Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 router review
Our Verdict
Netgear'due south Nighthawk XR1000 gaming router makes a good matter better with excellent speed, security and a slew of acme-shelf gaming enhancements. It may cost a lot, but it'southward more than than worth it for a serious gamer.
For
- Top Wi-Fi 6 performance at mid-range distances
- Includes malware protection
- Expert configuration options
- Summit gamer's tools and interface
Against
- No Multi-Gig input or port aggregation
- 90-day support policy and extra charge for security updates
- Expensive
Tom'due south Guide Verdict
Netgear'due south Nighthawk XR1000 gaming router makes a good thing better with fantabulous speed, security and a slew of top-shelf gaming enhancements. It may cost a lot, but it's more than worth it for a serious gamer.
Pros
- +
Top Wi-Fi six performance at mid-range distances
- +
Includes malware protection
- +
Good configuration options
- +
Top gamer'south tools and interface
Cons
- -
No Multi-Gig input or port assemblage
- -
90-day support policy and extra charge for security updates
- -
Expensive
Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 router: Specs
Wi-Fi Spec: AX5400
Number of Antennas/Removable: 9/No
Ports: i WAN/four LAN gigabit per second, USB 3
Processor/Memory/Storage: triple-core 1.5GHz/256MB/512MB
Wi-Fi flake: Broadcom BCM6750
Peak 802.11AX performance: 860.7Mbps (at 15 feet)
Range: 105 feet
Size: eleven.6 x 7.nine x two.five inches
Estimated Annual Electricity Cost: $7
If your router is not keeping up with your gaming abilities in the all-out battle for domination of the universe, the Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR1000might be able to lend a helping hand, as one of the best Wi-FI 6 routers and best gaming routers we've seen. Its high-throughput, low latency design can push the bytes across the earth to battle your worst enemy, still the Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 does without bandwidth expanding techniques, like Multi-Gig input or port aggregation output. It's not just a proficient gaming companion but 1 that provides protection against hackers, has lots of optimization tools and can customize the data stream and where it goes.
The Nighthawk XR1000 may be more expensive than most of the best Wi-Fi routers, lack some accoutrements gamers accept for granted and is a footling slower than the Asus RT-AX86U, but the XR1000 comes through when online battle begins.
Netgear Nighthawk XR1000: Design
The 3rd in a series of increasingly powerful gaming routers, the Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 follows in the footsteps of the Netgear Nighthawk XR500 and Netgear Nighthawk XR700 with lots of goodies for gamers. Blackness with orange grilles in front end and on top, the XR1000's front vent looks like a welcoming grinning.
Information technology has four antennas, a welcome change from the trend to use vi or eight antennas. The antennas, yet, are marked and need to be installed with corresponding ports on the back and side or the router volition not run properly. They can be rotated and aimed, if needed.
The angled router is meant to lay apartment. Underneath, the XR1000 has thick prophylactic feet and cutouts for wall mounting, so information technology's but equally happy on a table as hanging from a wall. At 11.6 x 7.9 x 2.5 inches, it'due south one half the size of the company's Nighthawk RAX80 and well-nigh 10 percent smaller than the TP-Link Archer AX6000. During testing, the router kept its cool, never getting above 93 degrees Fahrenheit.
Built around Broadcom'south BCM6750 chipset, the XR1000 has a triple-core processor that runs at 1.5GHz, along with 256MB of RAM and 512MB of storage for firmware, apps and settings. The emphasis is on creating a dual-band low-latency loftier-output router that sets upwards a dual-ring 802.11AX networks over 2.four- and 5GHz. It can tap into ultra-broad 160MHz data channels and MU-MIMO techniques for extra throughput while using the latest beamforming technology to customize the data stream for each receiver. Information technology has two lanes of data traffic that can movement upwards to 600Mbps in 2.4GHz mode also every bit four lanes and up to 4.8Gbps of bandwidth in 5GHz manner. It has an AX5400 rating.
In improver to its single input WAN port, the XR1000 has four downstream networking ports. That'southward four fewer than the eight networking ports that the AX6000 provides, so those with lots of online connections might want to get a networking switch. All the ports are capable of gigabit per second throughput but in that location's neither Multi-Gig input nor port aggregation available, fifty-fifty though the competing Asus RT-AX86U provides both for turbocharging online gaming.
