New House - Gaming Tech Help

Bombaderios,

Today I will be purchasing my first house. The house is wired with built in speakers. Does anyone have a recommendation for a multi-zone receiver? I have an Xbox One and I am assuming I should plug the hdmi directly into the tv to prevent further input lag and use a digital optical cable for sound. Thoughts?

Also, I need to purchase a modem and was looking at some of the modem / router combinations, as I want to upgrade my router as well. Does anyone have a recommendation for a good gaming wireless router? I currently have a Netgear N600. I'd like to upgrade and set up some access points. I'm confused how the cable company's speed (50 mbps) correlates with a router's capacity. Why should I care that a router can do 750 mbps, is there any cable out there that comes close to that speed?

Thanks for all the help Bombers!

The speed of the router is how fast it sends and receives stuff around your house. If you stream things to and from different devices, you're going to want a pretty fast router. So, for instance, if you've got a collection of movies sitting on a computer in your office and you want to watch one of those movies in your living room on your Xbox One, you're going to want those fast speeds.

No, it will not make your actual internet connection faster.

Thanks believer258! I get that it won't increase my internet speed, just wondering if there was any benefit of having a router with up to 750 mbps. Thanks again!

I've had my Xbox One plugged into my receiver since day one and I've never noticed any input lag.

I would look into powerline networking instead of wireless for gaming (or for anything with an ethernet port to be honest). My home theater has been powerline networked for years now, and I haven't had any problems with gaming or streaming media over the internet.

Thanks Bane! I had never heard of powerline networking before. Is there any downside?

Congrats on your first house!

Steam In-Home Streaming, or Cortex if Razer can pull of everything they're promising.

As a fellow Duder that has recently purchased a new home and went through the rigors of networking everything, let me share with you a few links to help you get started.

1000ft CAT6 Cable

Crimping Tool

RJ45 Crimp Connectors

6-Port Keystone Wall Plates

Ethernet Keystone Inserts - I went with multiple colors so that I knew which jack went to which other one.

Other Keystone Inserts

Just in case you don't want to bother with In Home Streaming - You'll want a USB extender as well if you go this route though

Dammit, CableLeader's so great. I'm pretty sure they're the site that sent me a package of Skittles in my box!

As far as a router, just pick one from Netgear, TP Link, Cisco. It's pretty hard to go wrong.

Oh, and the tool used to guide cables through the wall is called Fish Tape

You're welcome.

Hmm, downsides. They take up power outlets, one near the modem and one near the stuff you want to get online. I'm not sure how effective they are with older or poorly maintained electrical wiring, but as long as your house was built to a modern electrical code you should be fine I'd imagine. Plugging them into a switched outlet can lead to some fun "why the hell won't the Xbox get online? oh, who flipped the switch?" moments.

So no, no real downsides that I know of. ;)

Google Fiber is available in seven cities at 1gbps with expansion plans in the future. Apparently AT&T has started to match them in those limited areas as well. Maybe you're lucky enough to live in one of those cities.

I hail from CLE, OH so no fiber round these parts...

If you get a new router and you need to save money due to buying your new house (congrats! That is EXCELLENT!), this is what I have and it's worked great for our VERY wireless house.

It's a simple Netgear N900 model R4500. It's very easy to set up and use. It seems strong as hell from what I can tell. I've been online gaming since dialup and this particular router just never seems to drop out. We use our Bravia smart tv (netflix and the like), our DVR, 3 cell phones, a desktop, a laptop and our Xbox all through this router, often all at the same time, and I'm not even detecting any problem with lag when I play online. The router itself is far from the tv (netflix and xbox), about 120 feet (long ranch style house) and passes through several rooms to reach the tv and xbox but the signal strength is still stellar.

The downside is that this model is several years old, so you may have trouble finding it. But if you can it will be quite cheap and even when I bought it new (for $120 if I remember correctly) I found it to be the best, most reliable router I've had ever at any price point. It's a great workhorse, no issues in the several years I've owned it.

Oh yeah, our connection is 20/5, even at this moderate speed the router seems to kick enough juice to all devices to always get the best stream, most solid connection or whatever. Rock, damn, solid piece of equipment. In this day and age where I'm continually disappointed in expensive items that are supposed to work better I wish I could marry this thing.

Thanks bomber!

I've checked out that router. All in all, Netgear is pretty good. One router that caught my eye is the

ASUS Dual-Band Wireless-N 600 Router (RT-N56U)

Does anyone have any experience with this router?