Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000
It catches the (glowing) eye, but the features will be overkill for most homes
SCORE
PRICE £317 (£380 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk
Gaming hardware is a specialist genre, but the Rapture attracted mainstream attention on its 2019 debut as one of the first widely available Wi-Fi 6 routers of any sort.
It’s an eye-catching beast, with eight chunky aerials and a sinister glowing eye in the middle that can change colour to reflect network status, or just pulse decoratively.
Inside, there’s a pair of 5GHz radios, which means you can connect a large number of Wi-Fi 5 clients with minimal contention issues – or form multiple Asus routers into an AiMesh network and then use the second radio for backhaul.
Alternatively, gamers can choose to devote the second radio exclusively to gaming traffic, while other home devices go via the regular network. You get a few gaming-specific features too: the web portal features a live map showing load and ping speed for a variety of popular game servers, while game profiles take care of opening and forwarding the appropriate ports. There’s built-in support for the WTFast gaming VPN too, although traffic limits apply unless you fork out $100 a year for a subscription.
For non-gamers, the full feature set of the top-shelf RT-AX88U is replicated, including upstream and downstream VPN connections, parental controls, network security and a pair of USB 3.1 ports supporting storage, printers and USB modems. As an additional bonus, the GT-AX11000 adds a multi-gig LAN port supporting connections at up to 5Gbits/sec over a regular Ethernet cable.
The Rapture’s radio specs also precisely match those of the RTAX88U, meaning we weren’t exactly shocked to see similarly speedy performance in our Wi-Fi 6 file-copy tests. Curiously, the Rapture lagged slightly behind over Wi-Fi 5, suggesting that more aerials don’t always guarantee a faster connection.
From features to performance, the RoG Rapture GT-AX11000 has plenty to offer. However, not everyone needs that second 5GHz radio, and the gaming features are largely supported by the RT-AX88U as well. For most people, therefore, it will be smarter to opt for the latter router or the cheaper RT-AX82U – and save the price difference for another day.