$200 on the mothership for new.
Is this router suitable for non-gaming purposes? Would this be an excellent router for streaming movies? We sometimes stream multiple movies/tv shows at the same time in our household and our current router is having trouble keeping up with the bandwidth…
I have a very similar model ( https://smile.amazon.com/Linksys-Dual-Band-Wireless-Tri-Stream-WRT3200ACM/dp/B01JOXW3YE) and I have yet to have lag on 4K content (Netflix or Prime Video). Specs seem comparable, with the firmware probably being the biggest difference. Since this is a WRT model, you can actually replace the installed firmware with something like OpenWrt if you prefer.
As an example, a few days ago I had a couple of newly-restored computers chugging away at Windows Update downloads while watching a movie, and didn’t notice any degradation at any point.
Granted, this router isn’t going to make a mediocre service plan suddenly awesome, but it’s an improvement over a 802.11n or lower-level ac router.
4K streaming is not that intense for any router these days. Only pulls about 15Mb/s. Far less than any normal WiFi connection at good strength. But also any router touted as a “gaming” router usually has more power to it than normal. So even simple uses are often better than others.
Can this router run the ExpressVPN firmware? I know the WRT3299ACS will as it is listed on the LinkSys site.
I have a WRT1900ACS running ExpressVPN, but I need to setup another router at another location, thought this would be a economical solution