It seems like only yesterday that Wi - Fi 6 routers really started to attain the market , and that ’s truthful — the first products trickle out inlate 2018 , and the fresh 802.11ax measure is only now get mainstream . But theFCC has opened up the 6 GHz bandto unlicensed use , so router producer are taking the ax communications protocol to that circle with new Wi - Fi 6E ironware . But are you missing out by not elevate ? We took one of the first Wi - Fi 6E routers , the tri - band Asus ROG Rapture GT - AXE11000 , for a spin to find out .
at long last this is , first and first off , a gaming router . The Rapture GT - AXE11000 is part of Asus’Republic of Gamersline of product : a serial of gimmick and peripherals designed specifically to sort gamers from their money as efficiently as potential . It comes with a glut of features to that end , and a draw of them are blessedly sluttish to employ . Pre - configured background , for case , give players custom port - forwarding rules for many of the most pop , demanding games the kids play these solar day , including Fortnite , Borderlands 3 , DOTA 3 , and , of course , Animal Crossing : New Horizons .
Asus ROG Rapture GT - AXE11000
Photo: Wes Davis/Gizmodo
What is it ?
The first Wi - Fi 6E router to hit the grocery after CES . It uses the newly opened much higher - bandwidth 6 GHz circle to give you tight , unencumbered wireless cyberspace , promising faster wifi for gaming and more .
cost
Photo: Wes Davis
$ 549
Like
Even using veritable Wi - Fi 6 , the router is improbably fast and powerful , pushing quick pep pill to the furthermost reaches of my backyard , 100 foot from the router ’s military position in the house . stack of configurability , too .
Photo: Wes Davis
Do n’t care
The menus are confusing and alternative badly explained , outside of the play feature . It does n’t seem to play nicely with smart home devices . Very pricey .
This Router Is Gigantic
The updated Rapture is a monolithic , square - ish follow - up to 2018 ’s GT - AX11000 . It ’s covered in vents , with eight fat , articulating ( and non - removable ) feeler add on to the side and a faux brushed metal plastic crustal plate on the top boast a blazing chair - lit eye - shaped ROG logo . Stare too long at it , and it will begin to gaze back .
On the back , you ’ll find a power push button , reset pinhole , four gigabit LAN port , one gigabit WAN port , and one 2.5 Gb LAN / WAN port wine . Two USB 3.2 ports on the side lease you connect hard parkway or cathexis gadget , while the front left corner has three buttons : one for WPS , one for toggling wireless fidelity , and a configurable “ Boost ” push that can be set to toggle the fully grown ROG LED , bend on Dynamic Frequency Selection , bicycle through RGB options , or , you make love , turn on Game Boost . On the right front , you ’ll find small white LEDs give you status light source for internet , gigabit LAN , 2.5 GbE LAN , and all three wireless antennas .
The Specs
On the technical side , Asus claims the exaltation is able to reach up to ( a theoretical ) 11,000 Mbps . Each of its three bands is able of 4×4 multi drug user - multiple input multiple output ( MU - MIMO ) , which refers to the number of co-occurrent circularise information stream it ’s adequate to of , which in this case is four . It ’s powered by a 1.8 GHz quad - core CPU equip with 1 GB of RAM .
As a Wi - Fi 6 gimmick , the Rapture is equipped with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access ( OFDMA ) , a completing technology to MU - MIMO that , in some means , solves the same trouble as MU - MIMO . Where the latter is meant to aid with more demanding task like TV meetings , OFDMA work better with little - mail boat equipment like IoT gadgets . The router also supports link aggregation , enabling user to take up two ethernet ports on the router for increased bandwidth for things like local file transfer of training or redundant connections on devices you ’d rather did n’t die .
Other feature admit a gamer - center dashboard where you could attend at real - time graphs of connection activity , ping , and jitter , as well as a “ Game Radar ” widget that record your current connection upper to a given game ’s servers across the Earth . you’re able to access a more robust edition of this feature from the sidebar for more elaborated information . There are also four fairly easy - to - realise QoS musical mode — that is , modes that prioritize certain types of cyberspace traffic . I particularly liked the ability to map the Game Boost feature to the “ Boost ” button on the front of the unit , which may sound gimmicky at first , but being capable to modify QoS priority on the fly like that is extremely convenient .
Screenshot: Wes Davis/Gizmodo
It ’s when you move past the gaming features , however , that things really start to get murky .
Overly Technical Software
You ca n’t really say the Rapture is lacking in governance tools or features — in fact , one consistent matter about Asus ’ router UI plan is that , disorientate though it may be , it affords the user a cracking deal of administrative ascendency . However , if you are hoping to flirt with stage setting beyond the specially - tailor gaming options and AiMesh / AiProtection features , you may find that unless you ’ve got years of experience as either a hobbyist or networking professional , the ripe subdivision may as well be written in another linguistic communication . The pick here are very technical , and while it ’s improved slightly over the years , you ’ll still find setting that lack fundamental information to explain what they do . Some of these place setting are integral to the appeal of the tech , yet are disabled or hitch by nonpayment , like MU - MIMO or OFDMA on the 5 GHz band .
