hi
before you buy the asus , make sure u get a model that supports the "merlin firmware" - its well known , used and fully maintained firmware i have been running it for about 5 yrs now, its better than the asus firmware
suspect you may want to go with the one of the top models if u use VPN - its the only reason im swithing as the AC86U is dual core and will max out my FTCC line for vpn, eg it blows anything at this price out of the water for performance...
the small net builder forum is where u will find a large following and home of merlin
ttps://
www.snbforums.com/forums/asuswrt-merlin.42/
some stats on routers and vpn performnace
asus AC3100 (1.4 Ghz dual core)
CTF (Cut Through Forwarding NAT Acceleration)
DL: 61 Mbps with core 1 at 25%, core 2 at 75%
DL :74 Mbps with core 1 at 30%, core 2 at 85% with mods*
UL: 84 Mbps with core 1 at 35%, core 2 at 100%
asus AC68U (1.0 Ghz dual core)
CTF enabled
DL: 44 Mbps with core 1 at 30%, core 2 at 80%
UL: 58 Mbps with core 1 at 40%, core 2 at 100%
asus AC86U (1.8 Ghz dual core) (tested 12/20/17)
Flow Cache enabled
DL: 223 Mbps with core 1 at 35%, core 2 at 70%
UL: 233 Mbps with core 1 at 55%, core 2 at 90%
Data encryption: AES-128-CBC
Data authentication: SHA1
Handshake: RSA-2048
*Adding the following lines to the custom configuration bumped the DL speeds to 74 Mbps.
sndbuf 524288
rcvbuf 524288
push "sndbuf 524288"
push "rcvbuf 524288"
I also got a little speed increase by adding:
fast-io