Description
NETGEAR Nighthawk XAC4000 Router (R8000P)
From the manufacturer
NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S AC4000 Tri-band WiFi Router
The Nighthawk X6S AC4000 Router, with breakthrough Tri-band WiFi and multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) is ideal for simultaneous streaming to many WiFi devices in your home. The X6S offers the fastest combined WiFi speed up to 4Gbps, and is powered by a powerful 64-bit, dual core 1.8GHz processor with three offload processors. Enjoy fastest WiFi speed throughout your home with less lag and less buffering as you game, stream and surf. Access and control your router from anywhere using features such as NETGEAR Nighthawk App, ReadyCLOUD and OpenVPN. Control your home network with voice commands using Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant.
Anthony D. Rogers –
2.4g drops connection – no longer an issue **UPDATED 9/3/18, 9/18/18**I really want to like this product. I spent a lot of time reviewing AC4000 and AC5300 routers and found that the features and specs with this model along with the price fit my needs perfectly. It also has solid professional reviews.But I had reservations based on user feedback, particularly with recurring dropped connections that required the router to be rebooted on a regular basis. Knowing and accepting the risk, though, I purchased with the hope that the dropped connection issues had been cleared up in recent firmware or that I would be lucky and not have the same issue. Unfortunately, here I am.Below are details to help you decide whether to purchase the Nighthawk X6S (R8000P).The good: great specs (tri-band, CPU and offload processors, MU-MIMO, Beamforming, # of external antennas, etc.), solid professional reviews, expected wired and wireless speeds for gigabit connection, good coverage in my house, customizable configuration, bold design, router runs cool, and flawless performance when the connection doesn’t drop.The bad: the only issue I am having is that every 24 hours, the 2.4g band (*the 5g bands do not appear to be affected) will stop allowing traffic. The lights on the router show connected, as do the devices connected to the 2.4g band, but you cannot get to any website or web service.I use a fairly-customized configuration (specified channels on all bands, no Smart Connect, QoS disabled/WMM enabled, most devices with static IPs, port triggering and port forwarding settings, etc.) and do not believe this to be an issue with the configuration, as many others have attested.The router, either the hardware itself or the software, simply has an issue where it interrupts the connection after a certain period of time. It’s almost like a timeout or sleep feature since it always happens around the same time: problem exhibits at first use of my 2.4 devices in the morning > reboot > works great all day/evening > but the next morning connected devices can’t get anywhere without another reboot.***UPDATE 9/3/2018***After further troubleshooting, I found that the problem appears to be related to how the R8000P handles devices that have built-in network/connection power savings functionality with WMM Enabled. If I disable WMM (which limits speeds btw!) OR if I disable the network power savings feature on the devices (better option!), then I do not experience the dropped connection issue above. I have now had consistent connections and speeds for 6 days without any reboots.Adding 2 stars.***UPDATE 9/18/2018***Router has been completely solid since previous update. I’ve added a wired Netgear AP (EX7000) plus a few other devices via LAN and wifi and have not experienced the 2.4g band dropped data connection issue at all.Very happy with this purchase.
