Not that I complain about having to choose from a healthy amount of devices, but it quickly get confusing when you have multiple AX1800 models available from the same brand. The Archer AX73 seems to be in the same class with the RT-AX82U which has proven to be a fairly reliable router (a personal favorite), both sharing the same SoC and WiFi chips, but, while the hardware is extremely important, the software and user experience have at least an equal value. And there’s something that TP-Link has done that caught my eye and its about the decision to add the Home Shield package to the AX73, while keeping the HomeCare out.

The HomeCare package was provided by TrendMicro and it included QoS, Parental Control and Antivirus, so, hopefully, TP-Link didn’t take the same road as Netgear and removed important features for the sake of re-adding them later with a subscription. In any case, the TP-Link AX73 does come with the expected WiFi 6 features, such as OFDMA, the 1024-QAM modulation and 160MHz channel bandwidth, so let’s put it to the test and see how well it fares when compared to its main competitors.

UPDATE 08.22.2023: I have run some multi-client stress tests on the TP-Link AX5400 AX73: simultaneous 1080p and 4K streaming traffic, browsing and VoIP.

Design and Build Quality

You very rarely get a TP-Link router with a plain look and the AX73 is one of those devices where the manufacturer said yes to every idea that came from the design team. And the end result is a bit peculiar, but still fairly interesting. That being said, the TP-Link AX73 features a rectangular plastic case covered by a black matte finish, with the exception of a large piece of plastic at the top that’s glossy black. This piece interrupts the unique pattern that covers almost the entire upper section of the router – the pattern resembles some sort of textile braiding and there are multiple cut-outs to let the air flow through.

The bottom part of the router is covered by the same type of pattern and these small, but numerous ventilation holes do help quite a bit with keeping the internal temperature in check. Yes, the router does get warm while functioning, but it did not show signs of overheating for now.

I noticed that on the bottom of the AX73, TP-Link has added four silicone feet to keep the router in place (still can’t fathom why they haven’t done the same with the AX50) and there are also a couple of holes to help you mount the device on the wall. If you want to keep the TP-Link AX73 on a desk, know that the router is not that compact (it measures 10.7 x 5.8 x 1.9 inches) and there are lots of antennas, surrounding the case. The AX73 does come with six antennas, four positioned on the rear side and two on the left and right side of the device and no, they’re not detachable (the trend of upgrading the antennas is essentially gone by this point).

TP-Link has positioned the seven LEDs on the front of the AX73 (on the upper edge) and, while they’re quite discreet, you do get the option to turn them off if the light bothers you during the night. From the left, there’s the Power LED (solid green when everything functions properly), followed by the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz LEDs (still have those strange WiFi icons). The next LED is responsible for showing the status of the Internet connection and, similarly to the Netgear RAX10, it will remain turned off if there’s no cable connected; the LED will turn amber if there’s a cable connected, but no link and will turn green when it has a proper Internet connection. Lastly, there’s a single LAN port for all four (borderline useless unless you add one LED per port), a USB LED and a WPS LED.

On the rear side of the TP-Link AX73, there are four buttons, one for turning Off/On the LEDs, one for enabling the WPS process, one for turning On/Off the WiFi and the last one is a recessed Reset button (press and hold it for about 10 seconds to return the router to its default settings). Further to the right, there are four LAN ports (all Gigabit), one WAN port (also Gigabit), a Power button and a Power connector. On the right side of the AX73, there’s a single USB 3.0 port for adding a printer or an external storage device.

Internal Hardware

I rarely had problems opening the case of any TP-Link routers, so the tear-down process of the TP-Link AX73 is not that difficult. Do be aware that even if there aren’t any sealed screws, you can still void the warranty by opening the device. If that’s fine with you, remove the four screws from underneath the four silicone feet and then gently detach the top cover. It’s not that easy to do it, so I suggest using a prying tool and start from the front side of the case and then slowly move towards the rear until the top pops off.

You will then be greeted by a fairly large PCB (there is no wasted internal space, so the dimensions of the router are justified) and you will see a black heat sink covering up the main components. To remove it, you need to turn the PCB upside down and the process of removing the board is stupidly difficult. You can easily damage it, so take your time, slowly and gently trying to push the ports and buttons until the PCB gets removed.
Afterwards, you need to remove the two screws from the top part to detach the bottom-placed metallic sink which apparently has some thermal paste to transfer the heat (you will need to reapply it afterwards). This way, you should be able to easily remove the three screws and finally detach the top heatsink. This way, I was able to identify the tri-core 1.5GHz Broadcom BCM6750KFEBG SoC which is the same as on the Asus RT-AX82U, 128MB of flash memory from ESMT (F50L1G41LB), 512MB of RAM from ESMT M15T4G16256A, 2x DG36001 G 2101-V LAN transformers and one DG18101 G 2042-Y LAN transformer.

For the WiFi, the TP-Link Archer AX73 relies on Broadcom BCM43684KRFBG 802.11a/n/ac/ax 4×4:4 chipset (along with a Skyworks SKY85743 front-end module) for the 5GHz band and on the Broadcom BCM6750 802.11b/g/n/ax 2×2:2 chip (along with Qorvo QPF4216 integrated front-end module) for the 2.4GHz band.
Note: The TP-Link AX73 is advertised as an AX5400-class WiFi 6 router, so it features a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 4,804Mbps on the 5GHz radio band and a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 574Mbps on the 2.4GHz band – these are theoretical values, so you won’t be able to reach this performance inside your home (they can hardly be achieved in a lab).

The WiFi Features

Just like the AX50, the TP-Link AX73 is a WiFi 6 router from the draft stage, but, there is a fundamental difference between it and the RAX40 and that’s the support for OneMesh which, similarly to the AiMesh, it can create a mesh network using multiple types of TP-Link routers. The concept is the same as with the dedicated WiFi mesh systems – all the routers becomes mesh nodes with one being connected to the modem and the rest communicating between each other, creating optimized paths for the data.

If one node fails, the data will be routed using the remaining connected routers. The Asus AiMesh is far more vast than the OneMesh in terms of model compatibility, but it’s still a step in the right direction. Besides the mesh capabilities, the TP-Link Archer AX73 does come with the highlighted feature from the WiFi 6 standard: the OFDMA. This feature splits the channel bandwidth into multiple resource units that can vary in size and these RUs are then allocated for communicating with multiple client devices at the same time. Doing so, you get a better handling of smaller data packets and far less interference.
MU-MIMO is also supported, and it should help handling multiple devices at the same time, without needing to rely on the round-robin technique, but the compatibility is still an issue even today.

Yes, some manufacturers have added the support of some basic MU-MIMO implementation, but unless you go for the flagship devices, the compatibility with any WiFi enhancing feature is still very scarce. The same remains true for BeamForming and the 160MHz channel bandwidth support. Both are great, one optimizing the path towards the client and the other offering a far better WiFi performance near the router, but, if you don’t have a compatible client, the throughput will not differ that much from when using WiFi 5 routers. That being said, let’s check out the wireless performance of the AX73.

Multi-Client Stress Test – 5GHz

Following the saga of testing the wireless routers in a better way than just relying on the single-client tests (which are the easy way out for most publications), I decided to put a second TP-Link router (the Archer AX5400) through the hurdles of the multi-client stress test. And yes, the principle is the same as it was with the TP-Link AX3200, the ASUS GT-AX6000 and the TUF-AX5400 – we connect five client devices to a server computer and then simulate various types of traffic (at the moment, I have simulated 4K and 1080p streaming, web browsing and VoIP).

The idea is to simulate these types of traffic on all client devices at the same time, and it can be two or more variations at the same time on a single client device (for example, 4K streaming, while the user navigates the web as well, furiously). I didn’t use iperf, but relied on the open-source tools developed by Mr. Jim Salter, netburn which creates the traffic simulations and the net-hydra which runs multiple instances of netburn on the set client devices (it relies on SSH to accomplish it).

OK, but are these results truly better than just running iperf3 which usually just show how well the router was able to reach that near-Gigabit throughput? I don’t deny the usefulness of the single-client test (the next few sections are dedicated to that), but I think we get a better idea about how the router behaves when pushed to the maximum with multi-client tests. This way, the user can understand if the TP-Link AX5400 can handle multiple 4K streams at the same time and whether there’s any place for web browsing as well – essentially, instead of focusing on the throughput, the idea is to check how quickly and how well is the router able to accomplish a specific task (we check the latency).

I know that a lot will say that these tests are not purely objective and yes, the results will differ depending on the amount of interference, the location and the type of client devices. Surely, there are better multi-client tests out there, such as the octoPal, but that will have an impact on the wallet and not many professionals bother with non-enterprise wireless networking devices since the cost is just too high. So yeah, netburn and net-hydra are the best we got for now.

The client devices that I chose are not from the same WiFi standard, one is WiFi 6E (which strangely enough, it behaved the weirdest with routers that I tested so far), two are WiFi 6 and two are WiFi 5. This is a list of their specs:

While there is a financial reason for the WiFi standard mismatch (laptops and PCs cost money), understand that we should be able to better simulate a home or office network when the client devices are more diverse. As for the server device, these are its specs:

• WiFi 6 built-in adapter + 2.5GbE Ethernet port
• 32GB RAM
• NVMe SSD storage
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600xt
• Radeon RX 6800xt.

It’s also worth mentioning that I tried to keep the same distance between the client devices and the server (same as when testing the other wireless routers), but since distance means little, I decided to share the attenuation that was detected at the client level. The ZimaBoard 832 is positioned the farthest since it’s connected to a TV (it works as an alternative to the built-in computer) and the signal strength is -65dB, while the other four clients sit in the same room as the TP-Link AX5400 – the attenuation was -33dB for the WiFi 6E PC and it ranged between -38 and -43dB for the other three client devices.

4K and 1080p Streaming – 5 Client Devices

The first type of multi-client test is the simulation of 1080p traffic on all client devices at the same time and I decided that ideally, the latency should remain underneath 150ms in order to maintain a fairly decent streaming experience. This limit is not an industry standard and can be corrected (if you think it should be higher or lower, do let me know). The clients were connected to the 5GHz network (80MHz) and OFDMA was enabled to give the WiFi 6 and 6E devices any advantages that they may need.

We can see from the graph that two client devices remained under this limit pretty much for the entire duration of the test, but three clients, the WiFi 6 Lenovo Y520 laptops and the WiFi 6E PC did experience a latency spike (the latter did not surprise me). With the exception of one of the two Lenovo laptops, it shouldn’t have a noticeable impact on the streaming experience. And even in the Lenovo laptop case, it does seem to experience it only for 1% of the time.

I also checked whether the clients managed to reach the 5Mbps limit that was set by me and surprisingly not all did. The worse offender remains one of the WiFi 6 laptops, while the best performers were the two WiFi 5 client devices. What does that mean for the user? It means that there may be some occasional buffering, but overall, the TP-Link AX5400 handled this test decently well.

Moving forward, I ran the same multi-client test but with the limit set to 25Mbps, essentially simulating what the user will need if it wants the maximum video quality from Netflix. As expected, the performance was a bit worse.

We again see the two WiFi 5 client devices managing to remain below 150ms for the most part, the ZimaBoard 832 going above it for 1% of the cases, while the MacBook Pro seeing spikes for 5% of the time (once every 20 times, so not great, but not really terrible). The worse offender is again the WiFi 6E client which is pretty much unusable, while the two WiFi 6 client devices will experience buffering more often (10% of the times).

Now let’s see if the 25Mbps limit was reached by all client devices and the performance is what you would expect. The WiFi 6E PC was well below it, while the WiFi 6 clients hovered at around 22Mbps – not great.

1080p Streaming and Browsing (+ VoIP) – 5 Client Devices

How realistic are the continuous 1080p streaming simulations? Depending on the application, they can be surprisingly accurate, while the simulated web browsing will most likely not be as intense in real life. A website is composed of multiple resources (images, text, videos) which are loaded as fast as possible and we tried to emulate that by running 12 concurrent 128KB of data for each client device. But the amusing aspect is that this is done somewhat continuously (I have injected a 500ms jitter) – the user would open and close pages non-stop for the 10 minutes the test is being run.

As an equivalent to real life, I suppose you could imagine probably about 50 (or more) users still fairly violently surfing the web. But, this is a veritable stress test, so how well did the TP-Link AX5400 perform? Surprisingly, not that bad. We see that the ZimaBoard 832 deviates a bit for 5% of the time (I suppose it makes sense considering that it’s the farthest client device). The other client devices did good, with the WiFi 6E client experiencing some latency spikes for 1% of the time.

As for the continuous fast browsing, I set the limit to 1.5s and it’s where the experience would become unbearable and the user would have to reload the page. The only client device that went past that limit is the WiFi 6E client, but it’s worth mentioning that a single client, one WiFi 6 laptop was the only to maintain a fairly low latency, the rest were pretty much at the limit.

I didn’t feel like I put enough pressure on the TP-Link AX5400, so I decided to add VoIP into the mix as well, but to maintain some semblance of realism, I ran it at the level of one client device.

Can you guess which one? Yes, it’s that Lenovo laptop which went above the set 150ms immediately and permanently; pretty much all other clients went either slightly above or immediately below this limit for 1% of the time which I suppose can be acceptable. As for the simultaneous web browsing, all remained below the set limit despite the VoIP traffic running alongside it – it seems that the WiFi 6E finally behaved.

4K Streaming and Browsing – 5 Client Devices

While simulating 4K streaming and web-browsing at the same time on all 5 client devices, we can see that the latency spikes for about 10% on two clients (one WiFi 6 and one WiFi 6E, as expected), but then only the MacBook Pro remained below the set limit for 99% of the time, the other clients experiencing latency spikes for 5% of the time.

This means that users will experience noticeable buffering fairly often. What about the fast web browsing? It always remained below the 1.5s limit, so all is decently well. The question is whether the clients were able to go to the 25Mbps limit and were they able to remain there?

Again, only the WiFi 5 client devices went to 25Mbps, the others a bit below it, and the worst offender is once again the WiFi 6E PC which only reached 21.9Mbps. Surprisingly, we see that this client performed a bit better than when the test was run only with the 4K streaming simulation (perhaps we see some features finally starting up and helping the client a bit).

Multi-Client Stress Test – 2.4GHz

While the 1080p and 4K traffic simulations can be easily run while the client devices are connected to the 5GHz network, things aren’t that smooth on 2.4GHz. That’s why I decided that it’s best to only run the simulated fast web browsing simultaneously on all five clients. The limit for a somewhat decent experience remains 1.5s and the results were interesting.

We see two client devices performing as intended and yes, it’s the two WiFi 5 clients once again. The rest showed latency spikes for 1% of the time, so, while not completely negligible, it shouldn’t have a very noticeable impact either. Once every 99 times, the user will have to reload the page.

Single-client WiFi test

To do so, I had to rely on a client device equipped with an AX200 WiFi adapter (TP-Link TX3000E) and on a server device that will be directly connected to the router (via an Ethernet cable). For the first test, I connected the client device to the 5GHz network (160MHz, OFDMA enabled) and, upstream, I measured an average of 938Mbps at 5 feet and 363Mbps at 30 feet.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

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Furthermore, to keep the price tag more competitive, TP-Link did add just three other Ethernet ports and a single USB-A 3.0 port (the secondary one is USB 2.0). You do get an abundance of antennas and this is actually a tri-band router, but the physical rates aren’t that great, so there’s pretty much no chance of going above the 1,000Mbps limit, despite the multi Gigabit port (it will be great for other purposes, such as for a NAS).

TP-Link does say that the Archer AX3200 supports OFDMA and MU-MIMO, and there is also support for WPA3 encryption. I saw that the channel bandwidth of one radio band could go up to 80MHz, and for whatever reason, TP-Link said that the second 5GHz radio supports the 160MHz channel bandwidth, but after checking out the software, it doesn’t seem to go above 80MHz (not that the 160MHz channel frequency is very useful, but it should still be corrected since it could lead to confusion).

Then again, not many people actually need a tri-band router unless they want to use OneMesh and connect additional TP-Link routers to form a single larger network. It was interesting to find that the router was initially a Costco exclusive, but since I got it from a different retailer, it seems that it is now more widely available.

UPDATE 08.11.2023: I have managed to run a few multi-client stress tests on the TP-Link AX3200 (the reason for this update). This means that you can now check the latency when multiple clients run simultaneous 1080p and 4K streaming traffic, browsing and even VoIP.

