Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 Review

For online gamers, bandwidth can be just as important as graphics performance, but not all routers offer the kind of settings necessary to optimize your gaming experience.

Enter the Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 ($299.99), a slick-looking AC2600 dual-band router that will help you prioritize network traffic and let you monitor things like latency and bandwidth, memory, and CPU usage using a specially designed gamer-centric operating system.

The XR500 performed admirably on our close-range throughput tests, but its long-range throughput was slower than what we saw with our top pick for midrange routers, the Asus RT-AC86U.

Designed for Gaming

The angular design and fancy grillwork on the the XR500 ($249.99 at Best Buy) leave little doubt that this router is meant for gaming.

The black enclosure measures 2.2 by 12.7 by 9.6 inches (HWD) and has a series of LED status indicators along the front edge for power, internet, both Wi-Fi bands, guest Wi-Fi, both USB ports, and four LAN ports.

The top of the router has a Wi-fi On/Off button and a WPS button, and there are two USB 3.0 ports on the left side.

Around back are four gigabit LAN ports and a WAN port, a switch that turns the LED indicators on and off, a reset button, a power button, and a power jack.

It has four adjustable removable antennas and is powered by a 1.7GHz dual-core processor, 256MB of flash memory, and 512MB of RAM.

The XR500 is a 4X4 router capable of speeds of up to 800Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 1,733GHz on the 5GHz band.

It supports Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) data streaming, which delivers data to MU-MIMO-compatible clients simultaneously rather than sequentially, and beamforming, which allows the router to send data directly to clients rather than over a broad spectrum.

As with the Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Smart WiFi Router (R9000) ($528.00 at Amazon) and the Linksys WRT32X Wi-Fi Gaming Router, the XR500 supports 160MHz Wi-Fi, which doubles the 80MHz channel width on the 5GHz band to achieve faster throughput speeds.

Robust Software

The XR500 is the first Netgear router to use DUMAOS, an interactive gamer-friendly operating system developed by Netduma with a focus on bandwidth allocation, resource monitoring, and network prioritization.

The DUMAOS dashboard lets you see what is going on with your network with a single glance.

It contains graphs showing real-time CPU and bandwidth usage, currently installed apps, guest networking status, Wi-Fi status, and Internet status.

Off to the left is a menu system with Geo-Filter, QoS, Device Manager, Network Monitor, System Information, and Settings tabs.

With the Geo-Filter feature you can help reduce lag by limiting the distance to the host servers you play on.

Simply set your home location on the map and then set a distance range.

Players and servers outside of your range will be prevented from hosting your game.

You can create custom Geo-Filter profiles for each system on your network and assign different ranges for each online game.

The QoS tab offers several ways to optimize game play.

You can limit upload and download bandwidth percentages for each connected device simply by clicking on the device name and using the slider to change the percentage.

You can also prioritize traffic based on the application, giving a higher priority to games that have more lag, and enable the Anti-Bufferbloat setting that automatically provides adequate bandwidth to smaller applications while reserving the lion's share for high priority applications.

The Device Manager is actually a network map that lets you click on each device to access its IP and MAC address settings and enable or block access to the network.

Click the Network Monitor to see a graphical representation of upload and download bandwidth usage of all devices on the network and which applications are being run.

The System Information tab opens a multi-panel screen with statistics for CPU, RAM, and flash memory usage as well as installed apps and the level of resources they are using.

Finally, the Settings tab is where you go to configure typical router settings including Internet, Wireless, LAN, and Guest Network settings.

Here you can also use Content Filtering settings to block access to specific sites, create an access schedule, and enable email alerts when someone attempts to visit a restricted site.

Advanced settings include Port Forwarding, Port Triggering, VPN Services, Remote Management, and Static Routing.

Installation and Performance

Installing the XR500 is easy.

Once the router was plugged in and connected to my cable modem and my desktop PC, I opened a browser and entered www.routerlogin.net in the address bar.

This launched a setup program which configured my internet settings for optimal performance and prompted me to create an admin password and answer two security questions.

I received a Wi-Fi login password, updated the firmware, and was finished.

The XR500 performed well on our close-proximity (same-room) throughput performance tests, but performance took a hit on our long-range tests.

On the 2.4GHz close-proximity test, its score of 104Mbps was identical to the Asus RT-AC86U and was a bit faster than the Netgear R8000P and the D-Link DIR-885L/R.

The Linksys WRT32X led them all with a score of 148Mbps.

Its score of 42Mbps on the 30-foot 2.4GHz test trailed the pack: the Asus RT-AC86U and the Linksys WRT32X shared the top spot with matching scores of 86Mbps.

On the 5GHz close-proximity test, the XR500 garnered a score of 491Mbps, besting the Netgear R8000P and the Linksys WRT32X, but not the Asus RT-AC86U and D-Link DIR-885L/R.

At 30 feet, its score of 175Mbps was the slowest of the bunch, while the D-Link DIR-885L/R took top honors with a score of 350Mbps.

We used three identical Acer Aspire R 13 ($937.99 at Office Depot® & OfficeMax®) laptops equipped with Qualcomm's QCA61x4A MU-MIMO circuitry to test the XR500's MU-MIMO performance.

Its score of 176Mbps on the close-proximity test was right there with the Linksys WRT32X and the Asus RT-AC86U, but slower than the D-Link DIR-885L/R and the Netgear R8000P.

The XR500 scored 98Mbps on the 30-foot test, beating the Linksys WRT32X, but not the Netgear R8000P, the D-Link DIR-885L/R, and the Asus RT-AC86U.

To test file-transfer performance, we move a 1.5GB folder containing a mix of video, music, photo, and document files between a wired host PC and a USB drive attached to the router's USB 3.0 port and time the router's read and write speeds.

The XR500's read time of 40MBps was faster than the Netgear R8000P and the Asus RT-AC86U and just a tad slower than the Linksys WRT32X ($329.99 at Amazon) and the D-Link DIR-885L/R.

Its write speed of 62MBps was second only to the Linksys WRT32X.

Gaming-Friendly Wireless

For gamers who want to be sure that they are getting all the bandwidth they need to be competitive in the online arena, the Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 is definitely worth a look.

It's packed with the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology including MU-MIMO, beamforming, and 160Mhz channel width, and is a snap to install.

With the user-friendly DUMAOS operating system, you get numerous ways to prioritize network traffic, reduce latency, and monitor all of your network resources, and it offers plenty of system settings as well.

It provided solid close-range throughput and reasonably good file-transfer performance in testing, but its long-range throughput was less than stellar.

For better all-around performance, check out our Editors' Choice for midrange routers, the Asus RT-AC86U.

It offers excellent prioritization controls and built-in network protection, and it costs about $100 less than the XR500.