The Best Gaming Routers (2026): Tested By a Family of Gamers Leave a comment

Few issues are extra irritating than packet loss or excessive ping inflicting in-game lag. It at all times appears to occur on the worst doable second, if you’re about to snipe an unsuspecting opponent or screech right into a hairpin bend. Whereas there are different potential causes, your substandard router may very well be doing you soiled. The very best gaming routers promise rock strong connections and might often prioritize game-related site visitors to scale back the chance of points. Additionally they regularly function fancy designs and customizable lighting to suit your gaming room.

Now, you don’t essentially want a particular gaming router. A great router is an effective router, and also you’ll discover tons of them in my guides to the Greatest Routers and Greatest Mesh Techniques. You may also get a greater connection just by working an Ethernet cable out of your router to your gaming PC. That stated, I’ve examined a number of gaming routers, and my prime decide is the quickest router I’ve ever examined.

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Greatest Asus Gaming Routers

The model I like to recommend as one of the best for avid gamers is Asus. The Taiwanese firm has a protracted gaming historical past and devoted sub-brands like Republic of Players (ROG). It produces quick, extremely configurable routers with free safety software program and lots of gaming extras. Ports are often beneficiant, there’s no want for a subscription, and you may mix totally different Asus routers that assist AiMesh right into a mesh system to increase your protection. The potential downsides are the comparatively excessive costs, often buggy firmware, and the necessity to dig into configuration settings to get one of the best efficiency.

Topping my testing charts, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Professional is a supremely succesful, quad-band Wi-Fi 7 gaming router. By way of uncooked pace, that is one of the best router I’ve examined to this point. That alone makes it really feel worthy of the “gimmick” of being designed explicitly for gaming. It is rather just like the RT-BE96U in my common router information, however with the ROG mannequin, Asus has added a second 6-GHz band on prime of the present 2.4-GHz, 5-GHz, and 6-GHz bands. This massively will increase the obtainable bandwidth, affording you loads of area for a number of gaming streams, or providing you with an additional band for wi-fi backhaul for those who resolve to arrange a mesh utilizing Asus’ AiMesh connectivity. It additionally has an additional 10-Gbps LAN port, providing you with one 10-Gbps WAN/LAN, two 10-Gbps LAN, 4 Gigabit LAN, one USB 3.2, and a USB 2.0 port. The USB ports come in useful for NAS gadgets. You need to pay further for these additions, so for those who don’t have a number of gaming streams or a NAS, it can save you cash with the RT-BE96U and nonetheless get nice efficiency.

That is additionally simply the largest router I’ve ever examined at almost 14 inches throughout, with eight big antennas, and it weighs 4.4 kilos. It’s removed from delicate, gained’t mix in, and will show tough to position as a result of its dimension. As a result of it’s a gaming router, Asus has included Aura RGB lighting, so you possibly can decide the coloured lighting you need and make it a function.

AiProtection Professional safety software program and parental controls, powered by Pattern Micro, are bundled into the associated fee. This complete safety combo features a firewall, intrusion prevention, malicious web site blocking, automated updates, and extra. Parental controls embrace scheduling, web site filtering by age, and utilization stats. You additionally get VPN assist with the choice to attach remotely if you find yourself out and about. You possibly can redeem a free yr of NordVPN service with this router. Naturally, there are some gaming-focused options, with recreation acceleration enabling you to prioritize gaming-related site visitors by means of ports and packet evaluation. You probably have Asus’ ROG gear, it may be prioritized with a click on, and Asus consists of server acceleration to reduce latency by means of the third-party WTFast service.

Other than the scale and price, there isn’t a lot to complain about right here, however it’s value contemplating that the vary on the 6-GHz band is restricted and struggles to penetrate by means of partitions, so you have to Wi-Fi 7 gadgets close by to take full benefit of this router. Ideally, have it in the identical room as your gaming PC or laptop computer. This router was initially touted to get Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) assist, but it surely by no means did (take a look at the subsequent decide if that’s one thing you need).

Asus ROG Strix GS-BE12000 for $400: When you don’t wish to spend as a lot, however you’re set on a tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router, and also you need a number of ports, this mannequin may make sense. I discovered it secure and significantly speedy on the 6-GHz and 5-GHz bands. It boasts 320 MHz channels on the 6-GHz band, Multi-Hyperlink Operation (MLO), and 4K-QAM (learn my The way to Purchase a Router and Wi-Fi 7 guides for a breakdown on these phrases). It has a 2.5 Gbps WAN and 7 2.5 Gbps LAN ports, two of that are devoted gaming ports, and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port. You get principally the identical wonderful software program and gaming choices as my prime decide. It is a scaled down model of the BE18000 ($530), and has 2 x 2 MIMO on the 6-GHz band as an alternative of 4 x 4, however I believe it’s a greater purchase for most people, particularly for those who see it on sale. It’s value noting that each fashions have official Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) assist, which extends the vary of the 6-GHz band to make it extra corresponding to the 5-GHz band vary. I can’t check this right here within the UK, because it’s solely obtainable in North America and requires your exact real-world location so native regulators can authorize it.

Asus TUF Gaming BE9400 for $265: The cheaper finish of Asus gaming routers, this mannequin continues to be a tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router, and it doesn’t make too many compromises. It has one 2.5 Gbps WAN, three 2.5 Gbps LAN ports, and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port. You miss out on some ROG-exclusive gaming options, the design just isn’t as good, and it lacks RGB lighting. However this router carried out much better than the worth would counsel, conserving tempo with my prime decide at shut vary, although protection doesn’t prolong as far.