Design and Build Quality

The TP-Link Archer AX3200 is actually the first WiFi 6 router from the series to go for this more aggressive look which then was recycled by the AX80, AX90 and the newer WiFi 6E AXE95. TP-Link put lots of lines at the top of the case, creating a rising sun and rays effect with an elevated division in the middle that ends up with a single LED on the front.

They had so much space to add a proper LED array, but no, let’s keep it minimal, while also adding six (fixed) antennas all around the case and putting various lines and ridges pretty much everywhere. Also, the device itself is far from being compact considering that it measures 11.9 x 8.1 x 6.8 inches (or 30.2 x 20.7 x 17.4 cm) so you do have to seriously take into account its footprint if you intend to leave the router on a desk. You don’t have to though because the TP-Link Archer AX3200 has two mounting holes at the bottom to let you mount it on the wall.

I could also mention the four silicone feet that do a good job at keeping the wireless router into place (the weight of the TP-Link Archer AX3200 also plays an important factor – it weighs 1.9lbs). I haven’t mentioned it before, but you can see it from the photos that the TP-Link Archer AX3200 is made of plastic and it is covered by a black matte finish, like most other wireless routers on the market. I did check for ventilation holes and the bottom area has lots of cut-outs to allow air to flow through.

If everything is working properly, then the LED will be solid blue. TP-Link has hidden three button on the front of the case, underneath the LED section: one button turns on or off the WiFi (press and hold it for 2 seconds), one turns off the LED and the last enables the WPS function.

Now let’s check out the ports. Besides the USB 3.0 port from the left side of the device, everything else can be found on the rear side. And, from the left, there’s the USB 2.0 port (for printers, most likely) followed by the Power port and the Power button. Next, we can see the Reset button (to return the TP-Link Archer AX3200 to its factory settings) and the two WAN ports, one 2.5GbE and the second Ethernet Gigabit. Farther to the right, there are three Ethernet LAN port, all Gigabit.

Internal Hardware (TP-Link Archer AX3200 Teardown)

If you intend to open up the case of the TP-Link Archer AX3200, know that it can void the warranty, even if there are no seal stickers – still, as long as you leave everything intact, it should be fine. So, all that needs to be done is to remove the four screws from underneath the silicone feet, then, using a prying tool, just move slowly to detach the top part.

After doing so myself, I saw the large heatsink that covers the PCB almost in its entirety and, after removing it (from the other side of the board), I could see the main components. I was able to identify the quad-core 1.5GHz Broadcom BCM6755KFEBG SoC, the 256MB SDRAM ESMT M15T4G16256A, the 128MB of flash memory from ESMT (F50L1G41A), as well as the Broadcom BCM53134SKFBG 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet switch chip and the Broadcom BCM54991EL single-port 2.5GbE Ethernet transceiver.

As for WiFi, the TP-Link Archer AX3200 uses the Broadcom BCM6755KFEBG 802.11b/g/n/ax 2×2:2 + 2X 4218 7259 front-end modules for the 2.4GHz radio band, as well as for the first 5GHz radio (includes the 2X Skyworks SKY85743 WLAN front-end modules). The Broadcom BCM43684KRFBG 802.11a/n/ac/ax 4×4:3 + 4X Skyworks SKY85743 WLAN front-end modules + MT3136A IC is used for the second, more powerful 5GHz radio band. The TP-Link Archer AX3200 features the following features a maximum theoretical data transfer rates: for the 2.4GHz radio, it’s 574Mbps; for the first 5GHz radio, it’s 1,201Mbps and for the second 5GHz, it is 1,440Mbps.

The WiFi Features

The TP-Link Archer AX3200 does come with the main WiFi 6 features, such as OFDMA and TWT, but there is no BSS Coloring, which I suppose makes sense considering the price and the targeted demographic. Even OFDMA will be of use only in a truly crowded environments and if the client devices are compatible, and right now, there is barely compatibility with the features of WiFi 5 (such as MU-MIMO). I noticed that TP-Link did not mention whether the OFDMA is available on all three radio bands and if it’s both ul/dl, so I checked the interface.

There is the option to enable OFDMA globally, but no mention on how it is implemented – I think it’s only on the better 5GHz radio, but I don’t have the equipment to confirm it. I also noticed that MU-MIMO could be enabled only on the secondary 5GHz radio, so there are clearly some limitations in place, most likely to keep the cost low. Then again, unless actually using compatible clients, you’re not going to see any benefit from any of these features. I did see that there was support for OpenMesh which is the equivalent to the AiMesh from Asus and considering the three radio bands, one could be used for backhaul traffic, so you get a better throughput at the secondary mesh node.

Another thing that I saw when setting up the SSIDs was that the first 5GHz uses different channels than the second 5GHz, and it makes sense considering that we don’t want any overlapping between the two. But it also highlights how much of a niche device is a tri-band router. Unless you have very specific applications in mind (OneMesh, IoT or something similar), you’re better off with a single 5GHz radio band which can be more powerful than the two offered by the TP-Link Archer AX3200 put together.

Multi-Client Stress Test – 5GHz

After the Asus GT-AX6000 and the TUF-AX5400 were put through some multi-client stress tests, I decided that I wanted to see how a TP-Link device would perform and the TP-Link AX3200 was the closest to grab from the shelf. So, I powered it up, hooked up the server machine (via Ethernet connection) and prepared the five client devices. If you didn’t check the other two router reviews, know that I decided to use the tools developed by Jim Salter (netburn and net-hydra) for simultaneous simulation of various types of traffic.

And the reason why I thought this was a good idea was because the single-client tests, while useful to get a general idea about what you should expect from the wireless router, they don’t really paint an accurate picture about how the device will behave in your home. I have added signal strength (attenuation) into the reviews (better than just the amount of feet between the client and the router) but seeing how the wireless router handles multiple types of traffic at the same time across a variety of client devices should give you a better idea on whether it would survive the devices in your home or office.
These are the client devices that will be used for these tests:

The type of traffic that I am currently simulating are 4K and 1080p streaming, web browsing and VoIP (only on a single client). Obviously, this is a stress test, so it’s going to be a bit exaggerated. I say that because the web browsing is very fast and continuous, and people usually stop and read the web articles. Also, five simultaneous 4K streaming sessions at the max rate can happen, but again, it’s a very particular use case. And if it does need to happen, just don’t use WiFi, go with a cabled connection otherwise, as you will see, the latency is unforgiving.

Still, how does that translate into actual number of client devices? Usually, way more than five, but I can’t really put a specific number. Can it be 50 or 100? Sure, it can also be 10 or 5. It depends on the type of client devices, the type of traffic, the location and attenuation, and, of course, the dreaded interference. Yes, they’re very diverse (from different WiFi standards) and as I mentioned in other articles, this way, we get a more realistic experience (and I didn’t have the budget to go with identical computers). As for the server device, these are its specs:

• WiFi 6 built-in adapter + 2.5GbE Ethernet port
• 32GB RAM
• NVMe SSD storage
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600xt
• Radeon RX 6800xt.

It’s worth mentioning that the client devices will connect to a single 5GHz network (80MHz, OFDMA enabled) and know that the advantage that the TP-Link AX3200 has over other WiFi 6 routers is the extra 5GHz network which can help lower the load.

4K and 1080p Streaming – 5 Client Devices

I first ran the 1080p streaming test on all client devices at the same time for 10 minutes at a time (I ran it multiple times and made an average of all the results I got). I again chose the arbitrary 150ms limit which I suppose will be enough to get a passable performance and it seems that pretty much all client devices managed to remain under this limit. Yes, there is a sharp rise way above 150ms on one of the WiFi 6 clients, but it happened only once, so it can be considered negligible.

I did set the throughput limit on all client devices to be 5Mbps, so let’s see if all managed to reach and maintain it. As you can see from the graph, all devices, be it WiFi 5, WiFi 6 or WiFi 6E managed to reach 5Mbps which is excellent.
But what about 4K? It’s, of course more demanding that 1080p streaming and I did set the limit to 25Mbps, simulating what five devices would need to sustain the maximum quality from Netflix. And things were a bit different this time.

I kept the maximum latency limit to 150ms and, focusing on the 99%, we see that one Lenovo Y520 (WiFi 6) client and the MacBook remained acceptable up to this point, immediately followed by the ZimaBoard which, despite being the farthest, still remained decent (at a rate of 1%, you will experience some occasional buffering, so nothing too serious). The WiFi 6E PC quickly went above the set limit, so it could not maintain a good streaming experience; the second WiFi 6 laptop will do fine for 95% of the times, but you may see some buffering from time to time. As we can see, the WiFi 6E client device strikes again, as it did with the Asus routers, so it doesn’t really like being put under stress. I was also curious to see if all clients managed to reach the 25Mbps limit.

We can see that not all did which is a bit of a problem and it may force you to go with a lower resolution in case you want to stream Netflix max quality on five client devices at the same time. Then again, you always have a spare 5GHz band, so hop onto it to make no compromises.

1080p Streaming and Browsing (+ VoIP) – 5 Client Devices

Since the TP-Link AX3200 did so well on the simultaneous 1080p streaming test, I decided to cut its wings a bit and add some web browsing in the mix. And I am not talking about opening a page waiting 3-4 minutes and then open another, no, we’re going turbo mode. Close and open, close and open. Certainly, I added 500ms of jitter to randomize the process a bit and simulate some real-life conditions – additionally, I set netburn to load 12 concurrent instances of 128KB which means roughly 1.5Mbps. This is the size of most web pages and since there are 12 separate pieces, it simulates multiple types of content loaded on a page (pictures, text, tables and so on).

The first picture illustrates the 1080p streaming performance while the fast browsing is happening in the background.
As you can see, the MacBook Pro is the only device that goes above the 150ms limit at 99% (1% of the time) and yes, all have spikes, but it should not affect the overall quality of the streaming. What about the web browsing?

For the turbo-mode web browsing test, the set limit is 1.5s after which the user will need to reload the page (since it loads too slow). And, as you can see from the image, all client devices managed to remain underneath this set limit which is excellent news once again. It’s worth mentioning that all client devices also managed to reach and maintain 5Mbps. Moving forward, I wanted to make things even more difficult and included VoIP as well, but not on all client devices, only one one, simulating the user having to receive a conference call.

VoIP traffic didn’t really have that much of an impact – sure, the latency rose here and there, but not enough to impact the 1080p streaming quality. All client devices remained under the set limit (150ms), with just some rare spikes less than 1% of the time. The web browsing wasn’t impacted that much either since all clients maintained a latency underneath 1.5s.

As an early conclusion, the TP-Link AX3200 handles really well the 1080p stress test and it didn’t budge even after mixing fast browsing and VoiP.

4K Streaming and Browsing – 5 Client Devices

The 4K streaming test alone put a bit of strain on the TP-Link AX3200, so let’s see what happens after adding web browsing alongside it as well.

We can see that only one client device stayed well under the set limit of 150ms, well, with a 1% deviation and it’s a WiFi 6 client device. The ZimaBoard 832 and the MacBook Pro also did well up until the 99% level (also the 1% spikes). The WiFi 6E refused to cooperate entirely and so did the second WiFi 6 client device. Before reaching a conclusion, let’s see the web browsing graph.

It seems that the WiFi 6E client refused to cooperate here as well and the second WiFi 6 Lenovo laptop also had a fit, getting very close to the set limit. But it still remained beneath it, barely. The other client devices had no trouble offering a good browsing experience. But, were the client devices able to reach the set 25Mbps throughput to ensure that Netflix pushes the max quality?

The answer is no, so again, as with the 4K streaming-only test, you will have to make some compromises in resolution. And, if you add the browsing into the mix, things get even more difficult for the TP-Link AX3200. Not to say that it couldn’t handle the stress, just that it won’t be able to do it properly on all client devices.

Multi-Client Stress Test – 2.4GHz

After finishing the multi-client stress tests on the 5GHz network (one of the two), I had to push the 2.4GHz network to the limit as well. Obviously, the 4K streaming test will be too much and I didn’t dare with the 1080p streaming test either. Just the plain ol’ insane-mode web-browsing.

It does seem that we did push the TP-Link AX3200 to the limit alright. Only one client device managed to stay under the 1.5s limit for the entire time, one of the two identical WiFi 6 client devices. The other client devices did well for pretty much the entire run, but there were some latency spikes which will occur about 1% of the time (leading to the need to re-load the page very, very rarely).

The WiFi 6E client device did show a higher deviation and will require that the user reloads the page 5% of the time (once every 20 times). Again, this is a stress test and you will be able to properly browse the web on way more client devices than the 5 I used. But I would take into account the option to move all the IoT, smart devices on this band instead.

The Wireless Test (5GHz)

To test the wireless performance, I connected three client devices to the first 5GHz network (the more powerful one) and yes, the channel bandwidth was set to the maximum of 80MHz. Also, since there is a 2.5GbE port, I used it to connect the server device, ensuring that there are no bottlenecks and I also made sure that the interference was kept to a minimum.

The first client device uses a WiFi 6 adapter (AX200) and the signal strength was really good, especially at 5 feet, where the attenuation was 32dB. And the throughput was maxing on the Gigabit connection since I measured an average of 936Mbps upstream, but only 361Mbps downstream. The excellent throughput remained strong even if I was about 45 feet away from the TP-Link Archer AX3200 where I saw an average of 634Mbps up and 176Mbps downstream.

At 70 feet (-81dB attenuation), I measured an average of 239Mbps upstream and 60.6Mbps downstream, so it remains very usable for pretty much any application. Moving to the secondary 5GHz WiFi network, the throughput remains really good.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

www.mbreviews.com

And this is one of the main reasons why I decided to check out the GT-AX6000 because it seems that the RT-AX88U Pro is essentially the same device minus the ROG features and, at the same time, Asus also wanted the ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 to be a soft of successor to the RT-AX86U or perhaps the RT-AX82U, the latter also pushing the WiFi limits with its powerful RGB.

At the same time, the ROG gaming routers series has recently gained both a WiFi 6E and even a WiFi 7 member, so is the RT-AX86U truly outdated and should we quickly move on to the next big thing? If you have the RT-AX86U, keep it, but I won’t deny that the ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 is also very well equipped and seems to be a phenomenal router. It offers two 2.5GbE ports and you can use them for dual-WAN purposes.

There’s OFDMA, 1024QAM and 160MHz channel bandwidth, and, of course, it’s very much possible to add the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 to an AiMesh network. Furthermore, the router does cater to the gaming community, so expect it to be weirdly shaped, to have RGB and some gaming-related features. These include Triple-level Game Acceleration (basically a slightly enhanced QoS), the VPN Fusion and the Mobile Game Mode. If all of this sound great to you, then let’s put the the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 to the test and see how it performs.

UPDATE 08.01.2023: I have put the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 through a few multi-client stress tests. This way, we get a better picture of the actual wireless performance than with the single-client iperf tests.

Design and Build Quality

The Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 sports a rectangular plastic case, kind of, because there are various parts sticking out, lots of geometrical patterns with the culmination of four dedicated areas to add the humongous four antennas, one for each of the device’s corners. So, it’s basically a drone, just add four propellers instead of the antennas and let it fly, the CPU can handle it (it’s a joke, don’t destroy your router).

The four antennas are removable, and each has a red plastic portion which I assumed were for some LEDs to shine through – it would have justified the weird shape, but no, they’re there just for show and serve no purpose above creating a gaming device aesthetic. But don’t worry, there is RGB and it’s the ROG logo at the top of the case (which, by the way, it’s covered by a black matte finish). This RGB light can be adjusted from the software, as well as turned off from one of the front-facing buttons.

The other button enabled WPS which I suggest you don’t use it due to potential security risks. Let’s talk a bit about the size of the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000. It measures 13.0 x 6.6 x 2.6 inches (or 33.0 x 16.8 x 6.6cm) and it weighs 2.47lbs (1.1 kg), so it’s both very large and heavy, and you do have to plan where you’re going to put it, especially due to the two antennas that sit at the front. The manufacturer has added four silicone feet to keep the device into place (the weight is pretty much enough to keep it steady) and I also noticed two mounting holes, so yes, it is possible to mount the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 on the wall (although the antennas would again make things complicated).

On the front of the WiFi 6 router, there is an array of LEDs, showing the status of the Power, the two WiFi radios, the 2.5GbE WAN port, the 2.5GbE LAN port, the WPS and the LAN. I would have liked to have separate LEDs for the LAN ports, but I guess it’s still better than what other manufacturers have been offering (that annoying single LED).

