Although in the 5GHz and 6GHz bands we achieve the same theoretical maximum speed, in real life we will see that the new 6GHz band has no interference with other neighboring networks because there is simply no one broadcasting in this frequency band, therefore, we will obtain a little more speed, especially in places close to the WiFi router. In addition, we have up to 7 channels of 160MHz channel width, therefore, we will have less interference than right now since in 5GHz we only have two free channels if we use the 160MHz channel width. Other advantages of the new 6GHz band are that we will have less latency than the 5GHz band, which is currently widely used by neighbors’ routers, and we won’t have to wait a certain time until it is available, as it happens in the 5GHz band if we use DFS channels.
This new router has all the WiFi 6E technologies such as Bidirectional MU-MIMO and the OFDMA, both technologies aim to provide the best WiFi performance globally, and the best spectrum efficiency, allowing dozens of wireless clients to connect and not be harmed by having so many devices connected simultaneously, something that did happen with WiFi 5 standards and earlier. We also have the TWT technology (Target Wake Time) to put wireless devices that do not need to exchange traffic to standby, thus saving them a lot of battery power. Lastly, we have Beamforming to focus the wireless signal on WiFi clients, and provide additional coverage and real speed.
This model supports ASUS AiMesh to form a complete high-performance WiFi Mesh network, in addition, it supports WiFi Agile Multiband, the possibility of configuring the different WiFi frequency bands in an advanced way, and we also have the possibility of configure WPA3-Personal in all frequency bands, with the goal of providing the best possible security for wireless clients. A very important aspect is that the 6GHz band is only compatible with WPA3-Personal or with OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption), that is, without authentication but with point-to-point encryption.
Ethernet and USB ports
This ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 router has one Gigabit Ethernet port for the WAN dedicated Internet, we also have a total of four Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN, Y one 2.5G Multigigabit port it can work for WAN or LAN. The firmware will allow us to use either of the two ports (1G or 2.5G as WAN) as the Internet, but in addition, it also allows us to perform WAN aggregation using LAN port 4 as the Internet WAN. If we do not use the WAN aggregation, we can configure the LAN 1 and LAN 2 ports as Link Aggregation for the LAN network, in this way, we can connect a NAS server with dual Ethernet ports to transfer data at a speed of up to 2Gbps. Of course, the firmware allows us to configure the Jumbo Frames in the LAN to maximize the real speed that we will achieve.
This router supports both VLANs in the Internet WAN, VLANs per port to provide IPTV services, as well as the triple VLAN of Movistar FTTH, therefore, we can replace the Movistar router without problems and enjoy all the functionalities.
This new model also has a total of two USB 3.0 ports of high performance, which will provide us with a speed of more than 150MB/s, due to the fact that the router incorporates a powerful Quad-Core processor at 1.8GHz speed, therefore, the speed in the local network via Samba or FTP is guaranteed, in addition, we also have support for FTPES (with encryption) and in this case we will also achieve great performance. Asuswrt firmware has all the usual services such as Samba server, FTP, FTPES, DLNA media server, print server, ASUS AiDisk, download manager, possibility to connect a 3G/4G modem for Internet connection and use the router like Time Machine for Apple devices.
Other features of this router are that it supports ASUS Aura RGB, so we can customize the status LEDs on the front of the router, and synchronize it with ASUS Aura if we have it on different computers.
Asuswrt ROG Firmware
This high-performance router has the same firmware Asuswrt ROG that we have seen in other models of the brand, we have all the services and gaming functionalities that ASUS has been incorporating over time, such as Adaptive QoS, traditional QoS, bandwidth limiter per device, traffic prioritization of a certain device on the local network, and we will even have the Open NAT functions to open ports easily and quickly, without the need to make complex configurations. Of course, we also have the various VPN servers with OpenVPN, IPsec VPN and even Instant Guard, plus we have VPN clients and VPN Fusion support to route certain network traffic through the VPN or directly to the Internet.
What has caught our attention the most is the new 6GHz band and all the related configurations, and it is that in this frequency band we can only configure WPA3-Personal or OWE, it does not allow configuring WPA2-Personal or any type of WPA with RADIUS authentication. Of course, we can choose the width of the WiFi channel (recommended to choose 160MHz) of channel width, and we can also choose different WiFi channels in this new frequency band.
By having a ROG firmware, all the firmware is quite “tuned” with the gaming aspect that characterizes the ASUS ROG Rapture routers, therefore, we will have a main menu that will indicate the latency of the connection, jitter, if we have any game controller or optimization, and many more options available.
Unboxing and first impressions
The first thing that caught our attention about this router is its similarity to the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 model, both in terms of external appearance and technical specifications, but this new model incorporates a 6GHz frequency band and complies with the new Wi-Fi 6E standard, thanks to this new frequency band we will have more channels available without interference, less latency in the wireless connection and we will not have to wait a certain time until the frequency band is available, as it happens on the DFS channels of the 5GHz band, where we have to wait up to 10 minutes until it is available.
This new equipment represents a before and after for ASUS, because it is the first router of the brand to incorporate support for 6GHz, and, in addition, it is the first brand to arrive in Spain with this new standard, so if you want to have already a team with this standard, ASUS is the only manufacturer that already has the router for sale. In the following video you can see our unboxing and first impressions of this router with the Wi-Fi 6E standard:
Is this new model worth it instead of the GT-AX11000 that we have previously analyzed? Soon we will bring you a complete analysis of the characteristics, performance and functions of the firmware, where we will check what this new model is capable of, and we will also compare it with the GT-AX11000 model, which has given us a truly spectacular performance.