TapSnapOrNap203 –
Had this sense 2018This dose not drop connection, u don’t have to reset this everyday, don’t listen to people who have crappie products that they use this with, that’s why they have problems. I get 890 MBPS and 19 ping all day everyday and I never had a problem with this router, and I use a really good modem, u can’t mix crappie stuff with good stuff. So don’t listen to bad reviews, they are r e t a. R d $
IHicks –
Preferred this over Netgear Orbi MeshI have maxed out my old Netgear R7000 with an extensive number of wireless devices. I have multiple phones in the house, Alexas in each room, plenty of security cameras, gaming tablets for the kids, and wireless laptops. Needless to say, it was time for an upgrade. I tried the Orbi mesh (AC3000) as I figured more even coverage would help. But after spending all day setting it up, I could never get a good consistent signal with my wireless Wyze cams. The cameras were far more stable on my old router but occasionally dropped out. The wifi signal was much stronger with the Orbi, but the bandwidth of the 2.4ghz channel just couldn’t handle the steady stream needed for all my cameras. I even tried using the Orbi as an Access Point to my old router for wireless only connections, but it still couldn’t handle it. I had read somewhere that a 3rd satellite would have solved the problem, but that was another $150 to $250 on top of the $300 I already spent.So I returned the Orbi and tried this router and immediately I could tell the signal strength was not as strong as the orbi, but the bandwidth was far better and could handle my needs. It did take a little while to completely set it up as I have static address for a large number of my devices and I couldn’t just transfer over the configuration from my old router to the new one. It took me about 3 hours to fully set it and type in all my static Ip’s.Once I had it running, I used my old router and converted it to an access point, which gave me plenty of coverage on the other side of my house.So far, I am very pleased with this router, although I wish the upgrade to it, especially from the same brand, could have been more simple. An upgrade like this should only take me an hour or less. Either way I am very happy with my purchase.
YALE70 –
Very solid router for heavy users.I paired this router with a CM1000 modem on a 600Mbps ISP plan. I’m not terribly versed on modem/router setups but I needed something that could handle a household full of wireless devices; four computers, two 4K TVs with several streaming boxes and/or game consoles hooked to them and a couple smart home devices. Main reason for this router purchase was to have a device that can handle 4K streaming in tandem with these other uses wirelessly. Nothing in my house is plugged in over Ethernet.Having used Netgear’s older routers before, setup was pretty easy although I had a colossal headache trying to get the stupid stickers off the sleek body of the router. I mean seriously Netgear? It’s 2018 and you’re still one of a gazillion companies sticking garbage on your products with ridiculously messy adhesive? I ought to dock a star for that alone.That being said, the X6S AC4000 is a pretty interesting looking device once it’s set up. It’s rather large so you’ll probably want to put somewhere other than your computer desk preferably in the center of your home, and perhaps out of sight because it’s pretty wacky appearance isn’t for everyone. Netgear’s Genie software is decent. I’ve had better experiences with navigating it than whatever Asus has been using on it’s routers and it’s easy to quickly change your SSIDs and passwords when you’re done setting up.As far performance? Again, I’m someone who knows next to nothing about the technicalities of internet hardware but this router is more than sufficient to cover all my bases. The tri-band setup is great for versatility, I put all my streaming boxes on one of the two 5Ghz 1625Mbps bands and all the computers and consoles on the other. Smart home devices and phones and tablets went onto the 2.4Ghz 750Mbps band. Streaming live TV and 4K video has been very stable and I haven’t dealt with any of the seemingly rampant resetting issues many others are having as of yet. I’m pulling about 300Mbps download and 35Mbps upload on my desktop, which given the upgrades to my ISP plan and the new modem, is roughly ten times faster than what I had originally. Granted, this is hard to notice most of the time, but when you’re putting the system under a lot of load from steaming, gaming, or large downloads the performance benefits are far more warranted. Overall pleased with this router and we’ll see how it holds up in the long run.
Amazon Customer –
RouterWorks good but think 3500 sq foot does push the limit especially with a second floor. Think they should sell a booster to cover all the area. Would buy again but not quite powerful for our home.