On the other side, there is a USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0 port (for a printer and a storage device), followed by four Gigabit LAN ports (and yes, the LAN 1 is a Gaming port, as we saw on the RT-AX86U). Afterwards, we are greeted by the 2.5GbE WAN port and the 2.5GbE LAN port (which can also act as the secondary WAN port), the recessed Reset button, the Power switch and the Power port.

Internal Hardware (Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 Teardown)

Do you want to know why nobody else on the web has tried to open up the quite popular Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000? It’s because it takes the top spot for the worst design I have ever encountered on a router. Everything was thought to serve the means to block the user to easily open up the case and seriously, when dealing with a device that costs almost half a grand, you should have the option to safely repair it.

But it’s better to fill up the land with e-waste than to leave the repair by third parties’ option open. That being said, be aware that not only you will most likely void the warranty if you open up the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000, you may also break it, so consider yourself warned.

The first thing that you need to do is to remove the four screws from the bottom of the router, but there is one more, in the middle, underneath the label which acts as a huge warranty seal (it’s almost impossible to remove cleanly). There is more because there is an actual warranty seal on the screw, so even if you managed to get this far, the warranty is gone.

From here on things get much worse because I assumed that I could just pry the case open by carefully detaching the upper part. And it will detach a few inches but the top will not come off. That’s because the stupidly-placed antenna connectors on the sides stand in the way. So I took the prying tool and tried to detach the small portions that surrounded the antenna connectors, but they creaked so badly, I was sure the plastic would break. A few minutes later, I said whatever happens, happens (money down the drain), so I forcefully tried to pop off the sections around the connectors.

Apparently, that’s how you’re supposed to do, because they flew across the room, but still remained intact, somehow. That’s about it for the rant, so let’s see the main components. The PCB is almost as large as the case itself and there is a heatsink on the right covering the WiFi chips: there’s a Broadcom BCM6715KFBG 802.11a/b/g/n/ax 4×4:4 chip (along with 4x Skyworks SKY85331-11 front-end modules) for the 2.4GHz radio and another Broadcom BCM6715KFBG chip (802.11a/n/ac/ax), also 4×4:4 and with 4x Skyworks SKY85743-21 front-end modules for the 5GHz radio.

I was a bit confused when I saw that the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 unit that I purchased used the Broadcom platform, instead of the initially advertised Qualcomm platform, but it seems that the router that I test is actually version 2. Moving on, I took the metallic piece from the left of the board to reveal a metallic cover and the 512MB of NAND flash memory from MXIC (MX30LF2G28AD-TI). To see the rest, I had to turn the PCB upside down and, after removing the large metallic cover, I could identify the quad-core 2.0GHz Broadcom BCM4912 chipset (it’s also the switch chip for the Gigabit ports), the Broadcom BCM50991E switch chip for the 2.5GbE ports and 2X 512MB (amount to 1GB) RAM from SKHynix (H5AN4G6NBJR).

Lastly, although not as relevant as one may think, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 features a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 1,148Mbps on the 2.4GHz radio band and up to 4,804Mbps on the 5GHz radio band.

The WiFi Features

The Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 offers a very similar set of features that enhance the WiFi performance, so, as expected, there’s OFDMA to help with any latency related-issues in very crowded environments (with lots of wireless access points and client devices). And you do need to enable it from the software – I liked that you get the option to enable it for DL and UL (or separate), a flexibility that most brands don’t offer.

The reason why this feature is disabled by default is because there aren’t as many WiFi 6 client devices out there as you may think, despite the push for WiFi 6E and even WiFi 7 equipment and, to make use of all the advantages that come with the newer WiFi standard, you do need compatible client devices. This remains true for the flagship features of the last WiFi gen, such as MU-MIMO and BeamForming because while these can improve the performance in certain conditions, you’re not going to see any difference if the client devices don’t support them.

And you will see on the testing section that using WiFi 5 client devices, the performance of the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 doesn’t differ that much from the better AC routers. The router also supports the 160MHz channel bandwidth and it will automatically move to DFS channels to gain a decent wireless throughput. The problem is that Asus has made some changes over the last few firmware updates and some people have complained that the 5GHz network would become invisible when set up to 160MHz. I experienced the same thing and I know that it is possible that there was some meteorologic or military radar nearby, but I checked other routers that could also use 160MHz.

And they were visible when using those channels. So, for whatever reason, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 struggles with false positives. I did have to use the channel 52 for the following tests (which is not really ideal) even with Merlin third-party software, but that didn’t make any difference. It’s worth noting that the firmware that the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 used was the latest at the time of writing (3.0.0.4.388_22525). Lastly, I would like to mention the support for AiMesh, so the router can be added to a larger mesh network where it can work either as a mesh node or a main unit.

Multi-Client Stress Test – 5GHz

If you read the Asus TUF-AX5400 review article, you already know that I started using the tools developed by Mr Jim Salter for running multi-client stress test (netburn and net-hydra). To get a brief idea about what’s being done is that I connect five client devices to a server device (via SSH) and various types of traffic is being simulated: it can be browsing, 4K streaming, 1080p streaming and/or VoIP. But what’s the most important is that these tests can be run at the same time on all client devices, therefore simulating how an actual home network would feel and behave like.

The tests will show the latency which indicates if and when a task has been accomplished and based on these results, we can get an idea of whether the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 can handle five client devices that stream at the same time, while also navigating the web and I also included some light VoIP, just to push things to the limit. I have added a table with the specs of the client devices below and yes, some are from different WiFi standards – one reason for the choice is that a real network has diversity, not all clients are the same and the second reason is money (the laptops and computers are expensive).

I made sure that just like the previous tests (with the ASUS TUF-AX5400), the client devices were connected to the 5GHz network (80MHz). OFDMA was enabled both up and down (dl and ul), as well as MU-MIMO – it may give an advantage to the compatible client devices and it may not since the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 is plenty powerful and may not be easily pushed to the limit.
The specs of the server device:

• WiFi 6 built-in adapter + 2.5GbE Ethernet port
• 32GB RAM
• NVMe SSD storage
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600xt
• Radeon RX 6800xt.

I also need to mention that the ZimaBoard 832 is the only client device that was not in the same room as the router (-65 attenuation), while the other devices were near the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 at different, but small distances. The MacBook Pro showed an attenuation of -40dB and the WiFi 6E client device showed -30dB. The Lenovo Y520 laptops showed -42 and -46dB (with linSSID).

4K and 1080p Streaming – 5 Client Devices

The first thing that I did was run the 1080p streaming test on all client devices at the same time for 5 minutes at a time and then make an average of the results (that I got after about an hour – yeah, these tests will eat up many days). On the previous article, I decided that 150ms is a good limit to what could be considered a passable latency for both 4K and 1080p streaming – I can be wrong, so again, make sure to correct me if I am wrong.

As you can see from the graph, the WiFi 6 and the WiFi 6E client devices remained under this limit at all times which means that you will get a good streaming experience on all three at the same time. The MacBook deviated a bit, so you can experience some buffering from time to time, while the WiFi 5 ZimaBoard remained consistently under limit, but it did have a sharp increase at some point. How bad is it? It should buffer less than the MacBook Pro, but it’s still not a pristine performance. Now, we want to see if the throughput was 5Mbps on all client devices since this was the limit that I put in place. And it seems that all five could maintain it without issues, which is excellent.

Moving forward, I simulated 4K streaming traffic on all client devices at the same time – the 25Mbps limit for that Netflix max quality. And things were more nuanced this time. The winner was one of the two WiFi 6 client devices (Lenovo Y520), while the others all shown a spike at 99% – this means that 1% of the requests are broken for the ZimaBoard and 5% for the rest of the client devices. If you want a flawless performance, perhaps scale down the client devices that all stream 4K at the same time – 5 may not work fine, but 4 most likely will.

I had to also check if all client devices managed to reach and maintain the 25Mbps limit that I put in place and it seems that all did. Before moving forward, let’s talk a bit about the WiFi 6E client device. It seems that when I tested the TUF-AX5400, this particular client behaved like a lunatic and while I have seen some signs that it may go full insane again, it seems that it works much better with the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000.

1080p Streaming and Browsing (+ VoIP) – 5 Client Devices

The ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 should be warmed up by now, so let’s add some browsing to the simultaneous 1080p streaming test. It’s worth noting that I made sure to simulate a fairly accurate browsing behavior: a page consists of multiple resources that load one after the other, so I moved 12x128KB (roughly 1.5MB) of data, while also adding 500ms of jitter, so there is a random pause between the page loads, as it happens while browsing in real life (very fast and furious web browsing).

As you can see, pretty much all client devices managed to offer a good performance 99% of the time (three managed to remain flawless the entire time), but we can see that the ZimaBoard had an occasional slip, while the WiFi 6E client devices shows its teeth again, although very rarely. This means that the web browsing doesn’t have a heavy impact on the 1080p streaming.

For browsing, 1.5s can be considered a reasonable maximum after which the user needs to start reloading the page, so anything above that can be considered bad browsing experience. As you can see from the image above, all client devices remained underneath this limit (while 1080 streaming ran at the same time), but the WiFi 6E client decided to have a fit and will be problematic between 5 and 1% of the time (it also didn’t reach the full 5Mbps) – not great, but not really terrible. Now let’s put some more strain on the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 by including VoIP, but only on a single client device to retain some realism (I doubt people will replicate the scenarios I am running, but who knows..).

I admit I didn’t expect a sprinkle of VoIP to have such a noticeable impact, but it did. One Lenovo Y520 laptop (WiFi 6) and the WiFi 6E client device (of course) displayed some spikes about 1% of the times which can translate to occasional buffering, while the other clients were also pushed to their limits.

Browsing was still fine and no client device was pushed over the 1.5s limit, so you can take a call, furiously web browse on five client devices and also stream 1080p footage (on at least three client devices) without any major issues.

4K Streaming and Browsing – 5 Client Devices

4K streaming is more demanding than 1080p, so the results were already a tiny bit worse, but adding web browsing in the mix will show some cracks, at least using some client devices.

The ZimaBoard could not keep up and I guess it makes sense considering that it’s the farthest from the router (it’s also WiFi 5). The rest of the client devices managed to remain underneath the arbitrary limit I put in place, but the MacBook Pro (WiFi 5) and the WiFi 6E PC will experience issues 1% of the time (some occasional buffering).

As you can see from the graph, all five client devices remained underneath the 1.5s limit, so no user that browses sites in a slightly unhinged manner should experience any issues. So what do we learn from this? Browsing is not a problem with all five client devices even if there’s 4K streaming in the mix, but to get the best performance, limit it to 2 client devices (preferably WiFi 6), but, if you don’t mind some occasional buffering, you can add a couple more.

Have all client devices managed to reach and maintain the 25Mbps limit? Not really because two client devices stopped at 24.9Mbps – not a terrible result, but it just confirms what we have already seen on the latency graphs.

Multi-Client Stress Test – 2.4GHz

After seeing how well the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 performed on the 5GHz radio, I decided to connect all the client devices to the 2.4GHz network, while keeping them in the same place as before. As for the multi-client test, I decided that the streaming would be too strenuous, so I simply ran simultaneous web browsing traffic on all clients at the same time.

The results are very curious because the two Lenovo Y520 laptops are the only ones to go above the set 1.5s limit, albeit for a very brief moment, but it is possible that the AX200 adapter may not play that nice with the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 router on the 2.4GHz – or that the router is not that great ion this regard. Even so, we do see a decent performance with the other clients – the Lenovo laptops deviated for 1% of the time.

As a conclusion before moving to the single-client iperf tests is that seeing the difference in performance when compared to the ASUS TUF-AX5400, we can say that this test doesn’t only check the limits of the client devices, it also paints a picture about how the router behaves as well.

The Wireless Test (5GHz)

The testing procedure is the same as with the other WiFi 6 routers: I connected three client devices to the 5GHz network, two are WiFi 5 and one is WiFi 6, first using the 160MHz channel bandwidth, afterwards switching to the 80MHz – the server device had a 2.5GbE port, so there was no Gigabit limitation in place.

And then I checked the throughput upstream and downstream at various distances, while also taking into account the attenuation (as shown by the client device). The same approach has been taken when checking the speed performance on the 2.4GHz network. That being said, I first checked the speed when the WiFi 6 client device was connected to the 5GHz network (160MHz) with OFDMA and MU-MIMO enabled and, upstream, I measured an average of 1,188Mbps at 5 feet and the over-Gigabit performance remained even at 30 feet, where I saw an average of 1,124Mbps.

Downstream, I saw an average of 480Mbps at 5 feet and an average of 427Mbps at 30 feet, all that while the attenuation varied between -36 and -51dB, so pretty impressive.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

www.mbreviews.com

There’s the QoS-focused Game Boost and the dedicated Gaming port, there’s the Open NAT and the VPN Fusion. The VPN Fusion is great to connect different client devices to different VPN services, but it does remain a very particular feature for very specific applications. Then again, a gaming router is a bit of a niche product after all. Besides the software features, the Asus TUF-AX5400 does have the mandatory RGB LED that will definitely increase your FPS in gaming (as all gamers already know) and I also noticed that the device is equipped with a 1.5GHz Broadcom chipset.

I looked a bit further and saw that it has 512MB of RAM and 256MB of flash storage. That prompted me to look even deeper, so I opened the router and yeah, as I already anticipated, this seems to be an Asus RT-AX82U. The six antennas do make me wonder whether there will be a difference in performance, but other than that, Asus has seemingly released two almost identical (WiFi 6) gaming routers. Both TP-Link and Netgear are guilty of a similar behavior (check the AX21 and the RAX10), but I still need to check whether there’s more to the Asus TUF-AX5400 or if it’s just an attempt from the manufacturer to dominate this small sub-niche by competing with itself.

UPDATE 08.01.2023: I have run a few multi-client stress tests on the Asus TUF-AX5400. And yes, it’s going to reflect the actual wireless performance a lot better than the single-client iperf tests.

Design and Build Quality

The TUF router series is meant to be more flashy and yes, the routers have a more aggressive design, but I was surprised to see that the TUF-AX5400 is a bit more conservative than the RT-AX82U which shamelessly covered almost half of its front side with RBG LEDs. I was initially unsure about the “made for gamers” approach, but it did eventually grow on me and I prefer it over the ‘more boring’ look of the regular router. The Asus TUF-AX5400 also has some aggressive design lines and there is a fairly large LED at the top with the TUF logo. The LED can be adjusted to any color you like and there are a few effects that you can apply if you like to be distracted when you’re working or playing games.

I noticed that the case is fairly compact, but it is a bit taller than other routers, as well as heavier (it weighs 1.32lbs / 600g). So, at 10.5 x 6.2 x 2.7 inches (26.6 x 15.7 x 6.8 cm), it’s going to take very little from your desk and there’s always the option to mount it on the wall, right?
Actually no, as for unfathomable reasons, Asus decided to not add any mounting holes on the bottom of the router – I get it with the vertical design of the RT-AX86U, but what’s the point of not adding it on the TUF-AX5400? I guess true gamers keep their routers on the desk or something.

The good news is that there are lots of ventilation holes all around the case, including at the top and the bottom of the router (in between the four silicone feet), so it’s going to be running at a proper temperature. These new chips from Broadcom are really great at keep the temperature low, so the TUF-AX5400 is running mostly at room temperature, which is great. The LEDs are positioned in such a manner as to not give any eye fatigue during the night and that made me take a closer look at the intricate design that Asus has decided to use on the TUF-AX5400. I think it’s a weird combination between an autobot and a blubberfish. Anyway, kudos to Asus for not getting rid of the array of LEDs (and shame on other manufacturers that use a single LED).

So, yes, we do get an LED for the Internet connection, four separate LEDs for each LAN port (as it should be), two LEDs for each WiFi band and a Power LED. Turn the router around and you’ll be able to see the block of ports and connectors sitting underneath the four rear-facing antennas (there are two other antennas, one on the left and one of the right side of the router). From the left, there’s the Power port along with the Power button, followed by a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, four Gigabit LAN ports and a single Gigabit WAN port (I liked that the ports are surrounded by a narrow metallic frame). Lastly, there’s a WPS button and a recessed Reset button.

Internal Hardware

As I said in the intro, the internal components are pretty much the same as on the Asus RT-AX82U, so let’s open up the TUF-AX5400 and see for ourselves. Be aware that Asus has added a warranty seal which needs to be removed in order to open up the case. If that’s fine with you, then go ahead and remove the four screws that sit underneath the rubber feet and yes, one of the screws is covered by the aforementioned easy-to-tear warranty seal. Next, use a prying tool to carefully detach the top plastic cover.

