Is that this premium WiFi 6E gaming router value your cash?
Up to date: Apr 14, 2024 12:44 pm
WePC is reader-supported. If you purchase by hyperlinks on our website, we might earn an affiliate fee. Costs topic to vary. Study extra
The ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 is yet one more very high-end gaming router from the Taiwanese tech large. The corporate is completely dominating the premium gaming market, with little or no competitors from different manufacturers, but they carry on placing them out, not that we’re complaining!
Learn beneath for our look over the options of this gadget, plus the outcomes of our efficiency testing.
Execs
- excessive bandwidth quad-band WiFi
- a number of excessive Gbps ethernet connections
- quick processor
- ASUS Ai mesh expertise
- characteristic wealthy software program
Cons
- costly at full value
- file switch speeds through WiFi are a bit underwhelming
- now not the most recent WiFi commonplace
- an enormous, garish gadget that takes up a whole lot of area
1x 2.4GHz (1,148 Mbps), 2x 5GHz (4,804 Mbps), 1x 6GHz (4,804 Mbps)
2GB DDR4 RAM + 256MB flash reminiscence
1x USB 2.0 Sort-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Sort-C
Total Design
An open, empty product field displayed on a white floor in a room surrounded by colourful, blurred ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router packing containers.
Black ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router in a modern field with foam padding, that includes a outstanding emblem on the highest cowl underneath tender lighting.
Unboxed ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 gaming router assessment, with its packaging, cables, and instruction guide on a white floor.
Excessive-tech ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router with eight antennas on a white desk, surrounded by colourful gaming PC element packing containers.
Excessive-performance ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router with a number of antennas and customizable RGB lighting on a desk, branded with the WEPC emblem.
Shut-up assessment of the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router’s aspect panel displaying labels for “wps” and “led” indicators, with a blurred colourful background.
Shut-up of an ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router with two 10ge (10 gigabit ethernet) ports seen, centered on the connection sockets.
Shut-up of the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router’s again panel displaying numerous ports together with WAN, LAN, and a reset button, with a blurred background.
Shut-up of the again panel on the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router displaying a dc-in port, energy button, and usb ports, flanked by purple led lights.
Shut-up of a black ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router with illuminated particulars in opposition to a purple background.
Shut-up of a high-performance ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 router with a number of antennas, centered on the illuminated emblem and vents, set in opposition to a soft-focus colourful background.
Earlier
Subsequent
As is widespread amongst ASUS gaming routers launched during the last couple of years, the GT-AXE16000 has a spider-like look with eight antennas designed to maximise Wi-Fi protection. Half of the highest of the router is roofed by a reflective mirrored panel, which we should say attracts smudges extraordinarily simply, and displays the lights from the router and another supply: this isn’t a refined trying gadget the least bit, together with its dimension, which is big, making the place to conveniently place it a attainable difficulty.
The router has quad-band frequencies: one 2.4GHz, two 5GHz, and one 6GHz (for these WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 units that may utilise it), with a mixed most (theoretical) bandwidth of round 16,000Mbps (or 16Gbps), therefore the identify GT-AXE16000.
The WAN connection, which for the uninitiated hyperlinks to your exterior broadband connection, has a 2.5Gbps bandwidth, which suggests that is the efficient peak web bandwidth you’ll be able to obtain, although that is nonetheless properly above what most individuals in many of the world have entry to.
Apart from the WAN port, you get six ethernet ports that can be utilized to arrange LAN connections: 4 of those have a 1Gbps bandwidth, whereas two go all the best way as much as 10Gbps – clearly properly past the broadband WAN enter however probably helpful for information transference should you’re shifting some severely giant file sizes. Hyperlink aggregation can be supported should you want to mix two of the 1Gbps cables collectively right into a single 2Gbps information channel.
Different options
Like all current high-end ASUS routers, the ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 comes with AiMesh expertise, that means you’ll be able to setup a mesh community between completely different ASUS routers which have this characteristic, with out them needing to be the identical mannequin such as you usually would with most different manufacturers.
The router comes with the everyday WiFi 6E options you’d anticipate like MU-MIMO information streaming, WPA3 encryption, OFDMA, Goal Wake Time, a most 160MHz channel bandwidth, and 1,024 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). You additionally get gamer-focused QOS options designed to prioritize gaming bandwidth over another customers of your community, making certain minimal efficiency drops.
When it comes to the onboard software program, the cell app you’ll be able to obtain to handle the router is definitely fairly intuitive and properly designed – a refreshing change from say the ASUS Armoury Crate software program you discover on laptops. Throughout the settings you’ll be able to configure your commonplace Wi-Fi, WAN, and LAN settings, plus arrange completely different internet filters for various age teams inside the Household menu, edit common safety choices, view the units in your community and your typical diagnostic info, and extra.