In add-on to an on/off push and a recessed reset switch, the XR1000 has a USB 3 port for calculation an external hard drive to the network. Rather than looking like a traffic light with different colored LEDs, the XR1000 has small LEDs for power, Net connexion, wireless LAN action as well as data movement through its four wired Ethernet ports and USB port. There's besides a sedate white LED bar that shows everything is connected; information technology turns red when the Net connection is interrupted. The router has buttons for turning its Wi-Fi transmissions on or off besides as using the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) to quickly connect a client. Information technology's easy to turn the lights off birthday.
Similar many other Netgear products, the XR1000 comes with the company'southward Armor security software that includes Bitdefender's anti-malware apps. Information technology tin assistance protect your computers, phones and home automation devices, but Netgear merely includes updates for 30-days. Later on that, it costs $70 a year, compared to Asus'southward free updates for the AiProtection Pro defenses on the RT-AX86U.
Netgear Nighthawk XR1000: Functioning
Using Ixia'southward ixChariot's network simulation criterion in my 100-twelvemonth old firm, the Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 showed itself to exist a reliable and powerful router with the ability to fill my 3,500-square-foot home with a Wi-Fi signal. Information technology may not be able to match the Nighthawk RAX80's 1.39Gbps of throughput simply it delivered a strong 859.1Mbps of bandwidth at 15-feet. That's slightly behind the Asus RT-AX86U (at 929.7Mbps) and the TP-Link Archer AX6000 (888.2Mbps) but ahead of the Linksys MR9600 (822.0Mbps) at the aforementioned altitude.
Its throughput fell to 233.4Mbps at 50-anxiety, well backside the TP-Link AX6000'south 396.7Mbps, the Linksys MR9600's 363.3Mbps and the RT-AX86U'due south 285.3Mbps. The XR1000 redeemed itself at 75-feet past delivering 280.1Mbps, showing its potential at mid-range distances in a large domicile. By contrast, the AX-RT86U moved 250.1Mbps, while the TP-Link AX6000 and Nighthawk RAX80 could only muster most half as much throughput at 125.4 and 142.1Mbps, respectively.
The XR1000 pulled alee where other routers lagged with 74.9Mbps of performance at 90-feet, our terminal distance. This is 73 percent better than the RAX80's 20.8Mbps and infinitely better than the MR9600'due south and AX6000's disability to remain connected at this distance. It had a range of 105-anxiety, making the XR1000 the loftier-performance router to get for those with lots of space to comprehend.
With the ability to motility 614.8Mbps across 25 feet and through a wall, the XR1000 was behind the RAX80 (at 1.08Gbps) and TP-Link'due south AX6000 (at 667.3Mbps). When it came to sending data upward a flooring to a chamber, the XR1000 delivered a respectable 630.1Mbps, compared to 629.5Mbps for the RAX80. Both were second place compared to the AX6000's 671.4-Mbps.
Information technology proved to exist a reliable gaming router for everything from getting gemstones in League of Legends to shooting effectually the rail in Real Racing 3. It'south a adept all-around benefactor of data likewise and over the course of a week of apply, working well with annihilation from YouTube video and online Television set to downloading manuals and online learning. Information technology hands passed the saturation test by playing YouTube videos on an HP EliteBook Dragonfly, while a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ was playing the BBC World Service News feed, an iPad Pro was streaming a baseball game and a Dell XPS 15 was moving data onto and off of a file server. Everything came through loud and clear.
With information technology running at full boom, the XR1000 used 6.one watts of power, less than one-half as much equally the Nighthawk RAX80. Our estimates show that it should cost roughly $vii a yr to use if you pay the national average of 13 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. That'due south on a par with the Linksys MR9600's $6.eighty per year simply cheaper to utilize than the TP-Link Archer AX6000's $xi.xxx per year.
Netgear Nighthawk XR1000: Setup
Unlike other recent routers, the Nighthawk XR1000's third-generation DumaOS software gives y'all the option of setting it up through a phone or tablet every bit well every bit by using its Web-browser based interface. Both are quick and easy to utilise with pace-by-step instructions. There are apps for Android devices, and iOS devices (similar iPhones and iPads) that allow using two-gene authentication for an extra margin of security. You will need to fix up an account with Netgear, though.