Asus made me doubt myself several times since I was sure that there must be another screw somewhere, but no, it’s just that the top cover is very tightly attached and you do have to insist in order to detach it. In any case, you will be greeted by a large metallic cover, lots of antenna connectors and you should be able to see the main components. But not before removing the top and bottom metallic heatsinks by detaching the antennas and taking out the five screws from the bottom of the PCB.
The Asus TUF-AX5400 is equipped with a tri-core Broadcom BCM6750KFEBG chipset clocked at 1.5GHz (Cortex A7), just like the RT-AX58U and the RT-AX82U. Next, there’s the 256MB of flash memory from Winbond (25N02KVZEIR) and 512MB of RAM from Nanya (NT5CC256M16ER-EK).

As for the wireless capabilities, the Asus TUF-AX5400 uses the Broadcom BCM6750KFEBG 802.11b/g/n/ax 2×2:2 chip (along with two Qorvo QPF4216 integrated front-end modules) for the 2.4GHz radio band and a Broadcom BCM43684KRFBG 802.11an/ac/ax 4×4:4 chipset (along with four Qorvo QPF4516 ATSJ front-end modules) for the 5GHz radio, which, unsurprisingly is the same as on the RT-AX82U. Lastly, the Asus TUF-AX5400 is an AX5400-class router (imagine my surprise), so it features a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 4,804Mbps on the 5GHz radio and a max rate of 574Mbps on the 2.4GHz radio.

Features and Performance

Being a ‘gaming router’, the Asus TUF-AX5400 does have quite a few features to mainly improve the online gaming experience, but that’s all dependent on some of the WiFi 6 features and the way they these are implemented. The most important one remains OFDMA which is great for improving both the bandwidth and the throughput. This is achieved by allocating multiple orthogonal sub-carriers (OFDMA stands for Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access) to multiple users instead of a single one, so yes, there’s far better efficiency. I did like that Asus has added OFDMA both ul and dl on both bands, but you do need to enable it from the Professional set of options underneath the Wireless settings on the web-based interface.

Next, there’s the MU-MIMO to help sever multiple clients at the same time (somewhat useful if you have multiple compatible client devices) and I do need to mention the Beamforming which helps pointing the signal towards compatible devices, reducing the impact of interference.
Besides these features, there’s the support for 1024-QAM modulation, 160MHz channel bandwidth (which usually work great with a multi-Gigabit port and the TUF-AX5400 is stuck with Gigabit) and the perpetual AiMesh compatibility. And no, I am not downplaying its importance because it is one of the best technologies ever developed by Asus and it makes for a very solid alternative to the dedicated mesh WiFi systems (which, after implementing some of the WiFi 6 tech, have gotten weirdly expensive).

I need to mention the main gaming features, the first being the Gaming port! It’s a QoS feature, where that LAN port will get the highest priority, so do connect your console or gaming PC to it if you’re relying on a cable. If you go wireless, then the Gear Accelerator will help prioritize your device, but I was surprised that neither the WTFast GPN, nor the support for the nVidia GeForce Now was present – it seems that it remains a feature on the RT-AX82U and the RT-AX86U.

Wireless Test (5GHz)

That being said, let’s check how well the TUF-AX5400 performed with some WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 client devices. Of course, I will start with the WiFi 6 client, which is a computer equipped with an Intel AX200 adapter and it does support both 80 and 160MHz channel bandwidth. So, while the client device was connected to the 5GHz network (80MHz), the throughput was not that different than what I saw with the RT-AX82U. It did seem to reach a little bit further, since at 30 feet, I saw an average of 381Mbps upstream and 147Mbps downstream. The router could go farther than that, so, at 45 feet, I could still see 233Mbps, with the signal strength dropping down to 75dB, so it remains perfectly usable for most applications.

The point where the throughput was no longer reliable was at about 90dB (somewhere around 70 feet away and a few walls in between the router and the device). If you decide to use the 160MHz channel bandwidth, know that it will work better near the router and not that great the farther you go from the TUF-AX5400. In any case, I saw an average of 874Mbps at 5 feet upstream and 417Mbps downstream, which is again fairly close to the RT-AX82U.

Going to 45 feet, it did behave a bit worse than on the 80MHz channel bandwidth, something that we fully expect, but the throughput was still more than usable (148Mbps up and 114Mbps down). The point where the signal for the 80MHz channel bandwidth offered an almost unusable throughput was unreachable on the 160MHz, so I had to get a bit closer, where the signal was about 84dB to get a semblance of Internet connection.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

www.mbreviews.com

The Zyxel SCR 50AXE is Cloud-managed, so it is supposed to work with other Nebula devices and the targeted audience consists of small businesses and I suppose tech enthusiasts, especially those that want to try their hands at the new 6GHz radio. What’s interesting is that the Zyxel SCR 50AXE is limited by Gigabit ports, all of them, so the point of the router is not really to push the WiFi speed to its limits, but to provide a very comprehensive set of security features for a smaller office (the 1GB RAM should help in this regard). So, the 6GHz is more of a bonus in case some client device will actually be compatible with it.

And it’s a bit of a mess considering that Microsoft forces its users to update to the Windows 11 version in order to make use of a WiFi 6E adapter, and we both know that both the software and the hardware upgrade momentum in the corporate world does not keep up with the current two-year cycle for the release of a new WiFi standard. Of course, a start-ups or tech enthusiasts will want to make use of the far cleaner performance of the 6GHz and the Zyxel SCR 50AXE should deliver.

That being said, let’s put the security-focused wireless router to the test to see how well it performs and to confirm whether the hype around the WiFi 6E is warranted.

Note: Like I mentioned before, be aware that the Zyxel SCR 50AXE is Cloud-based, so it can only be monitored and configured via the Nebula management platform.

IMPORTANT UPDATE 05.27.2023: Make sure to update the security router to the latest firmware because Zyxel has fixed some significant issues that I have experienced when testing the device.

UPDATE 07.27.2023: I can now set the 5GHz radio band to use the 160MHz channel width, so I retested the router to show the new data.

Design and Build Quality

The Zyxel SCR 50AXE was not designed to fit into a rack, so it did not follow the look of the other security gateways from Zyxel. Instead, it looks very similar to the mesh nodes of the Multy X mesh system. The case is made of plastic, has rounded corners and it’s covered by a white matte finish on the sides, but with a red frame cutting the device in the middle. In a way, it’s kind of a retro look, especially since you get a stand to keep the wireless router upwards, thus covering less space from the desk and I saw no silicone feet to put the device on its side.

The good news is that there are two dedicated mounting holes if you decide to install the Zyxel SCR 50AXE on the wall – that area can be hidden by a plastic cover provided by Zyxel, so it retains its minimalist look. The device measures 9.5 x 7.0 x 2.1 (24.2 x 17.8 x 5.4cm) and it’s worth mentioning that the stand attaches magnetically to the bottom of the router – the case does creak when squeezed. Obviously, this type of design does not support external antennas, so, similarly to the ceiling-mount APs, the antennas are inside the case.

I have seen that Zyxel has added numerous puncture holes on one side of the SCR 50AXE and there are a few very narrow ventilation holes at the top and bottom (within the red frame). But is that enough to ensure a proper internal temperature? The SoC and WiFi chips have gotten insanely power efficient, so it does seem that the space inside the case + the ventilation holes are enough to keep the temperature low. I have added a thermal photo for peace of mind.

Zyxel has added the array of LEDs on the front of the wireless router, embedded within the red plastic frame and from the top, there’s the Power LED, the WAN/Internet LED (with a very strange icon) followed by the Cloud indicator.

A bit lower, you can see a single LED for the WiFi (one for three..) and the last LED is for the WPS function. I initially thought it was for when the Reset button is pressed, but apparently, next to the recessed Reset button, there’s the WPS switch without an icon, so it’s easy to confuse the user. You can also check out whether you should still use WPS or if it’s better to rely on other means of connecting devices to the network.

Underneath the aforementioned couple of buttons, there’s the dedicated ports area where you can see the Gigabit Ethernet WAN port, along with the four LAN ports, also Gigabit and the Power port. The 6GHz and Gigabit will raise some eyebrows, but it was a cost-conscious decision, so let’s hope that the Zyxel SCR 50AXE pushes close-to-Gigabit WiFi over a far larger area than the WiFi 6 and 5 routers in the same price category.

Internal Hardware (Zyxel SCR 50AXE Teardown)

If you thought there are no screws around the case, Zyxel has included four hidden underneath the label. I don’t think removing this label will cause the warranty to be voided, but still keep in mind that the manufacturers don’t like it when you’re prying open the case while the device is still in warranty, so tread carefully. That being said, after removing the screws and detaching the plastic case, I could see that there is lots of room for the heat to dissipate and there were two plastic arches as extra protection for the PCB (against possible shocks or were those creaks a lot worse before?).

All the antennas sit at the top of the Zyxel SCR 50AXE and I could already identify the 256MB of NAN flash memory from Winbond (25N02KWZEIR). I saw that there was a heatsink covering the main chip, so I decided to flip the board upside down and remove the screws that held it. There were no screws, the heatsink was soldered – just great. I still managed to identify the WiFi chipsets, which eventually lead to the identification of the SoC. We are dealing with a dual-core Qualcomm IPQ5018 (ARM Cortex-A53 processor clocked at 1GHz) and, while the exact RAM brand remains incognito, we do know that the total amount is 1GB.

Also, I couldn’t identify the switch chip. That being said, for WiFi, the Zyxel SCR 50AXE uses a Qualcomm QCN6122 802.11ax 2×2:2 + 2x Sy6525DK front-end modules for the 6GHz radio and the Qualcomm QCN6102 802.11b/g/n/ax along with 2x K495 504HT 12130 front-end modules for the 5GHz. I am fairly sure that the Zyxel SCR 50AXE uses the same Qualcomm QCN6122 chip for the 5GHz radio band as well, so I was very curios whether they can be used at the same time, or in turn, as it was the case with the Zyxel NWA220AX-6E (especially since both are built on the same platform and use the exact same SoC).

Thankfully, it’s not and I could see all three radio bands at the same time, so it is a true tri-band wireless router. Lastly, for those that are interested in the theoretical maximum data rates, know that on the 6GHz, it’s 2,402Mbps, as well as on the 5GHz, also 2,402Mbps, while on the 2.4GHz, it’s 574Mbps. In total, it amounts to the advertised AXE5400.

Zyxel SCR 50AXE vs NWA220AX-6E vs EnGenius ECW336

The WiFi Features

The most important WiFi feature of the Zyxel SCR 50AXE is the support for the 6GHz radio band that will behave miles better than the 5GHz which, although wider than the 2.4GHz radio, it has become overcrowded and very much prone to interference. We don’t even need to mention the 2.4GHz radio because at this point, its role has been reduced towards keeping low-power IoT devices connected to their mother servers. And yes, you can use the 160MHz in a more reliable way since you should experience no channel interference with other APs for two reasons.

One, there are no wireless access points that support this radio band in your area and it will take years before you encounter a few; the second reason is because you gain far more non-overlapping channels to choose from. At the moment, the only issue is that there are very, very few compatible client devices on the market and the vast majority of the older devices aren’t compatible – yes, the 6GHz is not backwards compatible. I saw that the Zyxel SCR 50AXE should does support the 160MHz channel bandwidth on the 5GHz as well (it says so in the Nebula controller), but when I tried to set it up, I kept getting a weird error. and, while before it did not function, it has been enabled with the latest update.

I assumed that maybe the 5GHz or the 6GHz can be used one at a time on the 160MHz, which I guess could make sense, but even after disabling the 6GHz radio, it still didn’t work. This is one bug that Zyxel needs ironed out. I spoke with Zyxel and they have confirmed that there is indeed a problem which they have promised to fix by June 2023.

Since there is support for the 802.11ax standard, I assume that the wireless router can make use of the OFDMA (I saw no setting to enable it) which should help in a very crowded area with lots of access points. Otherwise, you won’t really see it in action and that’s assuming that you have compatible client devices.

Same as MU-MIMO and Beamforming which also need compatibility, otherwise they’re pretty much unused. Furthermore, I could enable 802.11k/v Assisted roaming, as well as 802.11r Fast Roaming in case you want to use the wireless router along with other Zyxel access points and prefer to give the user a seamless roaming experience between devices.

The Wireless Test (6GHz)

The Zyxel SCR 50AXE broadcasts all three radio signals at the same time, so I could connect a couple of client device immediately, a computer equipped with an AX200 WiFi 6 adapter and another PC that was equipped with a TP-Link AXE5400 WiFi 6E adapter.

And I would have liked to connect the two WiFi 5 client devices, but I set the radios to operate in 802.11ax mode only, to check how well the router performs with perfectly compatible client devices. Also, I chose a separate computer for the WiFi 6E because I could only connect to a Linux machine, and that’s because Microsoft has been gatekeeping the access to WiFi 6E networks only for Windows 11 – there is no chance I’m upgrading to that ad-filled excuse of an operating system.

Not that Windows 10 is that much better, but I digress. I made sure that the server was connected to the router via cable and then I connected the Linux machine to the 6GHz SSID (160MHz) – the Zyxel SCR 50AXE did initially refuse to enable the LAN ports, but I dedicated an entire section to the bugs I encountered. That being said, I could see that upstream, at 5 feet, the average throughput was 938Mbps, while downstream, it was 799Mbps (-33dB attenuation).

I am sure that it could have easily gone above the Gigabit limit, but we have no multi-Gigabit ports available to test this claim. The performance remained solid even at 30 feet (-58 attenuation), where upstream, I saw an average of 709Mbps and downstream, it was 673Mbps. And it was really good even at 45 feet (-76dB attenuation, as shown by the client device) where I measured an average of 303Mbps up and 207Mbps downstream. At 70 feet (-83dB), the performance dropped to barely usable levels: upstream, it was 18.3Mbps and downstream, it was 9.6Mbps.

The Wireless Test (5GHz)

While the compatibility was set to 802.11ax-only, I checked out the wireless performance of the Zyxel SCR 50AXE when a WiFi 6 client device (AX200) was connected to the 5GHz network. The channel bandwidth was 80MHz, because I have been unsuccessful to switch it to 160MHz (kept getting this error: INVALID_RADIO_BAND50_CHANNEL_BANDWIDTH). That being said, at 5 feet, I measured an average of 795Mbps upstream and 661Mbps downstream, and I actually saw an even better throughput at 15 feet (despite the increased attenuation at -41dB).

At 30 feet, the performance was still excellent: I saw an average of 618Mbps up and 545Mbps downstream (-54dB). But the biggest surprise came at 70 feet, where there was a -79dB attenuation, but upstream, I measured an average of 107Mbps, while downstream, it was 36.9Mbps. That’s an excellent range and coverage. Moving forward, I changed the compatibility mode in order to allow the two WiFi 5 client device to connect, the laptop equipped with an Intel 8265 adapter and the perpetual Pixel 2 XL (I think I am going to end up using it for another decade, despite its near comatose existence).

So, while the Intel 8265 WiFi 5 client device was connected to the 5GHz network (80MHz), I measured an average of 648Mbps upstream and 294Mbps downstream, both at 5 feet, while at 45 feet, it was 143Mbps up and 89.4Mbps downstream (-74dB). At 70 feet, you could still run some online software and applications considering that upstream, I measured an average of 41.8Mbps and downstream, I saw around 16.5Mbps. Moving to the Pixel 2 XL, it performed surprisingly well.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

www.mbreviews.com

Obviously, any sys admin that manages a larger network could take advantage of most of the provided features, but TP-Link does have available the Omada Cloud controller specifically tailored for this specific audience. So, the TAUC is an ambitious move to enter a new branch of the US-based networking market and TP-Link decided to make available three devices, from which the EX920 is (currently) the only WiFi 6E router – the other two are WiFi 6.

Being a WiFi 6E router, the TP-Link EX920 is tri-band and does allow compatible client devices to connect to the 6GHz band. There is support for 160MHz, which I suppose can be considered mandatory for 6GHz, there’s also OFDMA and MU-MIMO, as well as WPA3 encryption.

Unlike other WiFi 6E routers (such as the SCR 50AXE), the EX920 AXE7800 does provide a 2.5GbE WAN port and a single 2.5GbE LAN port, the others being limited to Gigabit, so the provider can confidently push for data plans above 1Gbps. That being said, let’s put the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 to the test and see the wireless performance and whether the Aginet platform is a worthy competitor to the other systems on the market.

UPDATE 07.22.2023: I added the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 to the TAUC.

Design and Build Quality

The TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 follows the design of the mesh systems units, so it does have a very minimalist look, but without some of the main drawbacks. Yes, we get plenty of ports and there is no single LED nonsense, we get a proper array of status LEDs.

