Final Thoughts & Conclusion

D-Link's DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router brings several fantastic features to the enthusiast market such as GameFuel, WISH, and DynDNS services. In addition, the DGL-4500 supports Wireless N at 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands, and carries four gigabit Ethernet ports for wired networking.

In terms of performance, we saw an all-around improvement from older 802.11g routers such as the ever-popular Linksys WRT54g. The DGL-4500's gigabit Ethernet speeds more or less made the WRT54g seem obsolete, as the speeds far surpassed what the WRT54g is capable of. For wireless networking, we saw a significant jump when using pure 5GHz 802.11n speed, but the DGL-4500 was still faster at the 2.4GHz band as well.

The DGL-4500 is an absolutely fantastic router that packs a ton of features in a small package (think: size doesn't matter). Wireless N is set to take over the consumer market, and the DGL-4500 is ready to help the cause. If not for gaming, the DGL-4500 makes for a fantastic purchase for it's raw speed and feature set. The one downside to the router are the seemingly unnecessary reboots and speeds tests during configuration.

Pros

• Easy Setup
• Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n support
• LCD Display
• Large feature set
• Fast transfer speeds

Cons

• Seemingly unnecessary reboots
• Annoying speed tests
• Randomly reboots under heavy loads

Rating
8/10