D-Link updates its Gaming Router

[Fireblade]

Fancy moving to Draft-N - or in the market for a new wireless router?
D-Link's new [DGL-4500] 'Xtreme N Gaming Router' could be just the thing!

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d40/DavyDuncan1955/PC%20Hardware/D-LinkXtremeNGamingRouter.jpg



It's not everyday you come across a device designed solely with the gamer in mind. The D-Link® Xtreme N™ Gaming Router (DGL-4500) is one of those few devices built especially for gamers.
Experience the power of our Xtreme N Duo™ wireless technology for data transfer rates of up to 300Mbps* and Gigabit LAN and WAN Ports to get your game on faster than ever before.

We've also added an updated version of our award-winning GameFuel™ technology to get your game going smoother.
To top it off, we've thrown in a high-performance CPU and a Network Activity Display to give you a serious gaming router.

Read more about it on Softpedia (http://news.softpedia.com/news/D-Link-039-s-New-Xtreme-N-Gaming-Router-Brings-Wireless-Fragging-69580.shtml).
Visit the homepage (http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=643&#DGL-4500).


Prices I've seen bandied about, suggest it will cost around US$240 / £125?

[latency]

Looks pretty good, so long as it delivers... A decent router really does make all the difference, and this is certainly cheaper than a Draytek- just so long as it performs like one!

[saltynay]

Sorry to be naive but what exactly puts this ahead of other N routers apart from the fact it has a mini screen showing activity and says "gaming" in the name?

[latency]

It's got a posh TCP/IP stack and network processor in it.

It routes packets faster than those crappy belkin routers. I used to be skeptical about this sort of thing until I spent £240 on a draytek 2800vg, and my game ping times dropped to =<10ms, and my downloads started capping sustained 240Kbps on a 2Mb line.

Like the Killer NIC, these things DO work, but the Killer NIC will benefit only one PC, where a good router will boost your entire network.

[saltynay]

It is a lot of money to spend though if you are not particularly worried about your ping like myself aslong as my downloads are quick e.g 200kbps+ and my games when playing online are not noticeably jittery then I am happy.

How does the killer Nic work? Isn't it more dependent on the router then the network card attaining the data, obviously the chip does have a slight effect but it can not improve the performance without the router raising the bar and not limiting it.....

[latency]

£125 is cheap if it's as good as they say it is...

Lower pings means good times for everyone, in CSS I can run my tick settings on 75/75 without any slowdown or ping increase (most people's pings jump up to about 30-40), or on FFXI when I walking through a city, the other characters load faster reducing the amount of people that appear spontaneously in front of me.

The killer NIC speeds up PC networking by basically bypassing the windows network system and using it's own dedicated TCP/IP stack. This means it can process the network communications faster, and reduce load on the CPU.

You can survive with a bog-standard router easily, but when I'm playing games online and other players are complaining about server lag, I just say 'What lag?'

[saltynay]

Well in Bf:2142 (the only game I play online) I am normally the first one to load the map anyway and I am using belkin wireless and the complimentary pci card which is worrying if others are that slow to load......

[latency]

Router and network card are by no means the only factors involved, and there are plenty of other ways to get high speed gaming, but a good router is one of them.

[DarkEntity]

That's remarkably good timing, ive been looking at a new Router to replace my current D-Link Di624 :)

Just watched the video on Dlink TV and i think this is going to be my new Router (When available in the UK) also it'll appeal to us Fan boys as you will be able to customise the OLED screen \o/

[Baxtor]

This has come at just the right time for me as well :)
Any ideas on how long it will be till its available over here.

[Fireblade]

Welcome to the forums Baxtor :cool:



Any ideas on how long it will be till its available over here.

You could always ask D-Link UK themselves (http://www.dlink.co.uk/?go=gNTyP9CnptFMIC4AStFCF834mptYKOhWTtvhLPG3yV3oUo 1uhbklPJkpMKNi7w==) ;)

[Baxtor]

Thx for the link, E-mail sent will update post when i get a reply.

[ElectricWarrior]

Thx for the link, E-mail sent will update post when i get a reply.


I take it you didn't get a reply?

*Edit*

I've just phone the sales team at D-Link UK and they have said that this model will never be released in the UK, and that the only similar product in the UK is the DIR-655, they couldn't give me a reason why the DGL-4500 wouldn't be available here, just that it will not get a UK release. :(

[NickB]

Definitely looks interesting, not much of an online gamer myself, but a proper router with some of these features has been on my list for a while. Let us all know what the performance is like if any of you get one, might get one later in the year.
Nick

[Baxtor]

I take it you didn't get a reply?

*Edit*

I've just phone the sales team at D-Link UK and they have said that this model will never be released in the UK, and that the only similar product in the UK is the DIR-655, they couldn't give me a reason why the DGL-4500 wouldn't be available here, just that it will not get a UK release. :(

I just got an automated e-mail reply saying no release date set for the product, sorry didn't report back I forgot about it :)
Not good news about not bieng released here, this was definatly on my list to buy :(

[latency]

Save up some more and get yourself a draytek.
They're not as glamourous, but they're damn fast.

[ElectricWarrior]

Save up some more and get yourself a draytek.
They're not as glamourous, but they're damn fast.


Can you suggest a model of Draytek then please, and then some info about QOS for gaming etc.

Baxtor, That answer was from the sales at D-Link UK, and if they are like many other sales teams in many companies in this country (although not all), they may just not have been informed about the release of this particular model.
We can but hope it might become available later in the year over here.

[latency]

Well, it depends what you need from your router... Check out this Comparison Chart (http://draytek.co.uk/products/router_compare.shtml) for the details on their models, and then do a froogle to find a price on it.

Bear in mind though, I get great performance from my 2800VG on ADSL, but if you have cable, and need a broadband router with a WAN port (such as their 2900 serries), you might still get limited to the speed of your cable modem. I've used Draytek 2800's several times in several places, all to fantastic effect, but I can't speak for the 2900 serries from experiance, since I don't know how much a bad cable router might bottle neck performance.

Both the 2800 and 2900 serries have great QoS, NAT and firewall set ups though, far in advance of most Netgear, D-link, or belkin routers.
They contain alot of jargon, but they also have good manuals if you don't understand the words. Certainly they're capable of whatever special rules you need from your router.