D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router

Looking for a dual-band router so you can run two independent Wi-Fi networks, using one frequency band for data and the second for streaming media? Scratch the DGL-4500 off your list, because D-Link’s definition of “dual-band” means operating on either the 2.4GHz band or the 5.0GHz band—not both at the same time.

When we think of a dual-band router, we envision something like the Linksys WRT600N we’ve been using as a reference point. That device has separate 802.11n Draft 2.0 radios that enable us to run two independent wireless networks. That’s not to say the DGL-4500 is a lousy router; in fact, it delivered far superior performance at long distances than the WRT600N. Where the Linksys box is nearly useless when our Wi-Fi client is outside our test home—delivering throughput of just 0.7Mb/s at one exterior location and 1.2Mb/s at the other—the D-Link delivered exceptional throughput of 18.0Mb/s and 6.44Mb/s, respectively.

The DGL-4500 is also much easier to configure for use with Windows Home Server. While we had to manually configure port forwarding on the WRT600N in order to enable access to our server remotely from the Internet, the configuration wizard in Microsoft’s consumer server OS was able to set everything up automatically on the DGL-4500. And gamers will appreciate D-Link’s proprietary GameFuel technology, which analyzes network traffic and assigns higher priority to packets it identifies as being associated with games.

If you buy a DGL-4500, be sure and update it with the latest firmware. D-Link has added its SharePort feature, which enables the router to add USB devices such as printers and storage to your network and share them. The DGL-4500 exhibited impressive range and its gaming-oriented quality-of-service settings are handy for gaming, but that’s not enough to dislodge the WRT600N as our favorite router.

4/13/2009 Editor's Note: A reader brought the SharePort feature to our attention after reading this review in the March edition of the magazine; we issued a correction in the April issue and have added that feature to the online review. The bottom-line verdict has not changed from the print review. --MB

D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router

Fakir

Excellent range, useful gaming-oriented QoS settings, informative display.

Faker

Not a true dual-band router, display automatically shuts off.

www.dlink.com

Benchmarks

	D-Link DGL-4500	Linksys WRT600N
Kitchen, 20 feet (Mb/s)	99.9	105.0
Patio, 38 feet (Mb/s)	65.3	74.3
Bedroom, 60 feet (Mb/s)	50.4	42.2
Media Room, 35 feet (Mb/s)	20.3	29.8
Outdoors 1, 90 feet (Mb/s)	18.0	0.7
Outdoors 2, 85 feet (Mb/s)	6.4	1.2

Best scores are bolded. Our test bed consists of a Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU, 6GB of Corsair DDR3/1600, an EVGA GeForce 280 GTX videocard, a PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 1200 power supply, a WD Raptor 150GB drive, and Vista Home Premium 64-bit. HD Tach scores were achieved using an Intel X25-M SSD.