Both of these high performance wireless routers represent the flagship models of their respective manufactures consumer line ups. Both can run separate 5GHZ and 2.4GHZ frequency bands simultaneously. Both feature gigabit network ports and the ability to share out media wirelessly from a built-in USB port. Both provide easy, push button setup and provide the ability to provide password protected access to the Internet to guests. They are also priced almost identically.
The real advantage of these two routers is the dual bands. Wireless-G is fine for surfing and Wireless-N is preferred for gaming and multimedia streaming. The dual bands provide the ability to keep these two activities from interfering with each other. Gaming and multimedia streaming are what we call "timing dependent". This means that any drop or lag in the network can cause disastrous consequences. A game can start to lag and video can get "jittery".
[belkin Wireless N Router]
A typical web surfing session can survive an occasional drop in network connectivity or bandwidth. The same drop on a gaming or HD video session and drastically decrease the user experience. Dual bands allow you can keep your surfing and gaming/multimedia sessions completely separate. Once it's set up the kids gaming session or Dad's HD video session won't be brought to a stand still by Mom's downloaded cooking recipe.
So which is the better router? Here is where they differ:
- The Linksys takes the entertainment route by allowing you to broadcast video and game content to the rest of your network with a built-in media server.
- The Netgear takes the performance route with a powerful 680MHZ processor, eight super sensitive internal antennas and performance boosting amplifiers.
In terms of shear thorough put and range the Netgear outperforms the Linksys in 2.4GHZ wireless N Mode.
The Linksys slightly outperforms the Netgear in 5GHZ wireless N mode.
Not to be outdone by Linksys's internal media server the Netgear has a USB Ready Share port which can also used to stream video content. Unfortunately the Linksys's built-in media server is slow compared to just about all dedicated media servers. Whether you really want to consider the media server feature an advantage or not is debatable.
So we're neck and neck. The deciding factor in choosing between these two behemoths of the home wireless networking world may come down to your own personal aesthetic taste and any compatibility concerns you may have with the rest of the gear on your wireless network.
NetGear WNDR3700 Vs Linksys E3000 - High Performance Showdown