The router doesn’t occupy much desk real estate, but it’s a very tall unit, measuring 9.1 x 4.5 x 4.5 inches (23.2 x 11.5 x 11.5cm) and it kind of reminds me of the tower-like Linksys Velop mesh units (plastic rectangular case covered by a white matte finish). Still, despite being tall, you’re not going to be able to easily push the device on its side because TP-Link made sure that the EX920 has a low center of gravity.

Obviously, you’re not going to be able to install the WiFi 6E router on the wall or even insert it in a rack, but again, the advantage is that it has a small footprint and I suppose it will better blend in with the furniture due to the lack of any external antennas.

At the top of the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800, there is a narrow canal which I guess could have had an LED to shine through (I am glad they didn’t go this route), but it is used to push the heat away from the components. There are also some ventilation holes at the bottom, thus leaving the sides of the device intact. Is this approach enough to maintain a good inner temperature?

The passive cooling of the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 seems to be done right and, as you can see from the photos, the router operates at a proper temperature. Now let’s talk about the LEDs. There is a silver line on the front with eight status LEDs, the first lighting up when the router is powered on, the next three will light up if the 2.4GHz, the 5GHz and/or the 6GHz WiFi network are enabled. Further down, there’s the Internet LED (green when active, orange when the link is down), the Ethernet LED (one for all – still better than the single LED approach), the USB LED and the WPS LED.

Turn the router the other way around and you will see a fairly large black band that cuts through the case and contains all the ports and most of the buttons. At the top, we get the WPS and WiFi buttons, followed by the three LAN ports, from which only the third is 2.5GbE (the first two are Gigabit). Next, there’s the 2.5GbE WAN port, the USB 3.0 port, the Power button and the Power port.

All these ports are positioned on their side, which I guess is a cost-sensitive approach, not that there’s anything wrong with that – there are only four feet at the bottom, so don’t keep the router on its side in spite of the temptation to do so. The last button is for resetting the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 and it can be found at the bottom of the device, next to the silicone feet.

Internal Hardware (TP-Link EX920 Teardown)

Before opening up the device, be aware that if the router is still in warranty, TP-Link may void it even if there are no sticker seals. If that’s fine with you, carry on. The first thing I did was to check if there are any screws at the bottom of the device and, despite finding two holes underneath the silicone feet at the bottom, but there is no screw inside them. So, I just removed the top plastic piece (just pry it open) and afterwards, it’s necessary to take out the two screws that hold the plastic into place.

You won’t be able to slide out the PCB until you also detach the black plastic that surrounds the ports – it’s not glued, so just take it out using a prying tool. After removing the PCB, we can see all the antennas that are vertically mounted, same as the PCB, as well as the three metallic heatsinks covering important chipsets, so let’s remove them. After doing so, I could identify the quad-core 2GHz MediaTek MT7986AV (ARM A53) + MT7531A main chipsets, 512MB of RAM from Zentel (A3T4GF40BB), 128MB of flash memory from ESMT (F50L1G41LB) and 2x MXL GPY211 SLNW8 TK6W53 2.5GbE switch chips for the WAN port and LAN port. The WiFi chips needed some deciphering, so be free to correct me if I got it wrong.

I saw the Mediatek MT7976DAN 802.11b/g/n/ax 2×2:2 chip along with the two Qorvo QPF4216B integrated front-end module for 2.4GHz and the Mediatek MT7976AN 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax 4×4:4 chip along with four Skyworks SKY85743-21 front-end modules for the 5GHz radio band. There is also a Mediatek MT7916AN chip with two Skyworks SKY85780-11 WiFi 6E high-power WLAN front-end modules for the 6GHz radio band. It’s clear that TP-Link went with a full Mediatek build this time and we will see in the following sections if it paid off.

TP-Link EX920 vs Zyxel SCR 50AXE vs NWA220AX-6E vs EnGenius ECW336

But before moving forward, it’s worth mentioning the maximum theoretical data rate since a lot of you care a lot for these numbers for whatever reason. On the 2.4GHz, it’s 574Mbps, on 5GHz, it’s 4,804Mbps and on the 6GHz radio band, it’s 2,402Mbps. Sum it up to reach the AXE7800.

The WiFi Features

After having to troubleshoot various WiFi 6E routers and access points, it was a breath of fresh air to see how the TP-Link EX920 just worked properly out of the box. And I didn’t even have to connect it to any app, it can function just fine as a ‘regular router’ with a web-based interface + app. But we’ll talk a bit more about that in the dedicated section, now it’s time to check out some of the WiFi performance-enhancing features. Without a doubt, the main feature is the 6GHz radio which is a game changer not only because the channel bandwidths are wider, but also because it’s less impacted by interference.

And we have already sacrificed the 2.4GHz radio to the smart devices gods and now the 5GHz struggles to handle the huge amount of overlapping networks (in addition to the fact that network optimization is less common in residential spaces than in offices). Even so, the WiFi 6 did bring some features to alleviate some of the aforementioned issues and the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 seems to have implemented pretty much all of them. OFDMA is a standard on WiFi 6 routers, but no necessarily implemented on all radio bands, and not always both for dl and ul.

Using the web-based GUI, the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 offers the option to enable OFDMA on all three radios at the same time, but I don’t have the necessary tools to check the way it is actually implemented. Furthermore, the EX920 is one of those rare devices to also offer BSS Coloring which is as important as OFDMA, and its role is to limit the interference (especially the dreaded adjacent channel interference). Will that mean that you can now crank the channel bandwidth to 160MHz using the 5GHz radio and push the signal to the max because the interference holds no power over your network anymore? Not even close. The OFDMA and BSS Coloring are useful and noticeable in areas with a huge amount of overlapping WiFi networks, otherwise, it’s not going to improve the performance that much.

And no, unless you’re living in a detached home, I don’t think you’re going to be able to use 5GHz on 160MHz without suffering from bad WiFi. Then again, you can always just limit the transmit power to cover only your space, but will your neighbors do the same? Spoiler alert: they never do. I have already hinted that the 5GHz and the 6GHz can go up to 160MHz width and there are a few interesting mesh-related features that I could mention. There’s support for 802.11/v/r for seamless roaming, there’s the self-healing ability when the router is added within a mesh network. And yes, the TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 will inter-connect to all other EasyMesh routers and extenders which include pretty much all TP-Link WiFi 6 routers + a few WiFi 5 as well.

The Wireless Test (6GHz)

The TP-Link EX920 AXE7800 is a true WiFi 6E router, so it does make available all three radios at the same time and yes, you can set both the 5GHz and the 6GHz on the 160MHz. To see the throughput performance, I connected a compatible server computer to the 2.5GbE LAN port, so that there will be no Gigabit limitation and then I connected four client devices (yes, I got a new one), the first being equipped with a WiFi 6E adapter (the second is WiFi 6 and the last two are WiFi 5 client devices).

I made sure that the 6GHz radio was visible and that it was set to 160MHz channel bandwidth, and then I checked the throughput at various spots inside the house. 5 feet away, I saw an average of 1.8Gbps upstream and 879Mbps downstream (-33dB attenuation) and the over-Gigabit performance remained up to 30 feet, where I saw an average of 1.13Gbps up and 594Mbps downstream (-54dB).

The farthest I put the client device was at about 70 feet (-77dB attenuation) and even at that point, I saw an average of 97.1Mbps up and 82.6Mbps downstream, which is an excellent result. And it goes to show the importance of a low-interference medium which is now, for the most part, only possible on the 6GHz.

I have also added a longer-term graph to show how the throughput moves up and down over time, plus a comparison with the 5GHz radio on both 160MHz and 80MHz. The difference is striking, even if I did my very best to keep the interference low (I can’t move walls out of the way, but I can keep other APs from interfering).

The Wireless Test (5GHz)

Moving forward with the test, I set the 5GHz network to operate on the 160MHz channel bandwidth and I checked how well my WiFi 6 client device (AX200) performed. It did very well. At 5 feet (-32dB), I measured an average of 1.5Gbps upstream and 1.44Gbps downstream. This came as a surprise considering that on the 6GHz, I could not push the client device above 1Gbps (maybe it’s a WiFi adapter limitation, so I will investigate it). Again, the over-Gigabit throughput remained even if I put the client device as far as 30 feet, where I measured an average of 1.25Gbps up and 745Mbps downstream.

At 70 feet (-78dB), I saw an average of 196Mbps up and only 50.8Mbps downstream (the interference finally got it). Moving forward, I switched to 80MHz, but kept the same AX200 client device connected and yes, the performance was less impressive, but good nonetheless.

At 5 feet, I saw an average of 891Mbps up and 842Mbps downstream, while at 30 feet, I measured an average of 546Mbps upstream and 97Mbps downstream. At 70 feet (-80dB), the throughput was barely passable: 29.1Mbps up and 3.5Mbps down. We’re not done because I also connected two WiFi 5 client devices, a laptop equipped with an Intel 8265 adapter and a Pixel 2 XL (still alive).

And I noticed a curious behavior. Yes, near the router, the performance was good, almost as good as with the AX200, but I could not go farther than 45 feet with either client devices.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

www.mbreviews.com

And it makes sense considering that their new line of access points is WiFi 6 and there is an expected move towards either WiFi 6E or 7 which can easily support a throughput above Gigabit. And I know that the idea is to use a PoE Ethernet switch to create a larger network with multiple APs, but the EnGenius ESG510 does offer a PoE LAN port as well in case you want to power up an additional access point.

The gateway does support dual-WAN connections (failover and load balancing) via the Ethernet ports, but you do get the possibility to use a 3G/4G/5G dongle for additional cellular failover.
I really liked the new direction that EnGenius took with its more security-focused ECW access points (ECW230S and ECW220S), so I was curious about what the ESG510 can add to what seems an already robust ecosystem.

Well, the EnGenius ESG510 does offer a high-throughput stateful firewall and the developers also promise fast site-to-site VPN which is easy to configure. Additionally, there’s what EnGenius calls the self-healing (or Auto Mesh) VPN which essentially ensures that multiple gateways under the same organization will communicate, relaying VPN info between each other in case of a WAN IP (or power forwarding) change. There are other interesting feature that we can explore under the Cloud management platform, so let’s put the EnGenius ESG510 to the test and see how well it performs.

Design and Build Quality

Most gateways have a rectangular metallic case designed to sit on a desk and the EnGenius ESG510 follows these same guidelines. And it means that we’re dealing with a fairly compact fully metallic case covered by a gray matte finish and, considering that it measures 8.27 x 7.07 x 1.38 inches (21.0 x 17.9 x 3.5cm), it’s not really suitable for mounting in a rack.

And this is confirmed by the four rubber feet that you need to attach to the bottom of the case to allow it to sit on a desk. Obviously, you can use a tray, but there are no mounting ears on the sides. The good news is that there are two areas that allow you to mount the gateway on the wall (better than the TL-ER7206 in this regard). That being said, EnGenius has perforated the left and right side of the case to allow the air to pass through to maintain a good internal temperature.

But, considering that the EnGenius ESG510 is fairly powerful and has a PoE-out port, is the passive heating system enough to keep the temperature in check? I did connect the EnGenius ECW230S AP to the PoE+ port and made sure some data was flowing towards client devices, and, as you can see from the photo, the ESG510 does heat up a bit all around the case. Even so, I did not see any signs that it may overheat, but I suppose some more demanding apps (such as possibly future IDS/IPS) may heat it up a bit more.

Then again, even the DrayTek Vigor2926 got a bit warm and so did the Zyxel USG Flex 100 which means that this is just the nature of these devices. EnGenius has put all ports and LEDs on the front of the gateway, so, from the left, there are four LEDs, one lighting up as soon as the ESG510 is powered up, followed by the WWAN LED (lights up if you connect a dongle to the USB port), a Test LED and the PoE LED (in case you connect a PoE device to the dedicated port).

The Test LED seems to have replaced the original Diag LED which could be seen in the early ESG510 photos but it retains essentially the same role as on the Netgear gateways. The LED will flash when the device is initializing and it will stay on if either the system is not ready or it has encountered an error while starting up. Next to the block of LEDs, there’s the recessed Reset button (to return the device to factory default settings), the Console port, the USB-A WWAN port (for 3G/4G/5G dongles) and then, there’s the block of four Ethernet ports, all supporting multi-Gigabit connections (2.5GbE). The first is just a WAN port, while the second can either be WAN or LAN.

The third port (P2) is a regular LAN port for connecting Ethernet switches or any other client device, while the P3 port is LAN and supports PoE+ (802.3af/at). This way, you can power up an extra WiFi access point, in case there are not enough ports left on your switch. Turning the switch around revealed that there is a single connector there, the Power port.

Internal Hardware (EnGenius ESG510 Teardown)

To open up the case of the EnGenius ESG510, all you need to do is remove the two screws on the left and the two on the right side of the device. And then just slide the the metallic top towards the rear to expose the PCB with its main components. There are no warranty seals or any other dumb deterrent like that from fixing your own stuff. A quick glance over the PCB revealed that there is a single heatsink which protrudes up to touching the top metallic panel (that we removed) and underneath it, there’s the quad-core Intel ATOM E3940 X236F668 chipset clocked at 1.6GHz.

I rarely see Intel processors on networking devices and they don’t really have that great of a track record, so I was curious whether EnGenius did the right thing when choosing the Intel platform. It seems that the chip is very power efficient and most importantly, it’s very often used for pfSense builds, so it seems to be a good choice for a gateway. Next to the chipset, I could see that EnGenius has added 8GB of eMMC storage memory SEC 231 8041 KLM8G1GETF, 4GB of RAM from Samsung (2x SEC 219 K4FGE3S4HMMGCJ) and there are four Intel S2353L34 controller chips, one for each port.

As you can see, there are no WiFi chips, so the EnGenius ESG510 does not have any built-in wireless capabilities and you will have to rely on WiFi access points to connect to your wireless clients. The ESG510 is very well equipped and I am curious to see what the upcoming ESG610 and ESG620 will bring to the table as well.

The Standalone Mode

The EnGenius ESG510 is a Cloud-managed gateway, so it does have a standalone mode, but it’s very basic and offers almost none of the most important security features. I still decided to check it and to access it, I identified the network and entered the IP address into the URL bar of a browser. The default username and password are admin/admin and after that I got to see the familiar interface (I saw it with all other Cloud-based access points).

The interface offers two main sections, one is the Device Status and the other is the Local Setting. The former shows some status info of the Cloud, gateway and the network, while under Local Setting, it is possible to change the Connection Type, to set the role of the two WAN ports, as well as set up the Web Proxy Settings and upgrade the firmware (from a downloaded file). This are mere bare bones, so let’s adopt the EnGenius ESG510 to the Cloud.

The EnGenius Cloud Management Platform

The adoption process is the same as with all other EnGenius devices: I used the browser based interface, so I registered the EnGenius ESG510 by manually inserting the Serial Number (it’s also possible to use the OQ code via the mobile app) and then I paired it to a Network (under an Organization). It’s best to then upgrade the firmware and afterwards, I checked what’s new. And, as expected, there are some gateway stats on the Dashboard (Throughput) and then, checking the Manage section, I could see some dedicated status information.

The Diagnostic Tools tab is present here, but it still feels in its early stages. You get to see the live Activity of the CPU, Memory and Throughput, as well as continuously Ping specific websites (three, by default) and there’s also the Traceroute tool for checking the path of how you connect to a specific server. I do have the basic license, so it’s possible to use the Diag tool for a limited amount of time (a few seconds at a time).

Now let’s go to the Configure section. Here, there are four main sections, the first being the Interfaces, followed by Site to Site VPN, Client VPN and Firewall. Under Interfaces, we get to see one of the highlighted features of the EnGenius ESG510, the Pass-through mode. By default, it’s set to Routed, but you do get the possibility to use the Passthrough mode when there’s an existing router or gateway between the ESG510 and the modem, and you want to rely on its security features, while also keeping the settings from router (or gateway) unaltered.

The Routed Operating Mode will give the possibility to configure a dual-WAN system, of which we’ll talk in more detail in the dedicated section. It’s worth mentioning the option to set Static Routes and the feature-rich LAN section. To be more specific, you can either run a DHCP server or relay it to other subnet servers. Additionally, there is the option to set up a Captive Portal and a Splash Page (RADIUS or click-through).

