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Forum Discussion
Orbi Wifi 6 vs RAX200 with EAX80
Can anyone provide a basic summary of pros and cons of each system.
What would be the benefits of Orbi Wifi 6 setup vs a RAX200 (tri-band) with EAX80 mesh extender (other than the $150 price difference)?
9 Replies
- Orbi and mesh would give greater coverage as you can keep adding satellites. Orbi has advantage over regular mesh because of dedicated backhaul, allowing for higher performance.
A router like the RAX80/120/200 will give better “single” unit coverage and better overall speeds at close to medium ranges.
Honestly the RAX200 is just an RAX80 with an extra 5Ghz band and a 2.5gb port. I highly doubt that extra 5Ghz band will really benefit most people even with many devices as only few are actively transmitting at any given time anyway.
The RAX120 I would say is superior to the RAX200 due the Qualcomm chipset and 5Gb with port, which is great if you have a NAS and do tons of large transfers. But the RAX80 should also be just fine if gig ports are enough.
Just note that final draft AX chipsets are now releasing and current AX routers may never get stuff like Uplink MU and Uplink OFDMA, even though some early AX chipsets did advertise those.- Also some people I found falsely assume that an extra 5Ghz band Increased coverage over a standard dual band, it does not... In edge cases it helps load balance to get better throughout when multiple devices are needing lots of bandwidth. The RAX80 and RAX200 would have similar coverage.
- Last clarification, by better single unit coverage and performance I mean comparing a router with a single unit from the mesh system, without satellites.
wifi6routers wrote:Can anyone provide a basic summary of pros and cons of each system.
What would be the benefits of Orbi Wifi 6 setup vs a RAX200 (tri-band) with EAX80 mesh extender (other than the $150 price difference)?
>>>> if one router can cover all areas you'r going to use, RAX200 is your best choise. if your application requries additional wifi range extender, either Orbi system or RAX200 + EAX80 could fit your need but honestly, which one is the best for you will requires real test in your house.
- If going for a single router without needing extenders the RAX120 is a better choice than the RAX200 mainly due to the WiFi chipset, Broadcom looking at previous gen didn’t do a great job of implementing ancillary features like MU and Broadcom based devices have had issues with MU enabled causing lower performance and Broadcom routers with 1024QAM on AC did worse than Qualcomm based routers using 256 QAM in terms of peak performance. Qualcomm in my opinion implements advertised features in a more functional manner. Hence the reason I’d pick the RAX120 over the RAX200. Only get the RAX200 if you need to add an extender because then the extra 5Ghz band can be used for backhaul. Just know that higher model number isn’t necessarily better, just look at the performance reviews comparing R7800 (Qualcomm based dualband) vs the R8500 (Broadcom based chipset triband).
OP,
I purchased the RAX200 to replace my Linksys EA9500v2 (also a tri-band router). I have a tonne of wifi devices so wanted to stick with a tri-band router as I can allocate devices accordingly. I'm finding 802.11ac speeds on the RAX200 even better than the Linksys and overall, the RAX200 is a brilliant router for wifi range. The RAX200 isn't cheap but if you're looking for a tri-band router and you can afford it, then I highly recommend it!
