Asus sent us theRT-N66U Dark Knight Dual-Band Router after we reported on its next router line-up last week. The RT-N66U follows the 'Black Diamond' series design. On the back of the router there are three RP-SMA removable dual-band antenna, DC input jack, power switch, two USB ports, reset button, WPS button, 1x gigabit WAN port and 4x gigabit LAN ports.
Asus decided to use red PCB on the router. There are two large ceramic heatsinks along with a small fan to help dissipate heat from the chipsets. Unfortunately, we won't know the actual specifications of the router until it is released. Though, we're speculating that it will be using Ralink chipsets for its SoC and RF tranciever, Realtek gigabit controller, 32MB flash and 256MB RAM. A birdie told us that it will be using Broadcom radio, with 32MB for flash and 128MB of memory and an extra MicroSD socket for expansion.
Asus has included IPv6 support into the router. Broadband subscribers with IPv6 address can finally utilize it. Also, it is able to do 6-to-4 and 6-in-4 tunnelling.
Another feature of this router is the VPS server. This allows users to remotely access the router’s storage media from virtually anywhere.
Users could also set each of the radio’s transmission power level individually. The fan speed can also be manually adjusted to cool down those hot chipsets. The graph shows the temperature of the router and at which threshold should the fan be turned on. Also, do keep in mind that the router's firmware is still in beta stages.
In addition to the RT-N66U wireless router, Asus also sent us the USB-N53, a dual band USB dongle with 2x2 MIMO antennas for speeds of up to 300Mbps and it's been designed to go with the Black Diamond series of routers. The USB-N53 are using Ralink based chipsets for its MAC, baseband and RF.
Currently there is no word on when the release date of the RT-N66U will be. Nor how much will it cost but with the additional features and specifications, it would be most likely to be slightly expansive than the RT-N56U wireless router. Stay tuned for our full review of the RT-N66U wireless router.
