Asus RT-AX86U Gaming router
A well-specified, high-performance router that’s targeted at gamers find broader appeal. but will
Asus has been kicking goals in the land of Wi-Fi 6. The company offers some of the best high-end routers, some of the best budget routers, some of the best Wi-Fi mesh systems and some of the best gaming routers. The RT-AX86U is Asus’ latest of the latter and first impressions were good.
Unlike many siblings and rivals, this high-end unit doesn’t look like an ostentatious, spiky spaceship that takes up heaps of desk space. Only three external antennae protrude from the top of the relatively discreet, vertically-oriented chassis. These combine with a 1.8GHz quad-core processor plus 1GB RAM to achieve theoretical dual-band speeds of 5,700Mbps. We used our usual test methodology to establish its real-world performance by downloading large files from our Synology DS1019+ NAS to a Dell XPS 15 OLED laptop in a threestorey Sydney townhouse with the router on the ground floor. Up close it managed a stonking 799Mbps transfer rate – the fastest Wi-Fi speed we’ve ever seen. This dropped to a (still-impressive) 311Mbps one floor up, before managing 104.3Mbps two floors up. While the performance drop-off is significant, it’s far from slow and you can use other Asus AiMesh-technology equipped products to boost long-range performance.
Asus’ well-featured phone app offers quick-and-simple set-up, decent monitoring options, plus access to the most important settings. There’s also an ‘innovative’ one-click Mobile Gaming Mode though we couldn’t detect it making a significant difference. This is the type of feature-packed device that’s worth using a full, desktop web browser to access the full complement of firmware features. Aside from excellent QoS and parental controls, there’s the usual (for Wi-Fi 6 routers) Trend Micro-based network security. We particularly liked the port forwarding section which, finally, has an extensive list of games (and platforms) ready for one-click optimisation.
Other features make use of the hardware ports. Here a Gigabit WAN can be combined with one of the four Gigabit LAN ports to provide a 2Gbps, dual internet connection that you can connect to via the additional 2.5Gbps Ethernet port. Alternatively, you can use the 2.5Gbps port as an internet source. There are also two, USB-A 3.2 Gen1 ports which can be configured to work in multiple ways: storage devices can be transformed into a file server or media server (including iTunes), it can also be used as a print server, 4G internet fall-back, Time Machine backup and even a PC-free, Bittorrent-compatible download manager.
It all amounts to a very well featured, very fast, gaming-oriented router, but at a hefty $519, it won’t be for everyone. If you just want Wi-Fi 6 beamed around your house with a single router, TP-Link’s similarly priced Archer AX6000 offers better performance at long range, albeit at the expense of blistering, close-up pace and the gaming-oriented bells and whistles. If you want the features and the range, Asus’ own colossal, ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 can now be found for under $700. However, if you want to save money, while maintaining decent Wi-Fi 6 performance, Asus’ budget friendly (and budget-looking) RT-AX3000 can be had for $378.
“Unlike many siblings and rivals, this highend unit doesn’t look like an ostentatious, spiky spaceship that takes up heaps of desk space.”
High-end features and blistering close-range performance will suit demanding gamers. But it’s overkill for most users.