The Site-to-Site VPN section is where you can set up the Mesh VPN feature and you get the option to either set the current EnGenius ESG510 as the Hub (the main unit which dictates the VPN settings and rules) or as a Spoke unit.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

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Even so, the dual-WAN routers (or multi-WAN routers) are needed by businesses (no matter their size) and were created to give your organization an edge over the competition by maintaining a stable Internet connection, without relying on a single ISP. This is extremely important because running a business successfully can’t allow any downtime period (and nowadays, being connected to the Internet is a vital point for ensuring the survival of a company).

UPDATE 01.09.2023: The TP-Link TL-ER7206 Dual-WAN VPN Router has been added to the best dual WAN routers list.

Zyxel USG Flex 100	DrayTek Vigor2926	TP-Link TL-ER7206	Mikrotik CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+PC
Read More	Read More	Read More	Read More

Peplink Balance Two	Ubiquiti EdgeMAX EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3	Linksys LRT224	Synology RT2600ac
Read More	Read More	Read More	Read More

Of course, the Dual (or Multi) WAN router can also help get a better throughput and uniformly balance the handling of the data packets between the two (or more) separate connections (to avoid bandwidth throttling). This desirable feature is called load balancing (or multi-homing) and, besides balancing the network usage, it will also provide network redundancy, meaning that, if one of the WAN links fails, you still get access to your network resources using the secondary WAN link.

Best 3 dual WAN routers brief comparison

Now, you may wonder why not simply go for multiple routers instead of a multi-WAN single router? The price is an answer, but other aspects, such as the aforementioned load balancing is going to become more complicated, so there is little to no gain.
Since we saw how important it is to have a multi-port router when running a successful business let’s look at the best dual WAN VPN router solutions that the market has to offer.

1. Zyxel USG Flex 100

Read the full review of Zyxel USG Flex 100

The USG Flex series has been a long favorite of SMBs that needed a reliable security gateway that could balance at least a couple of Internet connection and Zyxel has refreshed the series last year to include the USG Flex 100 which, despite being the entry-level model, it has proven capable of handling a fairly demanding network, while also maintaining the security of your network. And the good news is that not very long ago, the manufacturer has added the USG series under Cloud platform management. And this is a huge step since besides being able to work perfectly fine as a stand-alone device (with only a few APs), it can be integrated in a far larger network, offering an easier way to control multiple access points, Ethernet switches and working alongside other gateways.

While the Zyxel USG Flex 100 will work as a router, its design is nothing like the regular home-suitable wireless routers. Instead, we get an old-school rectangular case made of metal with lots of heat vents on top and the sides and two red front parts for the logo and model. And yes, it does remind me of the USG40 which has been a part of the best dual wan router list for a long time. Size-wise, the USG 100 Flex is slightly bit larger than the USG40, measuring 11.18 x 7.48 x 3.94 inches and both devices do rely on passive cooling (there are no fans).
On the front, in between the red accents, there are the LED status lights responsible for Power (PWR), System (SYS), six Ethernet ports (P1 to P6) and there’s also a USB 3.0 port. The rear side of the USG Flex 100 is home to the Power connector, an On/Off button, an SFP port (Gigabit), a Console port (used for managing the router using CLI commands), a WAN port and four LAN/DMZ Ethernet Gigabit ports.

The case is definitely far more rugged than your regular router, but let’s also see what’s inside the USG Flex 100. The tear-down process has revealed a Qualcomm QCA8337 Ethernet switch chip, 8GB of flash memory from Kingston, an Intel ALTERA 5M160ZE64C5N CPLD and a Qualcomm Atheros AR8033 PHY. In terms of wireless connectivity, you will have to purchase a separate wireless access point since this device lacks any WiFi capabilities (check out the excellent WAX650S).
The USG Flex 100 was initially designed to work as a sort of stand-alone device since it did have the means to monitor and configure multiple APs at the same time, and the user interface was (and still is) feature-rich, covering everything one may expect from a security gateway (including URL Threat Filter, the Anti-Malware, IDP, App Patrol and more). But, since the point of this article is to cover the best dual WAN routers, the Zyxel USG Flex 100 does have the means to balance two Internet connection and more.

I know that it has a single WAN port, but you can make use of either the SFP or the OPT port to add a secondary connection. So, if you want to balance the traffic load, you can rely on trunks (System Default WAN Trunk with the Least Load First algorithm) and, in my test, after disconnecting one link, the router would immediately switch to the secondary available Internet connection. The mode for each trunk interface can either be Active or Passive and you can enable the Disconnect Connections Before Falling Back, so, in case the interface that was set to Active regains the link, it will automatically switch back from the secondary connection. The Zyxel USG Flex 100 can also rely on the Weighted Round Robin algorithm for load balancing, ensuring that in case the two links have different bandwidths, the device will distribute the clients on a rotating basis.

There is also the Spillover algorithm where the traffic is first sent to the first WAN interface and, when it reaches the maximum allowed load, the device will send the ‘excess traffic’ to the secondary link. Trunking is not the only way to handle a dual-WAN connection since you can simply set a policy route for the Incoming Interface to the first WAN and the Next-Hop to the secondary interface; don’t forget to create a Policy Route the other way around. Using this method, I noticed that the USG Flex 100 required about 5 seconds to switch from one link to the other.
If you decide to move to the Cloud, the Zyxel USG Flex 100 will keep its features, but they will be distributed differently and don’t forget to check out the changed system for the security-related licenses – you can see a more detailed analysis on how Zyxel has added the USG Flex 100 to the Cloud management platform.

2. DrayTek Vigor2926

Read the full review of DrayTek Vigor2926

DrayTek is a Taiwanese manufacturer of (mostly) enterprise-grade networking products, including VPN devices, firewalls, routers and other types of wireless LAN devices (mainly with a focus towards the SMBs). DrayTek is known as being one of the first manufacturers to implement the VPN technology into less expensive routers and, right now, it basically is the go-to-company if you don’t want to purchase very expensive equipment from Cisco, Arista or Juniper (therefore being a godsend to start-up companies that don’t have a large budget). One of its more interesting products is the DrayTek Vigor2926, a dual WAN router created to replace the popular Vigor2925.

The Dual WAN routers aren’t known to be very aesthetically pleasing and most have a plain, industrial look (begging you to hide it in some corner or in a closet), but DrayTek, despite having kept the same design approach for almost a decade, it has made its broadband routers feel surprisingly fresh even in 2019. So, the case of the Vigor2926 remains rectangular, but the top has a wave-like form, covered by a black matte finish and lots of small longitudinal canals which slightly expose the internal hardware. While some other dual WAN routers are metallic, the case of Vigor2925AC is entirely made of plastic but, despite that, the device has the element of uniqueness and it doesn’t look as the other routers on the market (some consumer-type routers could learn a thing or two).

The Vigor2926 is not really a compact device, but its footprint is smaller than some consumer-type routers, measuring 9.48 x 6.50 x 1.73 inches and because the device weighs about 1.1 pounds, the Vigor2926 will feel sturdy and stable, even if you connect lots of cables to it. Another important aspect is the fact that the manufacturer has covered the bottom side almost entirely with ventilation cut-outs which do have an impact into how the heat management is handled: even under stress, the router did not overheat, but there were some warm spots on the top and bottom of the device.

On the front of the Vigor2926, you can find a series of LED lights which show the status of ACTivity, WAN1 and WAN2 (if any of the three aforementioned LED is blinking, it means that the data is being transmitted or received), QoS (if it’s on, then the QoS function is active), USB1 and USB 2 (if any of the two LEDs blinks, then data is being transmitted / received), WCF (it’s on when the Web Content Filter feature is active), VPN and DMZ. On the left of the LED lights, you can find a single recessed button for returning the device to the factory default settings (press and hold the button for more than 5 seconds).

On the right side of the LED lights, there are four 10/100/1000Mbps Base-TX Ethernet LAN RJ-45 LAN ports (each port has two LED lights – if the left LED is blinking, it means that data is being transmitted; if the right LED is enabled, then the port is connected at 1000Mbps, otherwise, if it’s off, then the connection is at 10/100Mbps), a 1000Base-TX RJ-45 WAN1 port, a 1000Base-TX RJ-45 WAN2/LAN port (can be used for the dual WAN feature if you need two Internet connections at the same time or simply as a LAN port) and further to the right, there are two USB 2.0 ports (useful if you want to connect printers, storage devices, environmental thermometers or 3G/4G/LTE modems). The rear side is populated by a PWR connector (for the adapter) and an On/Off switch (there are no antenna connectors).

Inside the case, the DrayTek Vigor2925AC is equipped with a Qualcomm Atheros AR8035-A Ethernet PHY Chip, 128 MB Toshiba TC58NVG0S3ETA00 flash memory, 128MB of RAM (WINBOND W971GG6SB-25) – the main chip is clocked at 720MHz (couldn’t access it because DrayTek covered the area with a non-removable plate).

In terms of software features, DrayTek Vigor2925AC doesn’t lack anything important. You get the dual WAN port used for FailOver and Load-Balancing (if you connect 3G/4G/LTE modems to the two USB ports, it will be added to the load balancing pool). The Failover feature works like this: if the first Internet connection fails, the router automatically switches to the other WAN port (the process doesn’t take more than 2-3 seconds) and, when the primary WAN regains its connection, the router will switch you back from the secondary WAN connection (this time, the process takes about 5 seconds); the Load Balancing feature keeps both Internet connections active at the same time, creating a ratio for the number of sessions that will be connected to either of the two WANs – furthermore, you can also use a single WAN port for certain websites or aggregate the ports to increase the total available bandwidth.

The Vigor2926 also supports multiple types of VPN, such as IPsec, L2TP with IPsec, PPTP, SSL and Open VPN; there’s also VLAN tagging, Smart Monitor Traffic Analyser, Bandwidth Management (set bandwidth limits by number of simultaneous sessions or IP; QoS) and a lot more. In terms of security, the Vigor2925AC features an Object-based SPI Firewall, DoS Defence (Ports Scan detection, SYN, UDP, ICMP defences and the ability to block IP options, Ping of death, trace route and so on), Spoofing Defence (IP and ARP Spoofing) and more. The Vigor2926 features a Central Management utility, allowing you to locally manage additional DrayTek devices connected to the network (switches, access points), but the manufacturer also allows you to adopt the Vigor2926 within a controller (VigorACS 2).

Considering that the Vigor2926 comes with two USB ports, I decided to test the storage performance of the router: using a Samsung T5 SSD drive (FAT32), I moved a 3GB multimedia folder and the writing speed was 10.13 MBps and the reading speed was 10.26 MBps. Afterwards, I decided to test the wired performance of the router using two computers, one as the server and the other as the client: from the client to the server, I got an average of 949 Mbps and, from the server to the client, I measured an average of 921Mbps.
Note: The DrayTek Vigor2926 is also available in other variations: with integrated VoIP and wireless capabilities (the Vigor2926Vac), using only the wireless N technology (Vigor2926n) and with both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio bands (Vigor2926ac).

3. Peplink Balance Two

The Peplink Balance One has been a long time favorite for both small businesses and home (power) users due to its excellent ability to offer a seamless balance between more than one Internet connection; furthermore, beside featuring a couple of WAN ports (for dual WAN balancing), the router also offered LTE connectivity (through a USB port – it supported 4G LTE / 3G modems) and I know that it’s now a common occurrence in the SMB networking market, but it was less so about five years ago, when the dual WAN router was released. The Peplink Balance One is still supported, but it may actually be nearing the end of its life cycle considering that the manufacturer decided to refresh a few of its dual WAN routers – yes, there’s even a Balance 20X available now, but we’re going to focus on the Peplink Balance Two.

The name does suggest that we may see some radical improvements over the last generation and indeed, the Balance Two is a completely different device on the inside and on the outside as well when put next to the Balance One. Both dual WAN routers have rectangular metallic cases, but the Balance Two is significantly more compact than its predecessor (measures 7.4 x 6.9 x 1.7 inches vs 10.7 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches) and, while the Balance One was all black, the newer router has the yellow band on the front along with the Peplink logo (the rest of the case of the remains covered by a black matte finish).

And that’s where the similarities end since the Peplink Balance Two features a very plain front area, with only two LEDs populating it, the first responsible for the Status of the device (solid red indicates that the device is booting up, flashing red shows that there is a boot-up error and green means that everything is working properly – if it’s off, it means that it is upgrading the firmware) and the other LED shows the status of the Power (when it’s green, it means that the dual WAN router is powered on). The rear side of the Peplink Balance Two is populated by a Reset button, 12V DC Power connector, a Console port and next to it, there are four Ethernet Gigabit LAN ports and two Ethernet Gigabit WAN ports.

I know that the Peplink Balance 20X is compatible with some expansion slots, but, unfortunately, the excellent cellular capabilities of the 20X have not been ported on the Balance Two. This does allow it to remain very compact (you need space for the expansion slot) and yes, it does not have any internal fan, the Balance Two relies solely on passive cooling. I have seen a similar approach on a PoE switch from ZyXel (GS1920-8HP) which was also very compact and powerful, but it did run a bit hot regardless of the amount of ventilation cut-outs.

The Peplink Balance Two does have ventilation holes on the lateral sides, as well as on the bottom and it does help to a certain degree to keep the temperature low, but then device will get warmer when under a heavier load – I do appreciate that it runs quiet (due to the fanless design) which makes it easy to be positioned pretty much anywhere in the room. That being said, you can mount the Peplink Balance Two on the wall (using the two dedicated mounting holes on the bottom) and there are holes on the lateral sides if you decide to mount the router into a rack. If you want to keep it horizontally, there are four silicone feet to maintain the device into position and not move around when you add more than a couple of cables (the weight is also an important factor to its stability – it weighs 2.2 pounds).

The Peplink Balance Two has been very recently released, so there isn’t that much info about its internal hardware, but it does seem to be using a Broadcom chipset and in terms of RAM, the dual-WAN router makes use of 4GB DDR3L 1600 SODIMM from Innodisk; it also seems like you should be able to replace it for something better (the process looks identical to how you would do on a laptop). While the Peplink Balance One had WiFi capabilities, featuring both the 2.4 and the 5GHz WiFi radio bands (the 802.11ac/a/b/g/n standard) and the antennas were internal, the Peplink Balance Two does not have built-in WiFi, so you will have to rely on a wireless access point to connect your clients to a WiFi network. I wasn’t really impressed by the wireless performance of the Balance One, so I do find the necessity to use an AP to be the better choice especially in a SMB environment.

By default, the stateful firewall throughput of the Peplink Balance Two is 1Gbps and that’s quite something for a device in its price range – for example, its predecessor, the Balance One could only go up to 600Mbps and it would suffer a cut to 400 Mbps when activating the BPL-ONE-LC-5WAN license, thus converting the LAN 1, 2 and 3 into WAN 3, 4 and 5, so, you could get five WAN ports available.
The Peplink Balance Two does not have this possibility (for now), but you still do get two WAN ports to take advantage of the load balancing feature, which can be customized by defining specific traffic types and prioritize them (supports Failback and SpeedFusion Hot Failover, which ensures that the secondary link instantaneously gets enabled after the main link is down) and, there is bandwidth aggregation (LACP) in case you want to bond the two Internet links together.

Additionally, thanks to the USB 2.0 port, the router supports WWAN connectivity (a wireless form of connecting to the Internet, using cellular tower technology). Other important features are the PPTP VPN Server and IPsec VPN, the Advanced QoS (includes Bandwidth Reservation and Individual Bandwidth Limit per User Groups; there’s also Application Prioritization), an Access Point controller (which works best with Peplink’s AP One and the AP Pro), there’s also Captive Portal support (RADIUS authentication + customizable splash page) and PepVPN, which creates a secure Ethernet tunnel over any IP connection (L2/L3) and it is fully compatible with any dynamic IP environment and NAT (it will also work along with SpeedFusion).

4. Mikrotik CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+PC

Mikrotik is a well known networking company in the enterprise market, while it’s less popular in the consumer market for the same reason: the great, but very complex RouterOS which has a steep learning curve, but it does offer an incredible amount of customization and flexibility and, while their competitors often deliver a similar set of features, it usually comes at a vastly higher price tag. Pair the RouterOS software with the large variety of appliances and you get a great solution for small to medium businesses.

Since we have focused on small business dual WAN routers, the device of interest is going to be the Mikrotik CCR1009-7G-1C-PC, which comes with some major improvements over the last generations, such as the no switch-chip, so the Ethernet ports are now completely independent and have a direct connection with the CPU, thus completely removing any possible bottlenecks or any other types of performance loss.

