Netgear has announced a new router and LAN switch aimed at gamers, at CES 2018. Netgear has unveiled the gaming-oriented Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 router as well as a Nighthawk SX10 10G/Multi-Gig LAN Switch. Netgear aims to leverage its software to optimise network connections by stabilising ping, reducing lag spikes, and keeping users 'always-on' with reliable wired and wireless connectivity for advanced online gameplay. Netgear has partnered with Netduma for the software. The Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming WiFi Router (XR500) is available for sale and is priced at $299.99 (roughly Rs. 19,100). Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming SX10 10G/Multi-Gig LAN Switch (GS810EMX) is also available and priced the same.
The Nighthawk Pro Gaming WiFi Router packs a dual-core 1.7GHz processor, Quad-stream Wave 2 Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO, and four external high-power antennas. The processor enables support more devices for better 4K streaming, VR gaming, surfing, claims the company. Meanwhile, the MU-MIMO WiFi streams simultaneously to multiple devices on the same network to enable smoother performance. The router features four-port Gigabit switch for making wired connections. It also sports two USB 3.0 ports which can be used to share USB storage over the network. In terms of storage, the device sports 256MB flash storage and 512MB of RAM.
When it comes to the software, DumaOS includes a gaming dashboard that displays real-time bandwidth utilisation for each device connected to the network. Additionally, the Gaming Dashboard, Geo Filter, Quality of Service (QoS) and Network Monitoring capabilities enable customisation to upgrade gaming performance.
The Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming SX10 10G/Multi-Gig LAN Switch (GS810EMX), coming as a successor to the Nighthawk S8000 was a 2018 CES Innovation Awards Honoree. In order to fine-tune gameplay, the 10G switch to prioritises streams with QoS. Netgear's new LAN Switch offers hard-wired speeds for gamers. It has two auto-adaptive 10Gigabit/Multi-Gigabit ports delivering data transfer with five different connectivity speeds: 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 2.5Gbps, 5Gbps or 10Gbps. Pro Gaming SX10 Switch and other network devices can achieve 20Gbps transfer speeds with link integration, claims Netgear.
Richard Jonker, senior vice president of SMB for Netgear, in a press release, says, "With the Nighthawk Pro Gaming SX10 Switch, we made it easy to offload high-bandwidth applications to reduce congestion for your network. The gaming dashboard offers real-time insights into bandwidth utilisation by the device, so you can ensure optimum performance and know where your bandwidth is being used."
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