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[mtlathome]

Hi there! I always come here for help because I’ve found this forum to be the best in the past for good advice — hence why I’m here again.

My router is giving me a headache now. It’s old and can’t take full advantage of my 500 Mbps connection. With QoS enabled, it only lets me get about 300 Mbps. I live with four little gamers, and all of them complain about lag or random disconnects.

I recently purchased two UniFi access points because I thought the router was doing too much, so I disabled the wireless functionality within the router’s settings.

Now I’m looking for advice on building my own router. I don’t want to spend £500 on something that basically has the same specs as what I already have. I’m not sure what would be the best option in terms of software — pfSense or OpenWRT — but whichever offers the best QoS control will win this fight.

Could someone recommend a good router build or a parts list to get started?

[dee.jay]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beelink-SER3-3200-Processor-500G/dp/B09XGZ3RTM?crid=UBTK5QVUO76C&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.HZ5tu6gxOtzGogRMKo979wZrKmmYkWmXoLng5AuM1yrYd0niNbIBkahWn3peOLYrmGkndVqLLu-DlHGvMO9TC0Vkwh-JzTPO3nFGtZ99-_MFat1InOrhrKSDpW-uyI1ADsCfxmpgGn3IsppQe3DVA2gZ7S5Yl6tg1nI1H70mqqcvlgEEftM-kDEJJFk9bKIKyc3xWmoli9-GLbkNWtfWPD_O3cl-oYLMnl5JBuEW-wE.W4Xon8zF-M4hGIKS5CltvclVe4rCWFWMvk_OISnFltw&dib_tag=se&keywords=beelink%2Beq12&qid=1743943548&sprefix=beelink%2Beq12%2B%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-5&th=1

I bought the EQ12 variant of this a while back and it is more than powerful enough to run pfSense/opnSense, has 2 x 2.5Gbps NIC's - perfect.

[Alex Atkin UK]

OpenWRT has better QoS but last I checked was a PITA to keep updated on PC hardware as its not designed for in-place package upgrades like a standard PC OS (or pfSense/OPNsense).

That said, are you sure you even need QoS on a connection that fast?  Although it tends to be upstream bandwidth that is more important.  Maxing out the CPU on the router with QoS on most likely will be worse than having QoS off.

[mtlathome]

OpenWRT has better QoS but last I checked was a PITA to keep updated on PC hardware as its not designed for in-place package upgrades like a standard PC OS (or pfSense/OPNsense).

That said, are you sure you even need QoS on a connection that fast?  Although it tends to be upstream bandwidth that is more important.  Maxing out the CPU on the router with QoS on most likely will be worse than having QoS off.

That looks like a solid choice. The only thing is, it only has two Ethernet ports, so I'd have to buy another switch or something, since I need 4–5 ports where I’m planning to put this new router.

OpenWRT has better QoS but last I checked was a PITA to keep updated on PC hardware as its not designed for in-place package upgrades like a standard PC OS (or pfSense/OPNsense).

That said, are you sure you even need QoS on a connection that fast?  Although it tends to be upstream bandwidth that is more important.  Maxing out the CPU on the router with QoS on most likely will be worse than having QoS off.

I still need QoS for gaming, as I'm still experiencing some bufferbloat

[Alex Atkin UK]

I still need QoS for gaming, as I'm still experiencing some bufferbloat

Are you absolutely sure its buffer bloat?  Prioritising traffic should make zero difference if the connection is not maxed out.