At first glance, the Mikrotik CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+PC features the same metallic rectangular box that we find with most other Dual WAN routers, but, the Latvian-based manufacturer has a (good) habit of adding some design elements that will make their devices more interesting-looking than those from the competition. This time, the case is a bit taller, with some various cut-out patterns all around the body of the router: on the front just above the ports, on both the lateral side, as well as on the bottom side and even if it isn’t immediately obvious, there are some positioned on the rear side, but they’re covered by an unusual heat-sink (the case is entirely covered by a white matte finish which does not retain fingerprints).

The reason for that is because the CCR1009 relies on passive cooling and, since this is a powerful device, it needs as many vent holes as possible, but this are not the only measures Mikrotik took to ensure that the device remains cool, because it has also added a two heat-pipe internal system along with the aforementioned specially designed rear-positioned heat-sink (this way, even if you use the router at its maximum, the case will still remain cool (the heat-sink will naturally be a bit hot) and you won’t hear that annoying fan buzzing – it’s completely silent).

On the front side, underneath the long vent holes, there is a 10G SFP+ port (with two LED lights for Power and Activity), a regular 1G SFP port which, along with the first Gigabit Ethernet port which can create a combo-port, so it allows the user to choose which interface it prefers from the software, as well as having a hardware fail-over feature in case of a disconnect.

Further to the right, there is a set of seven Gigabit Ethernet ports (each with its own set of two LEDs) and be aware that the seventh port can be used for powering the router using passive PoE power (18-56V), while also allowing the user to use Etherboot / Netinstall for reinstalling the RouterOS. Besides the Ethernet ports, there’s also a Reset button (press and hold it during boot time until the LED lights start flashing and then release it to return the device to its default RouterOS configuration), an RS232 serial port with a Smart Card tray directly underneath it (the card must support GlobalPlatform JavaCard and is used to store your private key for features which support the Certificate based authentication), two LED lights, one for USR (User activity) and the other for PWR (Power) and, lastly, there’s a microUSB type AB port which can be used in various ways (such as for connecting a storage device or a 3G/LTE modem).

Turn the device around and on the left side of the heat sink, you’ll notice the DC 18-56V input jack as an alternative to the PoE port (on the left there are three ears to easily manage the cable) and on the right side, there’s a microSd card (inside a carved in area) and a wing nut. On top of the device, there is a small LCD touchscreen display which requires a bit of pressure to register a touch (as opposed to a smartphone display) and, similarly to pretty much every element of this device, it can be configured from the console menu: some of these settings allow you to change the colour scheme, choose the default info to be displayed, select the interface (performance stats, the connected clients, the bandwidth and more), set up an LCD PIN code and others.
Note: The router can be positioned on a flat surface or can be rack mounted.

Inside the case, the Mikrotik CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+PC is equipped with a TILERA TILE-Gx9 TLR4-00980CG-10CE-A3a CPU clocked at 1GHz (the CPU core count is 9), 2 GB of RAM (the lighter version CCR1009-7G-1C-PC only features 1GB of RAM) and 128 MB of NAND storage memory. Additionally, the router also features a PCB and CPU temperature monitor.

As I said in the introduction, every Mikrotik device comes with the RouterOS software (level 6 license) which is a very extensive and complex tool which allows for a great number of configurations for the initiated user (you do need to learn the way it functions and, thankfully, Mikrotik has provided lots of guides and a dedicated wiki page for every new user that want to learn: https://wiki.mikrotik.com). Of course, the object of interest is the dual-WAN capability (which includes load-balancing and the fail-over system) and the Mikrotik CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+PC does deliver a lot more control than expected. The RouterOS allows you to set up a dual-WAN setup using the PCC method (Per Connection Classifier), which is an interesting way of dividing the traffic into equal streams, while also keeping some data (with specific sets of options) in a particular stream, as well as enabling a failover, in case a gateway fails.

There’s also the Firewall marking method, which can be broken up in several applications, such as the Per-Traffic Load Balancing (useful in case you don’t have enough bandwidth for only one connection, therefore you can load-balance multiple Internet connections – this method involves breaking traffic in different types, using the Mangle Tool to mark the traffic, allowing some IP addresses to bypass this type of load-balancing and creating specific routes based on the marked traffic), the Load Balancing over Multiple Gateways, Load balancing multiple same subnet links and others. Other methods that can be used are the ECMP (Equal Cost Multi-Path), OSPF (where multiple links are set up using the dynamic routing protocol OSPF with equal cost) or BGP (to perform load-balancing when there are more than one equal cost links between two BGP routers).

Of course, this is only scratching the surface of what the RouterOS can do with the router’s hardware, but it is enough to put the Mikrotik CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+PC among the best dual-wan routers on the market in 2018.

5. Ubiquiti EdgeMAX EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3

Ubiquiti is known for making high quality networking devices, with enterprise-like features at a really low cost and the EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3 is one of the most reliable low-cost VPN routers for a small company. The EdgeMAX EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3 is not really a Dual WAN router per se, but this function became available after the release of EdgeOS v1.4.0 (you should always download the latest firmware, by accessing the manufacturer’s page), which made possible the addition of the dual WAN load balancing wizard.
As you will see from other router reviews, I appreciate high performance, but I also consider that the design as an important factor often overlooked by networking devices manufacturers. Fortunately, the Ubiquiti agreed with us and the EdgeRouter Lite looks a lot more stylish than other Dual WAN routers. Sure, it features the same rectangular black box (made of plastic), but  the reduced size and the EdgeRouter LITE logo on top, near the hexagonal pattern of the heat vents enhance the overall look and don’t make the router feel cheap (there’s also a variant with chamfered edges).

On the front of the router, you can find the Console port (you will need a DB9 port on your computer to be able to connect to the Console port), three Ethernet ports (marked from 0 to 2) and a recessed RESET button (accessible with a paper clip). There is no array of separate status LED lights, but you do get a LED on the left side of each port (Amber means link established at 10/100 Mbps, Green means link established at 1000 Mbps). The back of the router is mainly occupied by ventilation holes, but there’s also a Power port and a Grounding Hole (with a screw).
As said before, EdgeRouter ERLite-3 is a router of small proportions, measuring 7.7×3.5×1.1 inches and it weighing 10 ounces, meaning, it’s rather light. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, as it doesn’t really feel sturdy and may actually fall of the table. But, if that’s the case you can wall mount it, just make sure you position the router with the Ethernet ports downwards (make sure the logo isn’t upside down) and don’t obstruct the ventilation holes.

Now, let’s have a look on the inside. The ERLite-3 has a dual-core Cavium Octeon CN5020 (based on the MIPS64 architecture – featuring Hardware Acceleration for Packet Processing), 512MB of DDR2 RAM and 2GB of flash storage (built-in mini USB key). Furthermore, there’s also an Atheros AR8035 Gigabit PHY (x3) switch. EdgeMAX EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3 doesn’t have any WiFi capabilities, so you will need an additional wireless access point if you want to use the 2.4Ghz and/or the 5GHz radio bands.
As said before, the EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3 uses the EdgeOS, which, from the 1.4.0 version, allows you to choose from three types of configurations Load Balancing, WAN+2LAN and WAN+2LAN2 (from the Wizards tab). The Load Balancing feature is extremely important as it allows you to spread the traffic across both links, increase the bandwidth and not worry about downtime (in case a link fails, it automatically switches the other one).

In terms of applications, the ERLite-3 supports IPv6 routing, IPSec Site-to-Site tunnels, PPTP and L2TP Remote Access, PPTP Client and OpenVPN Site-to-Site tunnels. Security is also paramount and Ubiquiti EdgeMAX EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3 doesn’t disappoint, featuring an ACL-based Firewall (the access control list is used for traffic filtering), a Zone-based Firewall (a very advanced form of creating security zones and implementing security policies towards the traffic between these zones) and NAT (which blocks unsolicited inbound traffic).
Lastly, I have tested the speed performance of the Ubiquiti ERLite-3 using a 1GB file and we measured 770 Mbps for downloading the file and 745 Mbps for uploading it.

6. Linksys LRT224

The Linksys LRT224 is another great choice to go for when searching a reliable dual WAN router to keep your business connected to the Internet. Linksys had a very successful run in the networking market (especially thanks to its iconic Linksys WRT54G) and it has still managed to remain relevant even today, regardless of its fierce competition.
The LRT224 looks identical to its relative, the LRT214, featuring the same black and blue metallic box, having the heat vents on the sides. Although it has the generic box shape, the LRT224 is surprisingly stylish, especially thanks to the blue accent on top and the big blue logo on the front. Sure, there are other better designed and more appealing routers out there, but the LRT224 doesn’t feel like you need to hide it immediately after you have connected all the cables. Also, it does manage to bring in a healthy dose of nostalgia (reminding me of the WRT54G).

Like said before, the front of the router is occupied by the Linksys logo, the LED status lights being positioned on the top, in between two screws. The LEDs are responsible for SYSTEM, DIAG, WAN, WAN/DMZ, VPN and the four LAN Ethernet ports. The back of the Linksys LRT224 is home to a recessed RESET button (press the Reset button for 5 seconds to warm reset the router and press it for longer than 10 seconds to perform factory reset), four LAN Ethernet ports, one dedicated WAN port and one last port that can be used as either a WAN port or DMZ. The power port can be found on the right side, along with the K-Lock security slot.

The LRT224 isn’t a big router, measuring 5.2×7.7×1.7 inches and weighing 25oz and can be wall mounted by using the slots on the bottom panel, just make sure not to obstruct the heat dissipation holes.
Under the hood, the LRT224 is equipped with a single-core Cavium CN5020 CPU (clocked at 300 MHz), backed by 128MB of RAM and 32MB of flash memory. The router is also equipped with a Broadcom BCM53125M and a Broadcom BCM54612 Ethernet switches. Unfortunately, the Linksys LRT224 doesn’t provide any type of wireless connectivity and there is no other Dual WAN router from Linksys that uses any of the 2.4 or 5GHz wireless bands.

In terms of security, you can expect standard DoS protection and a SPI firewall (set the number of access rules and block requests). Also, you get bandwidth management (set up the upstream and downstream speeds) and QoS (you can assign priorities based on the used WAN ports and protocols).

Since the LRT224 is a VPN router, it features enough applications to keep your network safe. So, you get support for the IPsec, PPTP and SSL connections and some really cool applications to ease up the configuration system (which is a headache with most Dual WAN routers). The Easylink VPN delivers a simpler way to configure the IPsec process for a gateway to gateway tunnel between two Linksys LRT routers (this feature is supported only between two Linksys LRT routers). All you have to do now, is to set a username, a password and insert the IP address of the second router.

Furthermore, you can also use the OpenVPN client, being able to handle 5 SSL tunnels (it can handle up to 50 tunnels while using PPTP and IPsec). Also, in case one active tunnel fails, you can use the VPN tunnel back-up (choose the IP address of a second VPN router so you can connect to in case of a fail scenario).
Note: As expected the two WAN connections have load balancing capabilities, so you can mix the bandwidth of both connections and at the same time, in case on connection fails, you can rely on the second one (never experience downtime).
At the end, I have tested the speed performance of the Linksys LRT224 using a 1GB file and I got a download speed of 643 Mbps and an upload speed of 605 Mbps.

7. TP-Link TL-ER7206 Dual-WAN VPN Router

Read the full review of TP-Link TL-ER7206

The TP-Link TL-ER7206 is one of the most inexpensive multi-WAN routers available on the market and, while not as powerful as some of the other dual WAN routers in this list, it can definitely hold its own against its main competitors. And this includes the inexpensive option from Ubiquiti, the EdgeRouter-X. But can it be a reliable replacement for the Cisco RV340 and RV345 as well?

After hearing that Cisco will discontinue the series after already reaching EOL, there are some big shoes to fill and, after testing the TP-Link TL-ER7206, I can say that it can handle a small to medium network (SMBs, basically), but you will have the best performance if you switch to a full Omada ecosystem.

The TP-Link TL-ER7206 uses a compact all-metal case covered by a black matte finish and, while I do appreciate having to deal with smaller networking devices, there is a shortcoming. And that’s the difficulty of using it in a rack – you will need a tray.

Then, TP-Link made the uninspired decision to not add mounting holes on the bottom of the dual-WAN router, which means that it can only be positioned on a flat surface. I did check the TP-Link TL-ER7206 temperature while I was running some tests and it didn’t show any signs of overheating (I included a thermal photo in the full review as well).

As for the available ports, you get a WAN SFP port, followed by one dedicated Ethernet Gigabit port, two WAN/LAN ports (can work in either mode) and two Ethernet Gigabit LAN ports. This means that you get a large variety of options to choose from in case you need to run load-balancing or to rely on failover / failback techniques. The TP-Link TL-ER7206 does offer a standalone mode where you can configure the router to function the way you want it to, but you do lose on some important aspects.

For example, I could not find how to set the ratio using load balancing in standalone mode, but the most important loss is that you can’t configure and monitor multiple devices at the same time using the Omada SDN.

This software has grown quite a bit the last few years and it resembles in many aspects the UniFi controller. So, to set up the features related to the dual-WAN functions, I adopted the router to the Omada SDN.
This way, I was finally able to set the ratio for the bandwidth when using two or more concurrent Internet connections.

Then, I decided to check out just how quick the TP-Link TL-ER7206 is when disconnecting the primary WAN and switching to the secondary one. To do so, I pinged two websites and simply checked how many packets would be lost. Both pings were paused for a brief moment, with only a single packet loss, so the dual WAN router is quite fast in this regard. This is not all because I also need to see the LAN-to-LAN performance which, as expected, it was good. I saw an average of 945Mbps upstream and an average of 887Mbps downstream.

But, the TP-Link TL-ER7206 is also a VPN gateway, so I decided to check out a couple of the available ones.
The router will allow you to set up 50 OPenVPM connections, 100 LAN o LAN IPSec connections, 50 PPTP VPN connections (careful because it’s not the most secure protocol) and 50 L2TP connections.

I did configure an L2TP VPN policy and Client (which was a very simple process) and then I used an iPhone to connect to the router in a secure manner. And it worked wonderfully well, even if the throughput wasn’t as high as I hoped. Then, I also used a laptop for a PPTP connections (the iPhone no longer supports PPTP) and again, it worked fine, but the throughput is not that great (19Mbps up and 12Mbps downstream).

The TP-Link TL-ER7206 has some security-related features implemented, as expected, and it offers URL Filtering, Access Control and the Firewall, where I liked to set the State Timeout. In terms of hardware, TP-Link TL-ER7206 was not completely transparent to me because I was unable to remove the heatsink which hides the main chip, but I do know that we’re dealing with a dual-core CPU clocked at 880MHz.

I have encountered this configuration before and it was a Mediatek CPU – maybe this is what we’re dealing with here as well. Besides the CPU, there are 512MB of RAM from Samsung, 128MB of flash memory from ESMT and the Realtek RTL8365 as the switching chip.

8. Synology RT2600ac

ALSO CHECK OUT: The Full Review Of Synology RT2600ac

Synology is a popular manufacturer of networking products, well known for its NAS line and, last year I was a little surprised to see that it decided to leave the comfort zone and release its first wireless router, the RT1900ac (which offered a good price-to-features ratio, a more than decent wireless performance and an excellent user interface – possibly one of the best). It seems that Synology grew quite fond of the router market and it has now released a second device, the RT2600ac, which besides offering a superior wireless performance and lots of great features, it also has dual-WAN capabilities, thus making it suitable for this list.

The dual-WAN routers aren’t a common occurrence in the consumer market and even if some would argue that the RT2600ac focuses more towards the tech-savvy, enthusiast audience, you’re not going to get the usual metallic rectangular box, but an attractive, carefully designed plastic case. Synology kept the overall look of the RT1900ac, but it has improved some key elements to make it stand out: the RT2600 looks less dynamic than its predecessor (which looked like it would jump right at you), but it has two antennas on the left and right side that gives it a slightly ominous look. Furthermore, the top side still has that small protruded zone, but there are now four sections with long and narrow cut-outs which ensure a proper airflow and keep the case cool even under a heavy load.

The RT2600ac has also gained a bit in terms of weight and size (weighs 1.54 pounds and measures 3.0 x 11.0 x 6.6 inches, without taking into consideration the antennas, which are detachable). The RT2600ac still has those two characteristic feet that can be used if you don’t like your router to sit flat on the desk (they also help a great deal to dissipate the heat) and, you also get the option of mounting the device on the wall using the two mounting holes on the bottom.
While the RT1900ac had the LED lights on the front, the RT2600ac has them positioned on the protruded top section, along with the Synology logo. The LEDs show the STATUS of the system, the connection status of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio bands, the WAN and for the four LAN ports.