The last affair of billet with the software is the spookyTrend Micro agreementyou have to get past to get at sure feature of speech , like adaptive QoS , or security features like AiProtection . On one hand , it ’s decent to get that sort of thing for free , without needing to be technically intimate enough to set up up aPi - Holefor connection - grade ad - blocking and such , but on the other deal , user may be retiring to partake in data about their connection , connected devices , entanglement - browsing habits , and more with Trend Micro . However , as I concluded in myRT - AX86U review , it does n’t seem like the data is used for any other aim than to facilitate internet surety . to boot , you may opt out of most of the collection ( though this may affect thesecurity feature of speech ’ efficaciousness ) .
Excellent Performance—for Gaming
So OK , how did it back ? After being embarrassed over the course of many Counter Strike : Global Offensive session , I can confidently say this is a very unspoilt gaming router . Hardwired to the router , most of my games connected to the official server showed my ping ramble from the upper 40 to low 60s . Latency on my normal Eero setup usually measures in the 70 - 90ms range , making the Rapture a huge improvement . Even without QoS turned on , my ping sit around the mid-60s , which has historically been , for me , about as good as it gets . When QoS was on , I had some sort of gamy - bandwidth activity hold out on on every twist I could come up for the task , and the Rapture did n’t flash — gaming was smooth as could be .
However , gambling devices are not the only things I involve reliable , good carrying out out of in my home .
With three camera , sea dog of lightbulbs , smart switches , automaton vacuums , sensors , and more , I necessitate my router to act as nice with myriad devices hollering at each other all the time . This is where the Rapture and I lead off to quarrel . Throughout my almost two weeks of testing , I had what felt like an unending stream of web issues pertaining to all of these gadgets .
Screenshot: Wes Davis/Gizmodo
Smart bulbs , plugs , and switch became unresponsive seemingly at random , smart verbalizer behaved erratically , and while streaming music to AirPlay 2 devices seemed to mostly work , trying to line up volume or skip raceway had massive delays , if those adjustment made it at all — it was like there was a hole blown in my internet and packets were just stream out . A few devices never failed , while the rest worked sometimes , but my endless goldbrick with the web never satisfied all of them at once . A mill reset seemed to help , but the practiced solution was using my normal mesh router setup as the anchor of the meshwork and primary association for my smart devices , and the Rapture as an extra admittance point for gaming - specific or streaming design .
Network Testing Breakdown
As frustrative as this experience was , it ’s surd to refuse the Rapture GT - AXE11000 ’s bona fides , otherwise . By the routine , it truly has incredible performance — even 100 substructure away in my back grand , with multiple walls , a packed - to - the - rim closet , and a few trees , the router was capable to pump up to 320 Mbps to my 802.11ax - equipped M1 MacBook Air – this in either Wi - Fi 5 or Wi - Fi 6 mode . In fact , at that distance , outside , I found Wi - Fi 5 actually had slightly better throughput . All testing within my home , however , had Wi - Fi 6 ahead . Testing on the WiFi 6E band was even more telling , at least at close range .
Using the WiFi 6E - fit out Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra , the aforesaid MacBook Air hardwired with a2.5 Gb USB - C ethernet adapter , and internet - examination softwareiperf , I recorded transfer fastness in excess of 1.8 Gbps wirelessly . A little farther out , however , throughput drops dramatically — at 25 foot , it lost about 3/4 of its throughput ( 423 Mbps average ) , while at about 45 foot , only about 10 % of the speed was left at 167 Mbps . With WiFi 6E being so unexampled , it ’s hard to know what to really expect at these length , and of course , your gasoline mileage may depart , depending on the layout of your home . That tell , relative to the only other router I ’ve performed similar tests on so far — the Linksys Hydra Pro 6E — the octopodian Rapture did about twice as well at 25 foundation indoors , but performed or so the same at 45 feet , when I affect outside to continue testing . Both router ’ signaling crock up pretty forthwith when I got farther .
Of course , both can also be used as interlock router , which should address the range takings . I was unable to test the Rapture with another 6E router , but did do so with an Asus RT - AC88U , and as with the RT - AC86U , I found setup to be easy , and was pleased with the existent usage of the two in tandem . I rarely see the wrong devices connected to the wrong node , and though I could actually get higher throughput with twist connect to the Rapture late in my backyard , the connection was more stable when connected to the AC88U. Notably , once I enabled Asus ’ AiMesh characteristic , the 6 gigahertz band was shifted to strictly wireless backhaul , regardless of the fact that the meshing node was not a 6E gadget and could n’t use it . This is similar to the fashion the Ubiquiti AmpliFi Alien handles its WiFi 6 lot , which is also reserve for backhaul , but on the Asus , you may disable this feature .
Do You Need to Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E?
In the remnant , in an more and more complicate , multifaceted household networking hereafter with oodles of actively transmitting gimmick , it is becoming increasingly potential that a serious gamer will also have a very intricate , demanding connection . A router you pay 100 of dollars for should , therefore , be capable of not just decent prioritizing and routing play dealings , but also of make sense of all the bits whizzing around it in a domicile full of WLAN antenna . For back die - hards , I ’m not sure I see a understanding to recommend this router over itspredecessor , which is $ 100 tacky — at least not for a few more firmware releases .
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