Asus is launching the first WLAN router in German retail that supports Wi-Fi 6E, i.e. it can open a total of three wireless networks at the same time – the two usual ones in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and a third 6 GHz network . The latter is a blessing and a curse at the same time: Until now, there have hardly been any compatible end devices, but you can transmit in the 6 GHz band with practically no interference to your neighbors.
In terms of marketing, Asus sums up the transmission speeds of all three networks to a theoretical 11 Gbit/s in the ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000. However, the actual throughput is significantly slowed down by the Internet connection and the available RJ45 connections. The router has a single 2.5 Gbit/s port that can function both as a LAN connection to a PC and as a WAN connection for the DSL connection. There is also a pure WAN port with 1 Gbit/s and four LAN ports, also with 1 Gbit/s.
For high practice speeds, the ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 uses eight antennas and channel widths of up to 160 MHz. Internally, a quad-core processor from Broadcom with 1 GB of DDR3 RAM takes care of data processing – the data sheet indicates the Broadcom CPU BCM49408. The AsusWRT operating system runs on the 256 MB flash memory. For example, to connect hard drives, there are two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A (5 Gbit/s, formerly called USB 3.0).
Expensive fun
Asus praises the ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 as a gaming router that prioritizes game-related Internet traffic. The RGB LEDs of the Asus logo adapt to specific performance characteristics, such as CPU load or network traffic, if desired. VPN networks can be set up on the router using OpenVPN, PPTP and IPSec.
If you want to be one of the first households with a 6 GHz WLAN, you have to dig deep into your wallet: Asus has published a recommended price of 610 euros for the ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000. German shops list the router from 590 euros and already have it in stock. Netgear’s RAXE500 also costs 600 euros, but is not yet available.
The Wi-Fi 6E-compatible include a few dozen smartphones and mainboards with AMD’s CPU version AM4 (up to Ryzen 5000) and Intel’s LGA1700 (Core i-12000).
(mma)