Arris has released Surfboard g36 wireless gateway product based on wifi-6 technology after a long time with similar product with legacy wifi-5 technology (the Surfboard sbg8300). Is it still worth to buy arris sbg8300 or buy new arris g36?
On the other hand, netgear has also released a similar product cax80 with wifi6 technology after a long success with netgear c7800 with legacy wifi-5 technology. If you have to choose, which one is more economical between arris sbg8300 and netgear c7800 if you stick with legacy wifi-5 network?
See also new product offered by Arris – the Surfboard Max Pro wifi 6 ax11000 mesh wifi system – the fastest mesh wifi so far.
Arris Cable Modem with Wifi Routers
Before releasing this Surfboard sbg8300 series, Arris had released few series of cable modem wireless router products including two series of Surfboard Sbg7400 and Sbg7600. These three products are cable modems with different speeds but have similarities in wireless routers integrated into this wireless gateway product, namely wave 2 wifi AC2350 simultaneous dual band. Technically, each model delivers wifi speeds of up to 1733Mbps @5GHz and up to 600Mbps @2.4GHz band.
What the differences?
The main differences lie on the types of cable modem and speeds each of the Surfboard cable modem that is integrated into the wireless router. Take a look at the following table. Both Surfboard Sbg7400 and Sbg7600 are DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem; however the Arris Sbg8300 is DOCSIS 3.1 which the speed is 10 times faster than DOCSIS 3.0.
The second difference is the number of channel bonding for downstream internet speed. Sbg7600 is designed with 32x channel bonding with speed up to 1.23Gbps, a bit different with Sbg7400 which is only 24x channel bonding. Since DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem is backward compatible with any existing DOCSIS 3.0 infrastructure, investing Sbg8300 is worth for blasting speed of internet plan up to 4Gbps.
Table 1 Arris Sbg8300 vs Sbg7600 vs Sbg7400
| Surfboard sbg7400 | Surfboard sbg7600 | Surfboard sbg8300 | |
| Cable modem | DOCSIS 3.0 | DOCSIS 3.0 | DOCSIS 3.1 |
| Channel bonding | 24 x 8 | 32 x 8 | 2×2 OFDMA / 32 x 8 DOCSIS 3.0 |
| Downstream Internet speed | 1.0Gbps | 1.23Gbps | 4Gbps |
| Upstream speed | 240Mbps | 240Mbps | 1Gbps |
Who is the main competitor of this product? The main competing product for Arris sbg8300 is Netgear C7800 (aka Nighthawk X4s) wireless cable modem router which has been released to the market a couple months before Arris released this product.
And today you can find two series of arris products, the arris Surfboard g34 and g36 which both comes with latest wifi-6 technology. See also new Motorola Mg8725 which also discusses new Arris g34 and g36 cable modem with wifi 6 routers.
Arris Sbg8300 vs Netgear C7800
At the first time this product was released, Arris Sbg8300 was tagged with around $100 cheaper than Netgear C7800. Probably this is one of Arris’s strategies to attract the attention of customers who wish a similar product with more economical price despite there is couple of differences in technical specs.
So what are the main differences between these two products? The following is the spec comparison table between the two products to help you notice the main differences (if any).
See also comparison Motorola DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem vs Arris, both native DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem and gateway.
Cable modem
The main similarity between the two products is the built-in cable modem which is the same DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem with technical speeds up to 10Gbps internet speed if your provider already uses the same DOCSIS 3.1 infrastructure such as Cox, Spectrum, and Xfinity and other US cable providers. DOCSIS 3.1 can still interoperability with DOCSIS 3.0 infrastructure, so there’s no need to worry.
Wifi router
Although both products use the same simultaneous dual-band technology; but each of them works in different network segment. Surfboard Sbg8300 uses wave-2 AC2350 technology with total aggregated bandwidth up to 2,350Mbps while Netgear c7800 uses wave 1 AC3200 technology with total aggregated bandwidth up to 3,200Mbps.
Port interfaces
And one more physical difference is the existence of two USB 3.0 ports on the Nighthawk X4s (Netgear C7800) that is absent on the Arris Sbg8300. This USB port is typically used for sharing printer or hard disk storage. However, when you use Windows PC platform at home you can utilize printer and file sharing feature offered by Windows series as well as Mac platform.
Table 2 Arris Sbg8300 vs Netgear C7800
| Model | Arris Surfboard SBG8300 | Netgear C7800 (aka Nighthawk X4s) |
| Cable modem | DOCSIS 3.1 | DOCSIS 3.1 |
| Cable speeds | 10Gbps download speed (2×2) OFDM 32 x 8 Modem Channel , up to 1Gbps downstream | 2×2 OFDM ready up to 9Gbps / 32×8 channel bonding speeds of up to 1Gbps internet downstream |
| Wifi technology | Dual band AC2350 wave 2 | Dual band AC3200 wave 1 |
| Wifi speeds | 1,733Mbps @5GHZ 600Mbps @2.4GHz | 2,200 Mbps @5GHz 1,000 Mbps @2.4GHz |
| Antenna | 3×3 and 4×4 MIMO antenna arrays | Four (4) high performance active antennas |
| Ethernet ports | 4 x 10/100/1000 Base-T Ethernet (RJ-45 connector) MDI /MDI-X | Four (4) Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports |
| USB ports | N/A | Two (2) USB 3.0 ports |
| Processor | Unspecified | Dual core 1.5GHz processor with 128MB Flash and 256MB RAM |
| Price | $279.00 | $329.99 |
With few technical advantages on Netgear C7800 Nighthawk x4s cable modem wireless router, you can choose between Netgear c7800 with better technical features and Arris sbg8300 with cheaper price around $ 50 cheaper.
To learn more spec details and manufacturer’s description, click the product link below to shop in Amazon (#ads).
Related products
See also few models of most popular Motorola DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem vs Arris Surfboard with latest featured products. You may also consider to connect to newer model of Orbi rbk763 mesh wifi 6 system. For wired backhaul model, you may consider powerline backhaul mesh system – see TP-link Deco P9 Powerline mesh wifi system.