Wireless Network Performance

As always, we have made several measurements in order to evaluate the real-world performance offered by this router. But first, let's take a look at the apartment that was used in our testing and how it is set up. You can see that the router is placed in the living room.

Our testing was done using a fast 1 Gigabit Internet connection that's capable of uploads on the Internet of up to 200 Mbps. We used a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 for all our measurements and several software tools. To get a better perspective of the performance offered by TP-LINK Archer C9, we compared it to its slightly more affordable brother TP-LINK Archer C8 and ASUS RT-AC87U.

We started by measuring the strength of the wireless signal across the apartment, using inSSIDer. Below you can see how the signal strength evolves from room to room when using the 2.4 GHz wireless network. We found it surprising the that signal strength offered TP-LINK Archer C9 is weaker than that offered by TP-LINK Archer C8. However, this doesn't mean that the wireless network connection will be slower, as you will see later in this review.

Then, we measured the signal strength for the 5GHz wireless network. Here, TP-LINK Archer C9 and C8 had almost identical performance.

Next, we measured how fast the download speed was, using SpeedTest. When using the 2.4 GHz wireless network, the download speed was very good across the whole apartment, with TP-LINK Archer C9 delivering meaningful improvements over its more affordable brother - TP-LINK Archer C8.

When it comes to the upload speed though, the differences between TP-LINK Archer C9 and C8 were generally very small.

Next, we used SpeedTest on the 5GHz wireless network. Here TP-LINK Archer C9 was simply outstanding, delivering very fast downloads across the whole apartment.

The same was true in terms of upload speeds, with TP-LINK Archer C9 being a true performance leader.

For our last set of measurements on the wireless network, we used LAN Speed Test Lite to measure downloads and uploads when transferring a 350 MB file between two computers connected to the network. We did this first on the 2.4 GHz wireless networks.

TP-LINK Archer C9 was a good performer but ASUS RT-AC87U was faster in several rooms.

The picture was mixed when measuring the average upload speed on the 2.4 GHz wireless network. There's no clear winner. However, TP-LINK Archer C9 delivered good results in most rooms.

Last but not least, we used LAN Speed Test Lite on the 5 GHz wireless network. Again, TP-LINK Archer C9 was outstanding, with very fast downloads.

When measuring the upload speed, TP-LINK Archer C9 was, again, the performance leader.

The wireless performance delivered by TP-LINK Archer C9 is solid. However, this router shines when using it on 5GHz wireless networks. In our tests, it managed to deliver very fast downloads, as well as uploads, completed by very good signal coverage.

Wired Network Performance

In order to test the quality of the wired Ethernet connection, we used a desktop PC, equipped with an Intel Core i5 4460 processor, running at 3.20GHz, 16GB of RAM and a very fast Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD and a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with an Intel Core i5-4300U processor, running at 1.9 GHz, 8 GB of RAM and a fast 256 GB SSD drive from Samsung.

First, we measured the download and upload speeds using SpeedTest. When downloading data from the SpeedTest servers, TP-LINK Archer C9 was slightly faster than its competitors.

In terms of uploading data, TP-LINK Archer C9 was a clear winner.

For our final test, we measured the download and upload speeds when transferring an 883 MB file to and from the two computers connected to the network, both of which were using an Ethernet cable.

Here, TP-LINK Archer C9 was outperformed both by ASUS RT-AC87U and TP-LINK Archer C8. However, we can't say that it was slow. It just wasn't as fast as its competition.

The same trend we noticed when measuring the upload speed over the network.

TP-LINK Archer C9 delivers true 1 Gbps wired network connections. If you have computers with modern processors and SSD drives, you will be able to enjoy very fast transfers over the network.

Extra Features

In terms of extra features, TP-LINK Archer C9, offers fewer features than its competitors from other manufacturers:

• Guest Network - we were impressed by the number of controls that TP-LINK offers for creating Guest networks. You can set them in a very detailed manner.

• Parental Control - a basic set of controls which allow you to control the Internet access for the devices that are used by your children. We found it relatively hard to configure when compared to routers made by other manufacturers.

  

• Access Control - this router offers the ability to create all kinds of advanced rules that apply to the traffic on your network.

• TP-LINK Tether - an Android and iOS app that allows you to manage the router from your smartphone. Unfortunately, there is no version for Windows Phone.

• Secondary Connection - this feature is available only for PPPoE connections. If your ISP provides an extra connection type such as Dynamic/Static IP to connect to a local area network, then you can check the radio button of Dynamic/Static IP to activate this secondary connection.

  

The list of extra features offered by TP-LINK Archer C9 is less generous than that of other vendors. However, everything that's offered works well and adds value to users.

Verdict

TP-LINK Archer C9 offers very good wireless networking performance, especially when using modern 5GHz wireless networks using the 802.11ac standard. Its feature set, while not as extensive as that of its competitors, does its job very well. We think that this router provides a very good price/performance ratio that's hard to match by other wireless routers. If you want very good performance without too many bells and whistles, at a reasonable price, TP-LINK Archer C9 is a very good choice that you should definitely take into consideration.