Also on the front panel, Synology has equipped the router with an unusual SD card slot, which is a convenient way of easily transferring files with any clients connected to the network. On the rear side of the router, you get access to two of the four antenna bases, the Power button, the Power port, a Reset button (hold it for ten seconds to reset the device to factory default settings or for 4 seconds for a soft reset), a USB 2.0 port, a single WAN port and four Ethernet Gigabit LAN ports.

On the left side, the RT2600ac has a USB 3.0 port and an Eject button (used to eject any USB or SD external storages), while on the right side, there’s a WPS button and a WiFi switch (for turning on or off the WiFi).
Inside the case, Synology has equipped the RT2600ac with a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm IPQ8065 CPU, 512 MB of RAM, 4GB (Toshiba) / 8MB (Macronix) and a Qualcomm Atheros QCA8337 switch chip. Furthermore, each radio bands takes advantage of the Qualcomm Atheros QCA9984, while the 5GHz band also has a RFMD PA5542 power amplifier and the 2.4GHz has a Skyworks SE2623L power amplifier.

The RT2600ac features a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 1,733Mbps using the 5GHz band and up to 800Mbps using the 2.4GHz band. Of course, in reality, you won’t really get close to these numbers and, using a high-end laptop with a 2×2 wireless adapter, I was able to measure about 605 Mbps, 5 feet away from the router (on the 5GHz band) and about 421 Mbps at 30 feet.
Note: The wired performance of Synology RT2600ac was acceptable, reaching up to 940 Mbps for both WAN to LAN and LAN to WAN tests.

One of the main attractions of the RT1900ac was the uniquely designed, feature-packed user interface (which resembled the Windows OS) and it seems that the RT2600ac also takes advantage of the user-friendly UI, which now incorporates lots of features (such as the Download Station, that includes BitTorrent and usenet, Smart WAN and Smart Connect) and optional add-ons (such as the VPN Plus Server or the Intrusion Prevention).

Of course, the feature I’m going to focus on is the Smart WAN, which ensures Dual WAN load balancing, failover support or policy route. As you can see, the RT2600ac does not have two dedicated WAN ports, so you will use one LAN port as the second WAN interface (this way, you are left with only 3 LAN ports, so a switch may be a necessity). This configuration allows you to set up the Failover (and failback, once the primary interface is back to normal operation status – that can happen when one Internet connection fails), Load Balancing (two interfaces will work together and, in case one fails, it will switch to the failover mode), interface priority, policy route and interface checks.

Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

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It was also interesting to see that Ruijie Networks has been busy releasing WiFi 5 routers and even a WiFi 4 model last year in an attempt to cover more ground. The Reyee RG-E5 doesn’t really push boundaries, but it definitely promises to offer a very similar experience to the Asus, TP-Link or Netgear WiFi 6 routers, if not better. There is OFDMA which is pretty much a standard feature on any WiFi 6 router, but it’s not usually enabled on both radio band, nor are they upstream and downstream.

Then, there’s the four high-gain antennas (+ four other FEM antennas) which should increase the coverage, if necessary, as well as the support for MU-MIMO and a few interesting software features. Reyee prides itself with IoT security, Internet privacy and comprehensive Parental Controls, but we’ll see if it can actually rival what Asus has to offer at no additional cost.

Lastly, there is support for creating a mesh system which was spectacular a few years ago when Asus released the AiMesh, but it has (unsurprisingly) become more common with other brands as well. It’s still a phenomenal feature especially if the compatibility spans over multiple WiFi standards and generations of wireless routers. That being said, let’s put the Reyee RG-E5 to the test and see what it has to offer.

Design and Build Quality

Design-wise, the Reyee RG-E5 doesn’t look like the other routers on the market and that’s a good thing when most follow a very similar blueprint. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a rectangular case with antennas, but the way the eight antennas are positioned and need to be raised is fairly unique. The gray top on the rectangular body is also a nice choice and I know that it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I liked the design of the Linksys WRT3200ACM, so, naturally, I liked what the designers did with the Reyee RG-E5 as well.

Besides the ventilation holes, I could also see the two silicone bands that keep the Reyee RG-E5 into place regardless of the number of cables you connect to it, but I didn’t see any mounting holes. I am not sure why they decided against it especially due to the unorthodox design, but yes, you’re stuck with keeping the wireless router on a desk. And it’s not really that small either. The Reyee RG-E5 measures 9.1 x 9.1 x 1.5 inches (23.1 x 23.1 x 3.8 cm), so it will take some space from the furniture which, in an office, may not be that great – just add some mounting holes on the next iteration, please.

The minimalist fever has caught Reyee as well and we don’t get a healthy array of status LEDs and, instead, there are two LED lights, one at the top embedded into the S button (the Mesh indicator), while on the front, there’s the secondary LED which shows the status of the wireless router.

The status LED is fairly basic since it will be solid blue when everything is working fine and it will flash blue when the device is starting up or returning to factory settings. The Mesh indicator has been blessed with more functions since it’s solid red when the mesh network is disconnected and flashing green when you’re pairing the Reyee RG-E5 to a mesh network.

If the LED is solid orange it means that the signal is weak – move the router closer to the primary mesh node – and, if it’s solid green, then the signal to the main mesh node is strong. So yes, check the app for actual status info. That S button requires more attention because it can be used to pair the router to an existing mesh network or to add other mesh nodes to the Reyee RG-E5 network.

This means that it functions as WPS which is not the best approach (nor the most secure). On the rear side of the Reyee RG-E5, you’ll be able to find a Reset button, followed by the Power connector and then there are four LAN ports and one WAN port. All five Ethernet ports are Gigabit and each has a dedicated status LED next to it. It’s unfortunate that the manufacturer decided to not add a USB port as well.
Note: The Reyee RG-E5 is the same device as the RG-EW3200GX PRO.

Internal Hardware (Reyee RG-E5 Teardown)

Unlike other brands, Reyee doesn’t stop you from opening up the case with silly stickers, but that doesn’t mean that the warranty can’t be voided if you’re damaging the interior of the device. That being said, to check out the internal components of the Reyee RG-E5, you need to remove the four screws from the bottom of the case (hidden underneath the two silicone bands) and then to gently pry open the top of the router.

Doing so will reveal the PCB with the large heatsink and the eight antennas. I saw that four antennas are attached via connector and four are soldered to the board. The large heatsink can easily be detached after removing the four screws, and then the main chips are covered by aluminum protections. After removing them, I could identify the Mediatek MT7531BE switch chip, the Mediatek MT638GN PMIC, 256MB of RAM from Nanya NT5CC128M16JR-EK and on the other side of the PCB, I was also able to identify 16MB of flash memory from XMIC 25QH128CHIQ, which is really not that much.

Then, I could see the dual-core 1.35GHz Mediatek ARM MT7622BV SoC which is also used for the 2.4GHz radio band (802.11b/g/n/ax 4×4:4 + 4X Skyworks SKY85331-11 front-end modules). I do need to mention that the soldered antennas are for the 2.4GHz frequency band, but the way the cables are routed within the case is not very optimal.

I say that because one of the cables was too close to one screw which damaged it a bit and may affect the WiFi performance – I did put it in another position but do be aware that this can happen to you as well. Lastly, just like the Ubiquiti U6-LR WiFi 6 access point, the Reyee RG-E5 uses the combination between Mediatek MT7915AN and Mediatek MT7975AN 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax 4×4:4 + Bluetooth 5 chips + 4x KCT8539S highly integrated RF front-end modules for the 5GHz radio band.

The WiFi Features

Before anything else, let’s talk about the antennas because the manufacturer has made some interesting claims. Besides dedicating four antennas to the 2.4GHz radio and four to the 5GHz radio band, which seem to be able to properly handle both vertical and horizontal antenna signals from the client side (you can see here just how important the antenna positioning is), Reyee says that four antennas are high gain which means that the signal should reach farther.

I wondered just how high-gain they are, so I checked the FCCID page of the router and it seems that for the 2.4GHz radio, the four antennas have an average gain of 4.6dBi, while the four antennas for the 5GHz radio are, on average 5.5dBi (the Beamforming gain is 6dB).

It’s definitely a bit above average, but in line with the more powerful models out there, including the Asus RT-AX88U. As for the WiFi 6-related features, there’s OFDMA which is incredibly useful in a very dense Wifi environment since it can push data packets simultaneously to multiple clients via sub-carriers. This can also include users that live in apartments and every neighbor is blasting its WiFi without limiting some of the values in the settings (and they never do).

This can lead to a very high amount of interference, so it’s not just business offices with lots of access points. Besides OFDMA, there’s support for MU-MIMO which is a good option if you have compatible client devices, and I bet most of you don’t. There is no support for 160MHz channel bandwidth to help you get great WiFi speeds when you live in the middle of nowhere, so we’re not really missing much, but the Reyee RG-E5 can become a part of a mesh network.

The mesh systems have put this technology approach into mainstream and seeing it on stand-alone routers is always nice since it can cover an area with WiFi far better than having to rely on a wireless repeaters or any other shenanigans. But I was curious to see if other, less equipped models from Reyee would support mesh. And, after checking out the RG-E3, it does seem to support Reyee’s approach to the mesh tech which is great for present and future models.

The Wireless Test (5GHz)

The Reyee RG-E5 is limited to the 80MHz channel bandwidth which is hardly a handicap in a busy area, so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal in most cases. That’s why I ran some tests using a WiFi 6 client device (Intel AX200), as well as a couple of WiFi 5 clients while they were connected to the 5GHz network (80MHz).

Just for the fun of it, I left the transmit power to auto (which is the maximum, trust me), so, moving data from the WiFi 6 client device to the server, I saw an average of 826Mbps upstream and 490Mbps downstream (-24dB attenuation, so the signal is strong at 5 feet). But, since I let this test run for hours, I could see that from time to time, there were packets drops and it wasn’t just the inability to handle the Java scripts or any other type of script, the Internet speed would slow down temporarily.

This behavior disappeared almost completely at 15 feet, where even if the upstream throughput was 734Mbps (and an excellent 491Mbps downstream), the packet drops simply vanished. So, if you have important client devices at less than 15 feet from the router, make sure to lower the power transmit just a bit on the 5GHz to not overwhelm the client device.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

www.mbreviews.com

Indeed, the TP-Link TL-ER7206 supports up to 4 WAN connections, three Ethernet ports and even an SFP WAN port (module) that you can use in case you have fiber wiring available. Furthermore, the device will also work as a reliable VPN router, offering up to 100 LAN to LAN IPsec connections, 50 OpenVPN, 50 L2TP and 50 PPTP VPN connections. And there’s also the support for the Omada SDN which I have seen in action a few times with some wireless access points and Ethernet switches.

But, besides seeing how well it integrates with other Omada devices, there is one particular reason why I chose to check out the TP-Link TL-ER7206. I have been waiting for a replacement for the Cisco RV340 which has reached EOL and the security support will end in October this year, but Cisco seems to have moved away completely from this affordable series (for now, at least).

That is, unless you want to go the enterprise route and use the Cisco ISR 1000. For those that don’t, the TP-Link TL-ER7206 may just be what they were waiting for. And let’s not forget that TP-Link has been throwing punches towards Ubiquiti as well, offering a very similar software experience to the UniFi. So, without further ado, let’s check out the TP-Link TL-ER7206 multi-WAN VPN router.

Design and Build Quality

The TP-Link TL-ER7206 follows the design of most firewall gateways out there (with the exception of the wavy DrayTek Vigor2926), so expect a rectangular case entirely made of metal, including the front side. The case is covered by a black matte finish and it measures 8.9 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches (22.6 x 13.1 x 3.5 cm), so it’s fairly compact, but the downside is that you can’t really mount the router in a rack, unless you decide to use a tray.

It’s not really the ideal solution, but TP-Link surely made available the possibility to mount the TL-ER7206 on the wall, right? No, you only get four silicone feet to keep the firewall router on your desk, which is unfortunate.

As for ventilation, the TP-Link TL-ER7206 is surprisingly conservative, having only a few holes on the sides and nothing more. So, does it heat up? I have used the AGM Glory Pro to see the temperature of the router while I was running some tests and, as you can see it gets warm, but doesn’t display any signs of overheating.
And it doesn’t really surprise me considering that there is no PoE output built into the TP-Link TL-ER7206 (you will need to use a separate Ethernet switch to connect your PoE access points). This takes us to the ports section.

From the right, there’s the recessed Reset button (to return the device to its factory settings), followed by five Ethernet ports. The first is separate and it’s a Gigabit WAN port, then, there are two WAN/LAN ports which, as the name suggests can function in either manner; lastly, there are two other LAN-only Gigabit ports. Moving further to the left, you’ll see the Gigabit SFP slot which is covered by a protective plastic piece (would have preferred silicone) and next to it, there is a SFP WAN LED.

If it’s flashing, then there is activity, otherwise, the LED will stay solid green and the same is true foe each LED that’s positioned at the top of the Ethernet ports. The last two LEDs will show the status of the Power and the System (if it’s flashing, then it works fine, otherwise, it means that it has encountered an issue that needs to be investigated).

If there would be a minus, it’s that there is no USB port to allow for one more WAN interface using a 3G/4G dongle. Turning the TP-Link TL-ER7206 on the other side, you’ll see the Kensington lock slot, followed by the grounding screw and the three-pin power connector – don’t worry, the PSU is internal.

Internal Hardware (TP-Link TL-ER7206 Teardown)

There are no particular impediments to opening the case since all you have to do is to remove the three screws from the rear side and slide the top cover out. So, no warranty seals or any other annoying attempt at self repair discouragement.

But, after having a look at the board I noticed that TP-Link used that annoying glue paste thing for the heatsink of one chip and it soldered the heatsink of another. This makes me think that it wasn’t really a cost-effective solution, it’s to keep prying eyes out. And it works because most would have no idea how to remove these safely. Unfortunately, neither did I because not only was the main chip soldered, it was also glued with that dreaded paste.

The good news is that I did remove the smaller heatsink, revealing a RTL8367S LQFP-128, high-performance 10/100/1000M Ethernet switch. I could also identify the 512MB of RAM (2X Samsung SEC 204 K4B2G16) and 128MB of flash storage from ESMT (F59L1G81MB). I also decided to check out the FCC ID website with the hope that I may yet see the CPU, but this device doesn’t seem to be on that website.

What I could gather is that it’s a 64-bit dual-core CPU with the clock at 880MHz, which is not that impressive. As expected, the TP-Link TL-ER7206 does not have any WiFi capabilities, so you will need to use additional wireless access points. For example, I did recently tested the EAP660 HD which worked great with Omada – you may also need a PoE switch, such as the TP-Link TL-SG2210P.

Note: I need to mention that the model that I got is v1.0 and there is a v1.6 which may suggest that it has different components. But, this is not the case because it seems to only indicate that the TP-Link TL-ER7206 was built in a different facility, everything else is the same.

The Standalone Mode

Even if the TP-Link TL-ER7206 is advertised as an Omada gateway, it’s going to work just fine in standalone mode as well. And the quickest way to access the interface is by connecting the router to your PC and entering 192.168.0.1 in the URL bar. Immediately, you’ll be asked to create a new admin account (don’t use admin as the username) and that’s about it, you’ll be able to access the GUI.

Since there was no Internet access, I connected an Ethernet cable from my modem to the main WAN port and then I went to Network > WAN > WAN, chose PPPoE as the Connection Type and entered the ISP credentials. I clicked on Save and Connect to gain access to the Internet. The GUI doesn’t feel crowded and you don’t get dozens of options thrown at your face.

And that’s not because the TP-Link TL-ER7206 is lacking any important feature, it just has a good layout. As a quick overview, you can enable additional WAN ports under Network, as well as configure the Ports behavior (Port Mirroring, Rate Control and Flow Control). I noticed that TP-Link put the VPN IP Pool list under Preferences, but the most interesting features can be found under Transmission.

Here, you can configure the NAT-related features (One-to-One NAT, Virtual Servers, NAT-DMZ, ALG and Port Triggering), the Bandwidth Control, the Routing settings (Static Route and Policy Routing) and the Load Balancing which includes Link Backup and Online Detection. The Firewall offers Anti ARP Spoofing, Attack Defense and Access Control, there’s also Behavior Control with Web Filtering and Security, and then, we get access to VPN.

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Mark B

Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is also the main tech writer for MBReviews.com, covering not only his passion, the networking devices, but also other cool electronic gadgets that you may find useful for your every day life.

www.mbreviews.com