Linksys’ EA9500 Max-Stream AC5400 MU-MIMO Gigabit Router is the first of a second round of tri-radio routers based on Broadcom’s 4×4 MU-MIMO chipset. Unlike the first round that included NETGEAR’s R8500 Nighthawk X8 and ASUS’ RT-AC5300, the new routers from Linksys and TP-LINK decided to adopt Broadcom’s official 5.4 Gbps rating, hence their AC5400 moniker vs. NETGEAR and ASUS’ AC5300. To avoid confusion, I’ll be classing them all as AC5300, since that was the first to be used.

• Warranty: 3 years