Pricing
When it initially went on sale again in 2022, the GT-AXE1600 had an MSRP of $699.99, which was rightly thought of to be a really excessive asking value by most reviewers on the time. The value has dropped to $599.99 since then and we’d nonetheless contemplate this a steep asking value given 6E is now not the most recent WiFi commonplace (although nonetheless completely high quality for the overwhelming majority off customers), nevertheless we’ve seen it on provide for $499.99 of late, and this can be a lot extra cheap for a premium gaming router.
Efficiency
The utmost bandwidth of our web is sadly not enough to check the capabilities of the router to achieve the claimed most Mbps on the completely different frequency bandwidths (the max we will get is round 280Mbps). What we might do nevertheless is conduct a sign power check at numerous distances.
In layman’s phrases, a weaker sign successfully means you’ll take pleasure in a decrease share of the bandwidth, and provides you with a good indication of how far the efficient vary of the router shall be in your wants.
We additionally examined the learn and wire speeds of the router when doing file transfers. This could assist offer you an concept of the efficient capability of the router to maneuver information through the LAN connections.
Sign power check
Sign power is measured in dBm (decibel milliwatts). It’s not instantly intuitive how the measuring system works however -30 dBm is the proper outcome for a sign at one finish of the dimensions, with across the -90 dBm mark usually signifying disconnection on the backside finish: the higher outcomes are these nearer to -30 dBm, although something across the -50 dBm to -67 dBm vary is taken into account good.
As you’ll be able to see beneath the perfect outcomes have been these taken 10 toes away from the router, as you’d anticipate, with out a lot distinction between the completely different frequency bands. At 30 toes away (with no obstructions) and 60 toes away (with a single wall in the best way), the outcomes have been properly inside the -50 dBm to -67 dBm window.
At 90 toes away with two partitions between the gadget and the router, we observed vital variations between the completely different frequency bands, with the two.4GHz band performing finest as is typical as a result of greater penetration of its frequency, the 5Ghz band simply barely getting by, and the 6GHz channel struggling to make a connection (it alternated between a really poor connection round 50% of the time and being utterly disconnected for the opposite half). At these distances then (with this many partitions in the best way), you’ll be able to solely actually depend on the two.4GHz band.
| Distance | 2.4GHz | 5GHz | 6GHz |
| 10ft (clear line of sight) | -41dBm | -40dBm | -44dBm |
| 30ft (clear line of sight) | -54dBm | -52dBm | -56dBm |
| 60ft (1x blocking wall) | -60dBm | -59dBm | -59dBm |
| 90ft (2x blocking partitions) | -75dBm | -87dBm | couldn’t join / -92dBm |
File switch check
To check the utility of the GT-AXE1600 WiFi from a file sharing perspective, we linked our testing laptop computer through WiFi (utilizing the 5GHz band) to the router after which linked an SSD to the router through a USB-C 3.0 connection to the port on the router. We had the laptop computer positioned round 10 foot away. We then examined the bit charge when transferring an 18GB file (particularly a sport file from the Murderer’s Creed Valhalla folder) from the laptop computer to the SSD (the Write velocity), after which again once more (the Learn velocity).
These aren’t the perfect outcomes we should say, and we have been hoping for an extra 10-15Mbps greater to maintain it in step with the competitors (together with from ASUS’ personal Netgear RAXE500), nevertheless the constructive is that you just’ll get monstrously excessive speeds going ethernet to ethernet and utilizing the 2 10Gbps connections.
| Write check | Learn check |
| 49 Mbps | 46 Mbps |
Do you have to purchase the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE1600?
For the common gamer, even a aggressive gamer, shopping for the ROG Rapture GT-AXE1600 can be full overkill, given most of its options simply wouldn’t be used. While it’s positively quick, there are cheaper fashions on the market which have the two.5Gbps WAN socket to maximise the efficiency advantages of fibre optic broadband connections; we’d suggest the older Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 should you don’t thoughts being restricted to WiFi 6.
The place it comes into its personal is should you’re planning on transferring giant information rapidly between completely different computer systems in the identical LAN community, so you’ll be able to take full benefit of the 10Gbps ethernet ports together with the 1Gbps connections. Creatives working in the identical bodily area who want to transfer giant video information would discover this very helpful, you’ll be capable to shift 8K footage round like nobody’s enterprise, and it might be used to set-up a community storage financial institution (a NAS for example). Alternatively should you’re seeking to arrange a LAN gaming community or another inventive server setup this might be the choose for you, though if that’s the case chances are you’ll wish to go for a WiFi 7 router as an alternative; we’d not less than wait till you see the value of this gadget come down from the present $599.99 asking value.
