Netgear Nighthawk X6 vs. X8

If you have spent quite some time searching for the best router, you may have come across several Netgear Nighthawk routers. The top models, X6 and X8, may have acquired your attention. The price gap is quite real between the two. Yet, they are both tri-band routers. So, most probably, you are now wondering what the differences are between the two models. Below, you can find the comparisons of Netgear Nighthawk X6 and Netgear Nighthawk X8. Let’s see which model holds the fullest value for the money?

Bandwidth
Netgear Nighthawk X6 and Netgear Nighthawk X8 are both tri-band routers, each having one 2.4 GHz and two 5 GHz wireless signal channels. However, they have different amounts of bandwidth. Netgear Nighthawk X8 boasts a significantly larger bandwidth than Netgear Nighthawk X6. The X6 has a total bandwidth of 3200 Mbps, which is split into 600 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz and 1300 Mbps for the 5 GHz. Meanwhile, the X8 has 5332 Mbps total bandwidth, with 1000 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz and 2166 Mbps for the 5 GHz. As you can see, the bandwidth increase from X6 to X8 is very significant. You can have a much higher maximum speed, or serve more devices with Netgear Nighthawk X8.

Have a look: Netgear Nighthawk X4 vs. X6.

Processor and Memory
Besides having more bandwidth, Netgear Nighthawk X8 also comes with a bigger memory and more powerful processor. Netgear Nighthawk X6 is powered by a 1 GHz dual-core processor with three offload processors. It has 128 MB flash hand 256 MB RAM. While the processing performance is satisfying already, Netgear Nighthawk X8 comes boldly with a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, 128 MB flash, and 512 MB RAM. The processing performance is a lot faster, emphasizing the capability to handle multiple requests from numerous devices.

Connectivity
Netgear Nighthawk X6 offers a pretty basic configuration, coming with one WAN and four LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports, plus one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 ports. Netgear Nighthawk X8 comes with extra Ethernet ports. Getting into the details, it comes with one WAN and six LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports, plus one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0. Furthermore, it also supports dual Ethernet port aggregation, a feature that allows a device to use two Ethernet ports at the same time to increase the aggregated data transfer rate.

 

Netgear Nighthawk X6

- 3.2Gbps - The fastest combined Wi-Fi speed for uninterrupted streaming

- Tri-Band Wi-Fi delivers more Wi-Fi to more devices, Six high performance antennas and powerful amplifiers

- 1GHz dual core processor with three offload processors

- Implicit & explicit beamforming+ focuses Wi-Fi signals & delivers stronger connections

- Free ReadySHARE Vault app provides automatic backup for Windows PCs directly to connected USB storage devices, NetGear Genie

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Netgear Nighthawk X8

- Get fastest speeds available up to 5.3Gbps. Up to 1,000 Mbps @ 2.4GHz 1024 QAM. Up to 2,166 Mbps @ 5 GHz 11ac 1024 QAM

- Tri-band WiFi delivers more WiFi to more devices. Quad Stream delivers up to four data streams per WiFi band

- 4 active antennas and 4 internal antennas to amplify and maximize range. 6 Gigabit Ethernet ports-aggregate two for faster file transfers

- MU-MIMO capable for simultaneous streaming of data to multiple devices

- Dynamic QoS prioritizes bandwidth by application and device

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Netgear Nighthawk X6 vs. X8
Overall, Netgear Nighthawk X8 is indeed a lot more powerful than Netgear Nighthawk X6. However, the extra power can serve to the fullest potential only if you have numerous devices that need to be connected to the network. Otherwise, Netgear Nighthawk X8 can be an overkill purchase, in which case the Netgear Nighthawk X6 can be the more efficient way to go.