3. The Products, Continued

As I mentioned earlier, the Linksys WRT54GX is an internal physical identical twin to the Belkin Pre-N.

Linksys WRT54GX Wireless-G / SRX Broadband Router

The two NETGEAR RangeMax products in the test are very different internally. The original WPN824 RangeMax is based on an Atheros AR2313 Wireless System on a Chip that includes a 32-bit MIPS R4000-class processor and multi-protocol MAC/baseband processing engine. 10/100 switching is handled via a Marvell Link Street 88E6060/88E6060-I 6-Port Fast Ethernet switch.

The newer WPNT834 RangeMax 240 is a different beast, using a Realtek RTL8651B Advanced Home Gateway Controller, which also contains a 6 port 10/100 switch.

NETGEAR WPN824 RangeMax Wireless Router

NETGEAR WPNT834 RangeMax 240 Wireless Router

Like the D-Links above, the ZyXEL X-550 is also based on Ubicom's IP3023. The design closely resembles that of the DI-634M since it also uses a Realtek RTL8305SC for the 10/100 switch.

ZyXEL X-550 XtremeMIMO Broadband Router