Having one of the best gaming routers could be just the thing your battlestation or game room is missing if you're after top-notch performance while gaming online.
No matter whether you're trying to finish first in a battle royale or working your way through a raid online with friends, online gaming requires a stable and fast connection. When other people and devices in your household are competing for bandwidth, your router needs to maintain that connection at all times for steady gameplay even.
Gaming routers go beyond just providing consistent speeds by minimizing network lag to keep you in game without being bogged down by delays and long load times. At the same time, bandwidth prioritization means that your game won't be interrupted when someone at home fires up Netflix or gets on a video call.
Gaming routers also provide greater customization than most consumer routers. They even include more robust security features to ensure that malware doesn't interfere with your next gaming session.
Of the dozens of routers we thoroughly test and review each year, only a handful are actually considered dedicated gaming routers. These are the best of the best of the gaming routers we've reviewed along with a handful of less specialized devices that still provide the same throughput and low lag times required by gamers.
What are the ideal gaming routers?
The best gaming router overall is the Asus RT-AX86U, a Wi-Fi 6 powerhouse that delivers category-leading performance and a wealth of features that let gamers fine-tune their Wi-Fi to perfection.
The best Wi-Fi 5 gaming router is the TP-Link Archer C5400X, a one-time performance leader that's still a great buy for anyone considering an inexpensive option for solid gaming performance. It's not the best you'll get, but it's significantly less expensive than Wi-Fi 6 units that you might not be able to take full advantage of yet.
Read on for all of our picks for the best gaming routers.
The best gaming routers right now
Performance takes the prize when it comes to the best gaming router. The Asus RT-AX86U is a Wi-Fi 6 powerhouse that delivers great speeds and killer gaming features, along with awesome customization options.
With high-end performance and lifetime protection against intrusions and malware, it's also a great option for securing your entire home network, providing long term protection without a subscription fee, and carrying a two-year warranty.
The real draw of the Asus RT-AX86U is the performance, which approaches the the magical 1Gbps mark to provide effortless and speedy connectivity for all of your devices. With excellent range and great performance-- even through walls and between floors-- the RT-AX86U is equal parts general-use router and elite gaming router, and the collection of ports and features it offers are a steal compared to some of the top-performing gaming gear.
It even gets a nod as the runner up for best Wi-Fi router in the most recent Tom's Guide Awards. The Asus RT-AX86U is it if you want the best Wi-Fi 6 gaming router.
The TP-Link Archer C5400X was once the gaming router to beat, and is still the top pick for gamers that don't wish to pay more for Wi-Fi 6.
With some of the best 802.11 ac performance you'll see in any single home networking device, it offers best-in-class tri-band speeds, delivering 1Gbps over its 2.4 GHz band and 2.167 Gbps over each of its two 5GHz channels. It also has impressive coverage, with greater than 100-feet of superb coverage that will blanket most homes in strong, clear Wi-Fi signal.
The spider-like 8-antenna design and red-on-black color scheme ensure to turn heads, but the real selling point is the collection of optimization and security features that will satisfy any power user.
With excellent bandwidth-allocation controls to let you use the massive throughput as you wish, this router puts incredible performance into the user's hands, for gaming or anything else.
3. Netgear Nighthawk XR1000
The Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR1000 is powerful, with Wi-Fi 6 speeds that goes above and beyond most other gaming routers with excellent speeds and top-shelf gaming enhancements. The Netgear's high-throughput, low-latency design is packed with customization options and built-in security, providing protection against hackers together with superb Wi-Fi 6 performance.
It's also great for slightly larger homes, with a range of 105 feet, easily covering that extra room that other routers can't quite reach. The XR1000 is one of the best gaming routers we've ever seen if your current router isn't keeping up with your gaming abilities.
With an entire dashboard of customization tools, you can optimize the router's performance in a dizzying number of ways, from CPU usage monitoring to stats that identify what devices and apps are using the most data and connection tools that let you adjust connections by ping rates and location.
4. Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000
The first gaming router on the market to feature Wi-Fi 6, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is a gamer's delight, with speed that improves over longer range, low latency and all the features that gamers expect. Add it all up and most other gaming routers are now second best.
The GT-AX11000 is large, with a gargantuan base, eight swiveling antennas, and massive 10.8 Gbps maximum throughput. This wireless router has connectivity in droves, thanks to its tri-band design and four downstream Gigabit LAN ports, a single 2.5 G Base T Ethernet connection, and two USB 3.0 ports.
Built-in customization and gaming-oriented optimizations provide plenty of control, and you can even pair it with other Asus routers for mesh networking to cover a larger home. At $450, it is expensive, but this is one of the best wireless routers for gamers wanting an edge online.
If you aren't sold on the need for dedicated gaming features, but still want the performance needed for online gaming, we recommendation the TP-Link Archer AX6000 router, our favorite budget-friendly Wi-Fi 6 router.
The most affordable of the first generation of Wi-Fi 6 devices, the Archer AX6000 sells for roughly $100 less than other Wi-Fi 6 models, but offers strong throughput and great connectivity because of a full eight LAN ports.
You won't get the detailed quality of service controls that a gaming router would give you, but it will still support solid gaming-grade performance, easily exceeding the performance of older 802.11 ac models. The TP-Link Archer AX6000 includes built-in security, offering protection along with performance.
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