Nighthawk 6e models multi-gig in and out?

Question

Question for you all. I have Google Fiber multi-gig and many ethernet connected devices throughout my house. I use 2.5-gig switches to connect my office and living room to my kitchen (a dumb place, I know) which is where the fiber comes into the house.

My question is regarding the ports on the Nighthawk 6e models, particularly the AXE450 and AXE500. They have a port that specifies 2.5-gig and they also have a yellow port that just says internet. Are these both 2.5-gig? Can I plug the modem into the internet port, sending 2.5-gig into the router and still get 2.5-gig to my office via ethernet plugged into the 2.5-gig port?

I hope that makes sense. Thanks in advance!

plemans · Answer

so the raxe500 cant output 2.5g to the lan ports correct when you have it setup to use the 2.5g port correct?---it only has the 1x 2.5gig port. You can either use it for the wan port or a lan port but not both. It does have lan port aggregation that'd allow you to hit 2gig speeds if you had something that supported lan port aggregation.&nbsp;
so whats the point of this if the router can only spit out 1g at the lan ports?
&nbsp;
so what if i get a unmanaged switch like this:&nbsp;https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08XWKF55C/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;psc=1
&nbsp;
and set it up like this:
&nbsp;
&nbsp;frontier ONT -&gt; unmanaged switch -&gt; from there i can connect the pc's to the switch to get 2.5g and then i can still connect the netgear and use the 2.5g port to connect to my wireless 6e clients. would this be an acceptable solution? ----that's more on your isp and your setup than on us. Plus it can cause issues with devices on the network seeing either other. Most isp's only assign 1 public ip address so it depends on if your frontier ONT. If its a ONT only device, it probably won't work and if it does, again, could cause issues with devices seeing each other. If its a gateway device with its own routing capability (like a modem/router combo device), then you could do that and put the RAXE500 in access point mode.&nbsp;

Baud_Rate&nbsp;The reason you see this a lot is that 2.5/5/10gig ports are expensive. So router makers are using them for the wan port so the router has the full speed and can send that speed to more than 1 device. What I mean by this is if you have 2gig service, you could have 2x 1gig devices on your network both using the full 1 gig speed for a total of 2gig. Or even have a wired device maxing out the 1gig wired speed while a wireless device was in use maxing out the wireless. For the most part, most devices rarely hit even close to 1 gig unless you're speedtesting. Even a 4k wireless stream only needs 25-40mbps to be used. So if you're doing massive data backups/downloads, then its nice to have. But the average person isn't or if they are, only do it for a short period of time.&nbsp;
If you have further questions about this setup or best way to optimize, start your own thread and we'll do our best to help you&nbsp;

microchip8 · Answer

No

Razor512 · Answer

Sadly on the RAXE500, they only included 1 2.5GbE port, and the rest of the ports are 1GbE, with LACP support, thus while you can use link aggregation to get about 2Gbps out of it on a wired connection, and for 802.11ac, it will give around 1.8Gbps real world throughput for 2 stream 802.11ax clients under good conditions, it doesn't offer a extra 2.5GbE port.
PS one limitation with link aggregation using 2 1GbE ports, is that it will not split a single TCP connection across both connections. The vast majority of modern web use, will utilize multiple connections, thus in the super majority of cases, you will see the LACP connection offering 2Gbps of performance, but in case of a single TCP connection, it would get limited to 1Gbps.

If google fiber allows you to use another behind it via a transparent bridge mode.
If it doesn't, then I would advise against getting the RAXE500, and instead get an unmanaged 2.5GbE switch and connect that to the google fiber router.

Outside of that, the only consumer router that I know of that will do a multi gigabit connection in and out without resorting to link aggregation, is the Asus RT-AX89X (not a good solution due to the super high cost when you add the SFP+ transciever (typically in the $50 to $60 range each), and multi-gigabit switch with at least a 10GbE uplink), though it has a number of limitations; there is 1 RJ45 multi gig input, but the multi gig output is a 10 gigabit SFP+ port that will only do a 10 gigaby PHY rate, thus the device that is connects to, must be 10 gigabit capable in order to have a functional connection.
That would mean either getting a 10GbE NIC for your PC and a 10GbE SFP+ card for the router, or a switch with a 10GbE port, which is pricey, as now you will be looking at $300+ switches to connect to the router, especially if you want multiple devices to enjoy your full WAN speed.

plemans · Answer

The RBKE960 has a 10g wan port and 2.5gig lan port.
that could be an option.&nbsp;
I use it with a 2.5gig switch because the satellites also have a 2.5gig lan port

Baud_Rate · Answer

sorry to intercept this thread.&nbsp;so i already have the raxe500 and just got 2gig frontier fiber today. i have 2 pc's that are wired and they have 2.5g nic cards. im only seeing 1g on the nic card screen in windows -- so i have been searching all night for the right words to put into google to get the response i need and it seems this thread is answering my questions...&nbsp;so the raxe500 cant output 2.5g to the lan ports correct when you have it setup to use the 2.5g port correct?so whats the point of this if the router can only spit out 1g at the lan ports?&nbsp;so what if i get a unmanaged switch like this:&nbsp;https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08XWKF55C/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;psc=1&nbsp;and set it up like this:&nbsp;&nbsp;frontier ONT -&gt; unmanaged switch -&gt; from there i can connect the pc's to the switch to get 2.5g and then i can still connect the netgear and use the 2.5g port to connect to my wireless 6e clients. would this be an acceptable solution?&nbsp;

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Nighthawk 6e models multi-gig in and out?

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