I started past plugging everything in and screwing in the router's four antennas, making sure their codes matched the ones printed on the router's side. After connecting to the router'south default LAN address printed on a label, I typed "routerlogin.net" into the browser's address bar. It checked the Internet connection and then measured the online speed. After I set an administrative password for making changes to the router's settings, the software wanted answers to two verification questions.
With the preliminaries out of the way, the next step was to give the router a new network name and password. When washed, I was able to print a summary of the settings earlier the router did ii updates to its operating software. All told, information technology took 17 minutes to go from a sealed box to functioning network.
Netgear Nighthawk XR1000: Configuration
As is the instance with the setup procedure, changes tin be made either through the Nighthawk app or the browser based interface. The app is more visual and simple, while the browser approach has more depth and options.
The nuts are summarized in the DumaOS Dashboard. Its blackness and orangish color scheme makes everything look vital and alive, peculiarly next to Asus's banal bluish and grey design. A cornucopia of information that will warm the heart of any cold gamer with everything from electric current IP address and overall bandwidth available to CPU usage and what apps the router is running. Forth the left is a carte du jour of deeper possibilities, including the power to geo-filter opponents and set the Quality of Service (QOS) details.
Meanwhile, the XR1000's Connection Benchmark rates your router's current link to the Internet by several different parameters, including speed and ping. There's also the Network Monitor that shows current and full usage, and information technology'due south a shame the two could not have been combined for simplicity.
In improver to a Traffic Controller for blocking or allowing data traffic to flow, the XR1000 has a Ping Heatmap that shows the latency information of your favorite global servers so you can option the everyman one for your adjacent global battle royal. Meanwhile, the router's Device Manager shows what'south connected to the router, upstream and downstream. It correctly showed all connections in a map format.
The router's Settings department is one of the most powerful of any networking device. It not only lets y'all rerun the gear up procedure but allows adjusting of everything from IP addresses to using its wide data channels. You can fifty-fifty cake sites and services.
Happily, the XR1000 is ane of the well-nigh flexible routers around. It can run as a router or access point. At any time, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to plough the router'due south LED lights off then as non to divert your attention from conflicting invaders or inner-metropolis car thieves.
The Nighthawk XR1000 comes with a i-yr warranty that pales in comparison to the 2-years of coverage that Asus provides for its high-performance routers. More to the point, Netgear comes up short on service and support with simply xc-days included with the purchase. Getting two years of support and warranty costs an extra $80. Still, Netgear provides lots of self-service aid should you lot encounter a trouble. In addition to downloads of fresh firmware and manuals, there's assistance with setting up the router, configuring it and troubleshooting problems.
Netgear Nighthawk XR1000: Verdict
With everything from a ping heat map and geo-fencing to the best gaming dashboard around, the Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 takes the lead in delivering the online goods for gamers. It might not be the fastest router upwards close but it delivers the data at mid-range distances where other routers start to lag. Whether information technology's taking hot laps in a virtual racer, battling aliens or knocking off zombies, the router delivers with an incredible assortment of configuration and customization options that let you make the XR1000 operate exactly the mode you lot want it to. To top it off, the XR1000 provides an assortment of defenses against hackers.
Equally good as it is, the XR1000 lacks a Multi-Gig input channel and tin't aggregate its ports for peak performance. It's a stride upwardly from the Netgear Nighthawk XR700 and outperforms the Asus RT-AX86U once the router is 50-feet abroad. Unfortunately, its purchase price is just the start. To maintain its hacker and malware defenses, yous'll need to pay $seventy a year for updates as well as $80 to match the warranty protection that the Asus RT-AX86U includes for costless. That brings the total tab for the XR1000 closer to $500, making it ane of the most expensive routers on the market.
Even so, it'southward one of the all-time gaming routers we've ever seen, and i of the best Wi-Fi 6 routers on the market. If you have the need for speed, get the Netgear Nighthawk XR1000, have ramen noodles for dinner and express mirth at your online opponents.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/netgear-nighthawk-xr1000
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