Another point to note here is that while the C5400X is clearly designed and built for gaming, the malicious content filter and a rock-solid security package in-built, make it a good option for a home router as well.
Coming back to the overall design, the C5400X features a glowing TP-Link logo on the top which is white when all functions are normal, and red when there is no connectivity, simple but very very useful. On the back, we have an input WAN connection and 8 downstream ports, which is insane considering the competing routers only offer half as many. On the other side, we have two USB 3.0 ports for printers and data devices. The other side has individual push buttons for turning the lights off, pausing the internet and cutting the Wi-Fi transmissions, thus making the C5400X into a wired router.
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Performance –
Anything gaming related needs to show the performance, and in that respect, the C5400X is no pushover. The Broadcom BC4366 WiFi chip has a 1.8GHz quad-core processor with three auxiliary co-processors along with 512MB of storage space and 1GB of RAM. Its triband design has a single 2.4GHz transmitter (1Gbps) and two 5GHz ones (2.167Gbps each) that can handle around 5.3Gbps of data flow under ideal conditions.
At 5 feet, the C5400X delivers 733.9Mbps which is clearly ahead of its competition, the Netgear XR500 (704.7 Mbps) and the Linksys WRT32X (527.6 Mbps). The performance is so overpowering in fact, that the only router that can match the C5400X in terms of raw speed is its younger sibling, the C2300. The only real situation where the C5400X actually concedes defeat is at 100 feet, where the provided 447.1Mbps versus the XR500’s 524.3Mbps. The Linksys is nowhere in the picture at this point.