Darnell –
Stay ConnectedSo far, so great!! this thing is pretty flawless (so far)…I have about 6 devices connected simultaneously at any given time, no issues, I recommend this router if you run a “smart home setup” love the app, gives you great control over your network…I’d say we’ll done by Netgear 😎👍
Leon Pauling –
Intermittent Internet connection drops, unreliable as gateway and/or gateway /Wi-Fi router.I’m a big fan of Netgear and it pains me to have to write this review, however it’s an integrity thing. I know how much my clients and I rely on a stable, reliable network. Having intermittent Internet outages is unacceptable. I’ve spend the time to isolate the issue to this R8000P as the root of the issue in two completely different homes/networks.For context, my home network has Netgear Nighthawk X6 R8000 as my ISP gateway router (200 mbps up/down, replaced the Frontier default Quantum router), with multiple AP’s (R6400’s and an WNDR4000) and a couple 8 gig switches (all netgear) Which I’ve had a very stable and high preforming network for a long time which with my 3 kids and wife’s phones, laptops, ipads, apple TV’s, smart tvs, along with all the automation devices and Desktop pcs I’m pushing over 90+ devices with various usage patterns and needs.Why the one star? I’ve put this R8000P in a clients home as a gateway router and main Access Point, replacing the ISP’s default router. About every 5 – 9 days my client would say his wifi would stay up but they couldn’t get to the internet until they unplugged it and then plugged it back in. It actually happened to me while I was replacing it with my X6 R8000. Logs didn’t show anything unique, LAN/WAN/Wi-Fi was up I could ping the other AP, just no internet. I did just reboot it and the internet came up fine.Prior to this I had replaced Ethernet jumpers and cables without resolve. I wondered if they had power issues so I put in a UPS. I even replaced the CAT5e with CAT6 between the Frontier ONT and the R8000P, a few days go by, and bam, client txts me that they had to reboot the router. Yes, I keep the firmware upto date and select auto update.As noted above, curious if it was something specific to his network, devices, etc., I swapped that R8000P with my X6 R8000 in my home network. Which I’ve got more than double devices and AP’s. about 6 days in I woke up to no internet. 1st time I’ve had this sort of issue. A few days later the wife and kids started asking if I was working on the wifi network again, and sure enough, Mr. R8000P had LAN/Wi-Fi up but Internet down.If you’re an average user just surfing the net and video streaming and its not a big deal to reboot your router every 6-10 days, this router will work just fine for you. However, if your running a business out of your home, or working remote this is not the router for you.I’m a bit on the fence with Netgear as this is a newer model. I haven’t had any issues with the X6 R8000, nor the R8000-100NAS, and R6700’s, or R6400’s.One thing I should have done initially was engage Netgear to get their perspective and follow their lead on troubleshooting- Unfortunately I had to pull the R8000P out of both of the networks as it was causing frustration with an unstable network and causing impact to our businesses. I did give Netgear the opportunity to RMA this, which I would send them the .cfg files from both Nighthawks, Visio drawings, and all the logs I had collected FOR BOTH HOME NETWORKS, so they could put this in their lab and use their resources and time , not mine or my clients, to figure out whats the root of the issue. They informed me its policy to have to troubleshoot and wait a few days before they can RMA and I would have to put it back in my network. No thanks.Note, if you do a bit of searching you’ll find what I’ve just described is a known issue, and if I had to guess they have an issue with some blend of certain LAN traffic with Wi-Fi with QoS that’s exposing a bug.
sa418 –
Horrible UI, missing features, good performanceI’ve been using an ASUS Router for many years however my current model wasn’t up to the task of cord cutting and switching over my entire old house to wireless audio/video to support our video streaming. A little research showed that the newest ASUS tri-bands are a couple of years old while Netgear is releasing new Routers such as the X6S with impressive CPU and wireless features at the same price point. I had used Netgear routers years ago and they were always good and reliable. In comes the X6S AC4000. I have only had it a couple of weeks but here are some observations that might’ve caused me to choose otherwise.- It looks like Netgear is using exactly the same web management UI that they had a decade ago. Clumsy, cludgy, hard to navigate. It’s a horrible management tool and does not expose any where near the features that even my 5 year old ASUS does. It’s just bad.- It is severely lacking in realtime monitoring tools. What I wouldn’t give to have those traffic streaming graphs again that ASUS has. Netgear gives you a hard to read snapshot that refreshes, very little value.- I’ve assigned static IP addresses to DHCP for many devices however the devices do not seem to ever get assigned the static IP address. This was an easy way for me to centralize assignment but have the flexibility of letting DHCP manage everything. Not working- It is missing some huge features like the ability to act as a Repeater or Access Point. My wife and I both have home offices and depend on internet access for everything. Our cable went out and I needed to switch the Router to provide WAN from my wireless hotspot…. no such luck. My ASUS could do that.- USB 3.0 NAS sharing? Sucks. External drive goes back on my Synology NASThere are many more annoying features and I am definitely not enjoying the Netgear experience. that’s the bad. The good is that once I got it setup the things I bought it for work great. My devices are connecting from everywhere around my home and so far I have no indication that bandwidth is being challenged. I’m trying out their SmartConnect feature where all 3 Bands share an SSID, so far so good. As long as I don’t have to touch it or I don’t want to use some feature it is doing the job. If I were to do it over again I’d probably go for one of those old ASUS models.
