Asus T-AX92U Wi-Fi router
Our new favourite wireless router.
Thanks to their range and performance, AX routers have been destroying the mesh Wi-Fi market so our first thought was, “What’s the point of having AX-based mesh Wi-Fi?” Could this be more Asus overkill? It didn’t take us long to find out what the fuss was about.
We’ve been testing Wi-Fi equipment in various Sydney premises for a long time. In recent years, testing has distilled into running Ookla’s Speedtest over WLANs because it provided the simplest, most relatable and most reliable method of comparing relative networking performance across devices. Throughout this time, however, our primary home PC has been sat, two floors up, connected via powerline adapters because the resident gamers could not rely upon the best wireless devices to beam a robust-enough gaming
signal up two flights of stairs. Was today the day?
Each of the RT-AX92U nodes is a mini router, complete with WAN port and four Gigabit Ethernet ports. Both are significantly smaller than traditional routers despite offering comparable performance and features. We plugged one into our Telstra cable modem which offers reliable 115/5 Mbps speeds and placed the other next to our primary PC. This configuration is usually not permitted by two-node Mesh networks as having a node-less coverage gap on the first floor usually decimates top-floor performance. Even with three nodes (one on each floor) you get some drop off as you go up.
Nonetheless, with the two-node, wide-gap, mesh activated we experienced bomb-proof maximum internet speeds, across all devices, at all points of our home even when simultaneously streaming 4K video to a TV and YouTube to the kids’ ancient Android tablets.
Next we tested the PC. Over the powerlines, internet performance fluctuates between 70Mbps and 90Mbps with a ping that varies between 12 and 16ms but it’s otherwise solid enough for gaming. However, with Asus’ AX Mesh setup, ping was a constant 12ms and internet speeds were consistently maxed out with no discernible fluctuation. We performed a 40GB FTP file transfer from a directlyconnected USB 3 drive and achieved consistent 48MB/s transfer speeds (386Mbps). While this is some way below the theoretical maximum of AX Wi-Fi (even AC Wi-Fi) the reality is that, for the first time, the AX-based, 4804Mbps-rated, backhaul connection provided wire-like stability two storeys above our modem. So, for the first time, we didn’t miss having an Ethernet cable.
Everything is simple to set up and, with the exception of the elaborate gaming settings, it sports all of the security and network management features that its ROG Rapture cousin provides. Everything can be easily managed via browser or smartphone app.
It’s not cheap but we’ve finally cut the cord to our primary gaming PC and if you’ve felt limited in a similar way, the Asus RT-AX92U 2 Pack can prove to be liberating.