Linksys Velop Pro 7 vs Netgear Orbi 970 – which is fast?

Design

8.7 inches tall, 3.7 inches wide, and 3.7 inches deep make up the white Linksys Velop Pro 7 compact towers. On top of them, they have a single status LED that, when everything is online and linked, illuminates full white.

By WiFi mesh standards, the Netgear Orbi 970 nodes are enormous. They are available in black with black trim or white with gold accent. 5.6 inches broad, 5.1 inches deep, and 11.5 inches high are their measurements.

Ports

There are four internal Wi-Fi antennas, one Bluetooth antenna, four 1GbE LAN ports, and a 2.5GbE WAN port on each Linksys Velop Pro 7 node. The absence of multi-gig LAN connectivity, which has a significant negative influence on throughput performance, is present in this Wi-Fi 7 mesh system for the first time that we have studied. USB ports similar to those on the TP-Link Deco BE85 nodes are also absent. A power switch, a pairing button, and a reset button are located on the base.

The Netgear Orbi 970 router node has four 2.5GbE LAN ports, a 10GbE WAN port, and a power button in addition to a reset button, Sync (Wi-Fi Protected Setup, or WPS) button, and several other buttons on the rear panel. There are no USB ports on this mesh system, in contrast to the TP-Link Deco BE85.

A 10GbE LAN port (suitable for wired backhaul), two 2.5GbE LAN ports, a reset button, a power button, a power port, a Sync button for syncing the satellite with the router, and other buttons are all present on the satellite nodes.

WiFi chip

Linksys Velop Pro 7, a tri-band BE11000 system, is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core CPU and has a maximum theoretical speed of 591Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, 4,324Mbps on the 5GHz band, and 5,765Mbps on the 6GHz band.

A 2.2GHz quad-core CPU, 12 high-gain amplified antennas, 4GB of flash memory, and 2GB of RAM are included with every Netgear Orbi 970 node. The maximum theoretical data rates that this quad-band BE27000 system can achieve are as follows: 1,147 Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, 8,647 Mbps on one 5GHz band, 5,765 Mbps on the second 5GHz band, and 11,530 Mbps on the 6GHz band.

WiFi 7

Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) technologies are used by Linksys Velop Pro 7, including 320MHz channels, 4×4 MU-MIMO streaming, direct-to-client beamforming, 6GHz transmissions, WPA3 encryption, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) data transmissions.

The most recent Wi-Fi 7 technology is employed by the Netgear Orbi 970. It is compatible with Multi Link Operation (MLO), which simultaneously uses the 5GHz and 6GHz bands to minimize congestion and maximize throughput. One of the main advantages of Wi-Fi 7 over earlier Wi-Fi iterations is MLO.

Transfer speed

In our close proximity test, the Velop Pro 7 router node received a score of 941Mbps. That is around 50% slower than the Eero Max 7 (2,149Mbps), TP-Link Deco BE85 (2,085Mbps), and Netgear Orbi 973S (2,209Mbps) routers, which connected to our iperf server’s 10GbE LAN port through a QNAP 2.5GbE switch using 2.5GbE ports. A 1GbE LAN port was used to connect to the Velop Pro 7.

The Netgear Orbi 973S router (916Mbps), the TP-Link Deco BE85 router (779Mbps), and the Eero Max 7 router (670Mbps) all scored significantly higher on the 30-foot test than the Velop Pro 7 router (345Mbps). It’s important to note that the Velop Pro 7 router performed better than other Wi-Fi 7 routers, with scores closer to those of the Linksys Velop Pro 6E router (910Mbps on the near proximity test and 345Mbps on the 30-foot test).

During our throughput performance tests, the Netgear Orbi 970 RBE973S demonstrated exceptional performance. In the close-proximity test, the router node yielded 2,209Mbps, and in the 30-foot test, 916Mbps. In contrast, the satellite node demonstrated 1,470Mbps in the close-proximity test and 1,040Mbps in the 30-foot test.

Subscription

The Velop Pro 7 has rudimentary parental controls that allow you to schedule a pause, quickly suspend internet connection, and block specific websites. However, it lacks anti-malware software and age-specific filters, unlike TP-Link’s Deco BE85 system.

Netgear offers a one-year free trial, after which you must pay $99.99 a year to continue your subscription. Additionally, you can manage family members’ online time, create profiles, and pause internet access for free with the basic parental controls. However, to access features like age-based web filtering, website monitoring, device usage statistics, and time rewards for good behavior, you’ll need to pay $7.99 a month or $69.99 a year for the Premium subscription.