one mentioned a lot. I decided to take a risk and ordered it along with a modem as if you don’t already know this is a wifi router only and needs a separate modem to work.After setting up the modem I connected the Linksys WRT32X to the modem via its internet port and started the router up. The setup of the router can be performed either via a network cable straight into the router or by wifi using a temporary ssid and password that the router has from the factory. Setup was about 1o minutes only because I initially had one setting which I need to input alongside my PPOE login details and that was the VLAN ID.After this the router connected to my ISP and immediately started to download the latest firmware and update itself. After this I was able to login to the router and take a look at the settings. A lot of the more interesting settings are under Advanced settings but it’s all fairly rudimentary stuff. I’m not a router expert but most of my needs were met by stock firmware so I decided to not bother with flashing any custom firmware. The setting I was most interested in was device prioritization as I wanted my gaming machines at the top of the list. This was done quickly and saved to the routers settings. The ability to get better performance with Killer enabled laptops and PC’s is of no use to me as I have no such compatible devices in my house.Prior to my upgrade I would have got speed test results in the low 40 Mbps and latency was anywhere between 40 – 60 ms. My speeds were now 69 Mbps and latency was below 30 ms. This all seemed a bit too good to be true so I launched Origin on my gaming rig and started to download a game. Whilst viewing the router dashboard and watching my actual download speed from Origin I was amazed. Where I was before getting downloads at anywhere between 2 - 4 Mbs my download was hovering around 7.5 Mbs almost double. The throughput on the router dashboard was maxed and was showing 69 – 70 Mbps so this all looks in line with my download speed.With all the wireless devices from phones, tablets and Amazon Echo devices in my house at times the multiple connections can be up to 20 devices or more at a time and this router does not miss a beat. If you can’t already tell I am very pleased with this router and modem combo and would not hesitate in recommending it to a person like myself who just wants something that you plug in and works with a minimum of setup shenanigans.

I knew this router had no website blocking and that the "Killer Feature" was a load of crap. But the router is cheap.But I flashed OpenWRT as soon as I got it. I now have total control over it. And I can block sites :)To people who don't know. When you flash Openwrt and something goes wrong.Just turn on/off the router 3 times to get back to the original firmware that it came with.

This router is great and an absolute beast. Try finding a more powerful and efficient router for this price? I don't think you will. Also, this router is built with OpenWRT aftermarket software in mind, have any other routers been recently? No longer are you limited to stock, update-less firmwares. Using OpenWRT you can then use something called SQM - Smart queue management and you will never have to worry about lag or delays again (bufferbloat). To test for this, perform a speed test whilst pinging, say Google's DNS servers. With SQM the latency won't change. Without you're talking seconds of delay. OpenWRT is easy to flash and set-up if you just want to keep it as stock.Mine has been on for many months without a single issue, no memory leaks or high CPU use at all, at most so far around 0.3% CPU! Ok it was a bit of a learning curve to fully setup but worth it. Mine operates as a 24/7 NAS for multiple sources with multiple partitions. I tried 4 routers before this one (R7000, Asus, Superhub 2AC, Superhub 3), none were stable, some would even often crash or have other faults.The only issue with it is the WiFi range, I believe that the stock aerials are not very high gain, and I have actually experienced better WiFi performance from much cheaper routers. I'm tempted to knock a star off for this but I won't due to the overall value and firmware support. I understand that lower gain antennas are better for all round coverage, but I still find it poor and I don't find this is the case at all. 5dBi antennas seem to perform much better, even on different floors. Luckily you can easily swap the antennas, I am after some 5dBi ones now to replace the rubbish standard ones. Linksys offer some high gain antennas for this model, but I understand they are very high gain and too directional to one floor, they are also not far away from the cost of a whole new router, insane price!Edit:I am updating my review. The range is quite poor on this router on both 5GHz and 2.4GHz. The output power is at UK max and I have even tried 4 dual band 5dbi antennas. Sadly this is the only thing that lets it down. Otherwise very stable. Other far cheaper routers have covered the same areas no problem. Dropping to 3 stars from 5 but it's more 3.5...

First of all, let me say, that the 'Killer' prioritisation engine is not worth the paper it's written on. However, this device itself is awesome. I purchased this to replace my Virgin Superhub 3 as my wifi provider. Since Virgin rolled out their so-called 'intelligent' wifi, my signal and stability on the wifi has been absolutely atrocious. Continual drop outs, awful signal, awful speed etc. This box fixes all of that. I put the Superhub 3 into modem mode and got this bad boy put in to provide my wifi. Now my signal is much stronger, has further distance and the speeds are a LOT faster. This could also be to do with the fact that I can now actually select my own DNS servers. The Virgin Superhub wouldn't let you do this so you rely on Virgin's DNS servers which are not the greatest in my experience. I changed my DNS to the Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and my internet now works as I expect it to. Really pleased with this router. And a small but important thing, to me anyway, is this: From the admin panel, you can switch off all the annoying flashing lights on the front! It's nice for a vendor to actually think of these nice little touches. Very impressed.