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Linksys new router takes aim at gamers, claims to reduce ping by 77% at peak times

While E3 tends to be very software-focussed, Europe’s biggest gaming expo, Gamescom, brings in more of a balance, with plenty of tech companies displaying their latest and greatest, alongside developers showing off new games. Today, Linksys announced its latest wireless router at the event, taking aim at gamers who want to prioritise their network traffic over everything else. According to Linksys, its new router can reduce ping at peak times by as much as 77 percent.

The Linksys WRT32X is a collaboration between Linksys and Rivet Networks to incorporate the Killer Prioritisation Engine. So if your PC has a Killer Ethernet port or wireless chip, then this router will be able to optimise traffic for lower latency, prioritising your connection over other devices in the house. This router also comes with new firmware and a new user interface to help make managing and controlling the network a little easier.

Under the hood, the WRT32X uses a 1.8GHz dual-core ARM CPU, an 802.11ac dual-band 3×3 wireless radio, 256MB Flash and 512MB DDR3 memory. There is a 5-port SOHO-grade Gigabit Ethernet switch with TCAM on the back, while on the software side, the firmware uses a table Linux kernel to keep things lightweight. The feature that is supposed to set this apart from the competition is the Killer Prioritisation Engine.

The Linksys WRT32X will be launching in late September with an MSRP of $299.99 in the US. So far, we don’t have confirmation on a EU/UK release date or price but it shouldn’t be too far behind.

KitGuru Says: Linksys isn’t the first company to launch a router aimed primarily at gamers but still, it will be interesting to see how many are willing to spend this much cash to improve their network. How much did you spend on your current wireless router?

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13 comments

  1. So just marketing bs then
    77% reduction of ping times within your own language network
    So that’s a 77% reduction on what 4-5ms?

  2. Looks just a “little bit” like the 1900ACS… lol

  3. I note the following from http://www.pcgamer.com/motherboards-with-killer-network-adapters-arent-worth-your-money/

    Between Killer and Intel NICs, save a “…single exception, no tests or combination of settings made any difference” as “gaming results in the real world shadowed the benchmarks closely. Both Left for Dead 2 and CS:GO show no dramatic differences in server ping times or gaming experience beyond normal network variation.”

    Furthermore, “The reality is that bandwidth limitations outside the computer, and thus control of the Killer Network Manager, are almost always responsible for the bottlenecks in online gaming.”

    The conclusion on Killers worth? “Despite claims and plenty of promise, no.”

  4. If you have a very shitty router and very shitty NIC, you might get 2ms in a local network. 😀 Anything better than a potato goes from 0 to 1ms.

  5. Wired maybe wireless can regularly be 2-4,ms especially over a bit of distence

  6. If you care about latency, you don’t use WiFi.

  7. Nikolas Karampelas

    well actually all those QoS services (because in the end of the day it is just QoS no matter the name) they can show only if you have a shared network with other people in the house.
    with my old and now cold dead asus wl600g router I was able to manage the QoS to give me priority and never had lag while others do things like opening the browser and instantly open 10 tabs and let them load in the bg, or watching youtube.
    The current ZTE router I have from the ISP now have crappy UI and I have no idea how to manage QoS so I have a lot of lag, but in asus that had presets it worked.

  8. The difference is nothing anyway

    But many people don’t have a choice but to use wi-fi wired is often not possible especially for people in rented house’s
    homeplugs arnt much better then WiFi

  9. Well, 2-4ms is not irrelevant, it matters for pro gamers or hardcore ones.
    About wired… well, it might be a problem, I guess. Still, over here in Europe, you usually can get coax, classic copper or fiber even to a rented home. LAN cable is cheap. 🙂

  10. That sounds more like a internet connection problem rather then the router

  11. I’m on a plusnet (BT) connection in UK with a maximum speed of …17 Mbps so who cares

  12. it;s funny how people in UK think they have ‘FIBER’ just because BT and Sky tell them that lie

  13. Nikolas Karampelas

    Actually that is adsl connections problem, we can go as high as 24Mbps but upload is around 1Mbps so there is a problem if someone need to upload or just sent many requests. But with QoS my PC get more priority in the lab and as of that I get the juice from the router first.