Amber Bates –
A really great router… butMark here, Amber’s hubby. Got this router yesterday (2/20/19) to replace a dodgy Asus RT-AC3200. We’re on Cox Gigablast and right out of the box this thing gave me a 940Mbps download speed. Asus maybe got 745 on a good day, usually far less.I go through with with setting my devices up and really liked the fact that I could set TV’s vs. Media streamers vs. Tablets vs. PC’s, etc. I am hoping that this divides up which priority that devices get? I haven’t been able to decide that yet, too soon.Now here’s the part where things start to go south a bit. I go to set Dynamic QOS and other security features and my bandwidth drops 200 megs. 940 to 740. I turn QOS off and bandwidth jumps back up to 940. In the course of doing these things I go back to the device list and it’s forgotten everything. It no longer knows Samsung is my TV or OnePlus is my phone, it just lists a generic “Network Device” for everything.I figure, no problem, I have plenty of time to play around with all the settings, I’m in no hurry. But the more that I turn things on and off the worse my throughput gets? If I erase the router and go back to factory settings then my 940 meg download speed comes right back.So now I am in that quandry of running with highly tweaked security and low throughput, or no tweaks and blazing speed?
steeloyangster –
A Fantastic Router For Gigabit Internet!I recently upgraded to Comcast’s Gigabit tier internet package which is their HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coaxial) DOCSIS 3.1 internet. When I purchased a new DOCSIS 3.1 modem to go with my new internet plan I was only getting ~750 Mbps to my hardwired computer. I did some troubleshooting to try and figure out what my issue was. Apparently my old ASUS RT-AC66U just couldn’t handle gigabit WAN/LAN speeds. I was severely disappointed but I knew that the time was coming to replace my old trusty router anyway. I looked up some of the new routers and did some research to see which ones would best serve my needs. I initially ordered an ASUS ROG Rapture GT AC5300 which was a $400 router at the time. I figured that it was going to be able to handle my gigabit speeds with no problem considering how long the name was and how much it cost. But sadly it was not up to the task. I had to return it because it was only returning ~550 Mbps through LAN. I finally found a website that benchmarked routers using the WAN/LAN throughput and discovered that Netgear routers easily took the top spots! I quickly selected the one which best fit my needs (Tri-Band WiFi, AC WiFi, and Link Aggregation) and ordered it. As soon as I had it hooked up to my new internet setup I was easily and consistently getting 945-955 Mbps through all of my hardwired connections. I was finally getting the throughput that I was paying for. Setup was rather easy for nearly everything (WiFi, IPV6, Port Forwarding, Static IP Addresses) and I was fully setup the way I wanted 30 mins after first bootup. My only complaint (which may be a subjective matter) is that the UI for Netgear routers is and has always been terrible. Not only is it terrible on the eyes but their inclination for hiding a lot of the features behind more “advanced” settings is annoying to say the least. But, it’s a minor complaint and something that a relatively computer savvy person can work through without much issue.Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase and it has met all of my expectations!