Netgear Nighthawk X4 is available at a lower price than Netgear Nighthawk X6. Both of them are made by the same manufacturer, Netgear, and come from the same series, Netgear Nighthawk. A lot of people really like these routers because of the performance and control that they bring. However, there is a big chance that you only need to buy one of them, so you need to choose here whether you should go with Netgear Nighthawk X4 or Netgear Nighthawk X6. Is the pricier model really better? Let’s see!
(Read also: Asus RT-AC5300 vs. Asus RT-AC88U).
Performance
Both of these routers are designed to be able to serve very large homes, which means that they each has a decently wide area coverage. They both also support the beamforming technology, by which they can focus their wireless signals to the directions of connected devices, ensuring that all the devices in the network can enjoy more stable and reliable connections. Furthermore, they also come with the Adaptive QoS (Quality of Service) feature, which allows them to prioritize bandwidth for certain nodes, apps, or activities. They come with various network management functions that you can utilize to control which to prioritize, which to limit, also to set network security measures.
However, if we are talking about wireless performance, we should take a note that Netgear Nighthawk X4 is a dual band router while Netgear Nighthawk X6 is a tri-band router. So, for sure, Netgear Nighthawk X6 has a bigger total bandwidth than Netgear Nighthawk X4.
However, you should hold on a second. While Netgear Nighthawk X6 comes with 600 Mbps for the single 2.4 GHz signal and 1300 Mbps for the two 5 GHz signals, Netgear Nighthawk X4 actually boasts 600 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz and 173 Mbps for the 5 GHz. As you can see, the X4 has only one 5 GHz signal channel, but the amount of bandwidth for the single channel is larger.
Connection Ports
Furthermore, the X4 actually comes with more ports. It comes with one WAN and four LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 jacks, and one eSATA port. At the contrast, the X6 only has one WAN, four LAN, one USB 2.0, and one USB 3.0 ports.
Netgear Nighthawk X4 vs. X6
You should pick Netgear Nighthawk X6 only if you have numerous devices that can benefit from the 5 GHz signal channel. Keep in mind, older devices may not be able to use the frequency. Otherwise, save some bucks and choose Netgear Nighthawk X4.
