Which dual band setup is better? One Simultaneous Dual Band Router or Two Routers (one 2.4ghz, one 5ghz)

[aphex]

So I made the mistake of selling my Airport Extreme a few months back, I had it running 5ghz for my laptop upstairs which has quite a bit of interference on the 2.4ghz band due to the massive number of neighbors networks it picks up. 5ghz worked like a charm, clean/fast and interference free. Streaming was also noticeably improved with the old setup as the 5ghz signal allowed me to stream videos from my Macbook to the PS3 much more smoothly.

So now I'm back to 2.4ghz only and the dropouts/interference is driving me batty again. So I'm exploring my options, seems a few other models are now available and wanted to see which setup would be best.

Ideally, would going with a simultaneous dual band router (one router, two radios) be better than two separate routers (two single radio routers)? I want a router with QOS as my current setup doesn't have that option and didn't know if things would be better with a single router.

We have 4 devices that connect via wireless to the router;
Apple Macbook (11n/5ghz)
Toshiba Laptop (11g)
Wireless Bridge - Zyxel P330w (11g) - OOMA Hub and Ethernet Printer connection point
Sony PS3 (11g)

My potential options;

Dual Router Setup - Asus WL-520gU running DD-WRT (or Tomato) for 2.4ghz and Apple Airport Express as a 5ghz Access Point. Total cost would be $40 out of pocket for me as I own the airport express already.

Single Router Setup - D-Link DIR-825 running both 2.4ghz and 5ghz simultaneously. Total cost would be around $50-60 out of pocket as I would sell my Airport Express to offset the cost of the $120 router. Linksys has a few models as well, but they seem to be priced a bit higher.

So, what do you think?

 

[JackMDS]

I would say that in principle two separate Access Points provide better service.

 

[kevnich2]

I run two separate 5ghz access point's, better coverage and redundancy as well (if one does happen to at any point go down)

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
I would say that in principle two separate Access Points provide better service.

So as long as the primary router has a good QOS, I should be fine for all the devices no matter which access point they are using?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: aphex

Originally posted by: JackMDS
I would say that in principle two separate Access Points provide better service.

So as long as the primary router has a good QOS, I should be fine for all the devices no matter which access point they are using?

Yep. The other router should only act as a dumb access point.

As far as QoS goes, I haven't been a fan of dd-wrt. I was going to try Tomato when my new router comes from Newegg....

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: aphex

So as long as the primary router has a good QOS, I should be fine for all the devices no matter which access point they are using?

If the second device is a second Wireless Router.

Using a Wireless Router as a switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

 

[spidey07]

Look at this from a network design perspective. Spread the resources around, don't concentrate them. You have requirements that dictates separate paths - 2.4 and 5 Ghz. These are your paths and highways. Putting those into a single device means that device must work much more than a single device. If that single device can handle it, great, but doubtful. All those resources will be shared.

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Look at this from a network design perspective. Spread the resources around, don't concentrate them. You have requirements that dictates separate paths - 2.4 and 5 Ghz. These are your paths and highways. Putting those into a single device means that device must work much more than a single device. If that single device can handle it, great, but doubtful. All those resources will be shared.

Even though this is a bit off topic from this but the same thing applies if your one of the ones looking for an all in one cable/dsl modem with built in router, built in wireless, and oh, you want it to be reliable too. haha. No. Spread the resources out and you'll end up better. Yes, it does add more devices but if you want it to work the best, as it was designed, spreading different functions into different devices will be MUCH better.

 

[Eug]

Depends on how reliable you want it.

My combo DSL modem/router/access point goes down maybe once every few months. The only reasons I added a switch was to get more ports and to get GigE support.