Wi-Fi is one of the tech world’s best-known cryptids: we’ve all heard of it, none of us have seen it, most of us don’t even know how it works, and it’s name literally means nothing (opens in new tab).
Recently peak wifi has become even more elusive because shortly after the Wi-Fi 6E standard was introduced Wi-Fi 7 started streaming (opens in new tab)with the first router even released before the platform was certified (opens in new tab). CES this year felt like the final nail in the Wi-Fi 6 coffin as we saw more 7 routers introduced, including some beastly-looking models from Asus (opens in new tab).
The first is a gaming router if I’ve ever seen one. I know because for a moment I thought it was some creepy shadowship from Babylon 5. ROG Rapture GT-BE98 has a full complement of eight spider leg antennas and a black finish to complete the look. This is then embellished with lots of angry ROG eyes. Looks like it’s ready to take down a Monster and do headshots at you all night long.
The Rapture GT-BE98 supports two 5GHz bands that can hit 5,762Mbps and one 6GHz band that can hit up to 11,525Mbps for your more serious internet business. There’s also a 1,376Mbps 2.4GHz band if you need to run something on that (2.4GHz still trumps the higher frequencies for range). This equates to the quad-band router providing a total of 25.00 Mbps of bandwidth, which I think pretty much every gamer should be doing.
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If you’re looking for something a little more toned down, you can opt for the tri-band Asus RT-BE96U. This is quite similar to its hardcore counterpart, but ditches the evil eye stickers in favor of more black with a circuit Wi-Fi 7 design. Likewise, this router can hit the same speeds on its 6 GHz, 5 GHz, and 2.4 GHz bands as the previous one, but lacks that extra band clearly provided by evil eyes. This equates to a total bandwidth of up to 19,000 Mbps on this tri-band router.
Aside from that, both routers offer similar specs, probably with the same quad-core 2.6 GHz processors. The GT-BE98 has one additional 10GB LAN port compared to the RT-BE96U and features a game acceleration function that aims to provide a better connection for gaming. So if you’re looking for a hardcore router for gaming, the GT-BE98 is the best choice from this pair. That’s if the price doesn’t give us all angry eyes. We don’t know when they’ll be out or what they’ll cost yet, but it should be sometime this year.