D-Link Performace Series DIR-890L AC3200 Router Review
Bohs Hansen / 8 years ago
Testing & Methodology
Testing a router’s performance is a pretty straight forward process from my point of view. I will first test the wired network performance with several tests followed by the wireless performance on each available band.
When testing the wireless performance, I will adjust the distance between the router and the receiving WiFi connection from short over medium to long distance throughout my apartment.
Hardware
- Supermicro C7Z97-OCE
- Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3
- Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1866MHz
- Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
- Sapphire R7 240 2GB
- be quiet Dark Power Pro 11 850W
- Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer
- Asus PCE-AC88 AC3100 Dual-Band PCIe Wi-Fi Adapter
- D-Link DXE-820T 10GBASE adapter
- Lian Li T60
We would like to thank our sponsors for supplying us with the equipment needed to perform these tests.
Software
- LAN Speed Test
- PassMark PerformanceTest Suite
USB Storage
I will be using more or less the same tests for both the wired and wireless benchmarks with the only difference being that I’ll add distance to the wireless ones. I will be testing the router using both static and variable package sizes as well as TCP and UCP connections to get the broadest view of the device. The final test will be on the built-in storage ports such as USB 3.0 and eSATA with their file-sharing functions if they exist. All these tests put together should give us a fair image of what the router is capable of. USB 2.0 ports aren’t really needed to test as they always perform the same; slow. They’re fine for dongles, printers, and similar, but they aren’t meant for high-speed data transfer.
While it’s easy to test and give you comparable view on the wired connections, we need to keep in mind that environmental factors can’t be avoided with the wireless signals. I live in a pretty big apartment complex where many of the residents have multiple WiFi networks. This will have a natural impact on the shown performance, but at the same time give a great view of how the device can handle itself in a heavy traffic area.
