ROG debuts the world’s first quad-band WiFi 6E gaming router and a new WiFi 6 flagship at CES 2022
By Paul Cross
There’s an exclusive, members-only express lane opening in the 6GHz wireless spectrum, and WiFi 6E is your VIP pass. Ready to join the party? ROG’s Rapture GT-AXE16000 is the world’s first quad-band gaming router with gobs of bandwidth for the latest 6GHz radios, plus plenty of performance headroom to keep legacy 2.4GHz and 5GHz devices running smoothly—and it’s the winner of a prestigious CES Innovation Award, as well. A pair of 10-gigabit Ethernet ports plumb shared storage and gaming PCs directly to your network, while WAN aggregation gives you access to greater-than-gigabit-class Internet speeds. It’s a powerhouse in every sense of the word.
We’re also updating our previous-gen flagship with a beefier chipset, a pair of 2.5 Gbps ports, and new network optimization software for lower-latency, lag-free gaming. The product of those enhancements, our ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 Pro, shares its industrial design with the new GT-AXE16000, giving the router an especially clean, dapper appearance. And that’s not all two routers have in common. The latest quad-core Broadcom CPU and chipset, combined with the latest ASUS RF technology and RangeBoost Plus tech, improves WiFi signal range and overall coverage by up to 38%* and overall throughput by 18%.**
These routers still know how to have fun, though. Both models support ASUS Aura RGB through their Web interfaces and the ASUS Router app, adding customizable colors and effects. An integrated suite of useful utilities helps streamline configuration, game acceleration, and security. And triple-level game acceleration ensures optimal network performance for your games every step of the way from your device to the game server.
The ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 turns the promises of WiFi 6E into reality
Fast, stable wireless networking is an expectation everywhere we go. But the familiar 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands are having a hard time coping with our capacity demands. Their limited bandwidth just wasn’t designed to support all the fans in a stadium, the travelers at an airport, or trade shows packed with attendees.
WiFi 6E decongests those dense networks with enhanced efficiency. Its dedicated spectrum in the 6GHz band is free from interference and unburdened by older standards. It opens several of the 160Hz-wide channels that work so well for 8K video streaming, low-latency VR, and high-def video conferencing. If your region has made the 6GHz band available for consumer use, all you need to realize the standard’s benefits are a compatible router and WiFi 6E clients. ROG offers both.
Not only does our new Rapture GT-AXE16000 go big on WiFi 6E technology, but it also elevates the performance of legacy wireless standards. This is our first quad-band router. Its 6GHz band offers data rates as high as 4,804 Mbps to compatible WiFi 6E devices, and it has two 5GHz bands with the same bandwidth on top. Together with the 2.4GHz band’s 1,148 Mbps, that’s 16,000 Mbps of aggregate throughput, provided that WiFi 6E is available in your region. What of the second 5GHz band? You might use it as a dedicated backhaul link on AiMesh-compatible networks for maximum performance between wireless clients and other nodes.
The GT-AXE16000’s wired connections wield hard-hitting data rates, too. It boasts a pair of 10 Gbps ports, four 1 Gbps LAN ports, and a 2.5 Gbps WAN port for flexible connectivity. A variety of configuration options empower you to get maximum bandwidth exactly where you need it. For one, you can bond two 1 Gbps LAN ports together to create a 2 Gbps LAN connection, which is great for supplying extra bandwidth to wired network devices such as your compatible NAS or desktop PC. Do you need support for load-balancing and failover, in addition to unmitigated Internet speed? Multi-WAN usage is increasingly popular, and it's great for those who need unstoppable internet. Since the ports can all be configured as WAN ports, you don’t have to rely on a single ISP. With dual internet connections from two different ISPs, even if one fails, you'll still have access to the other.
Information is shuttled through the router using a new quad-core 64-bit CPU operating at 2GHz. This same platform also accelerates applications running on the GT-AXE16000, like AiProtection Pro and Instant Guard. Game Boost adaptive quality-of-service makes it easy to prioritize gaming traffic with the click of a toggle. And integrated gamer VPN tech connects the GT-AXE16000 to gaming servers over optimized routes for less lag.
The ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 Pro makes a good gaming router even better
An investment into WiFi 6E makes the most sense if you’re eyeing new client devices with 6GHz radios. Networks that aren’t as dense, or spread out over more square footage, can be served just as well with the right WiFi 6 router.
Our GT-AX11000 Pro just so happens to be the ultimate in WiFi 6 coverage. Most of its wireless throughput comes from a pair of 5GHz bands, each rated for up to 4,804 Mbps. Again, you can use one band for client connectivity and the other as a backhaul between other AiMesh nodes. A third, 2.4GHz band can move up to 1,148 Mbps of wireless data, bringing the GT-AX11000 Pro’s combined total up to 11,000 Mbps.
Freshly opened spectrum in the 5.9GHz band gives the GT-AX11000 Pro a performance edge over previous-gen routers. Previously, users could only access two 160MHz channels in the 5GHz band. With the GT-AX11000 Pro, you can access a third, high-power 160Mhz channel for greater network capacity for your devices—or for the backhaul capacity of your AiMesh network.
Massive Ethernet pipes complement the router’s WiFi capabilities. A 2.5 Gbps WAN port all but guarantees you won’t be bottlenecked by an external network connection, while a second 2.5 Gbps port gets top priority for storage or gaming traffic. Full support for WAN aggregation means you can achieve multi-gigabit Internet speeds with fast enough infrastructure behind the GT-AX11000 Pro. And LAN aggregation lets you link any of the four 1 Gbps ports for higher performance.
Armed with the same quad-core, 64-bit, 2GHz CPU as our GT-AXE16000, this ultra-powerful platform runs a similar bundle of innovative software features. AiProtection Pro, Instant Guard, Game Boost, and tools to connect privately to game servers work concurrently to enhance security and improve gaming responsiveness.
Whether you’re looking to expand the reach of your WiFi 6 network or make the jump to WiFi 6E, ROG’s new GT-AX11000 Pro and GT-AXE16000 combine the fastest data rates, the newest chipsets, and the most comprehensive software available. For more information on their pricing and availability in your region, please contact your local ROG representative.
*Measured using a WiFi 6 client connected at 200 Mbps to a WiFi 6 router with RangeBoost Plus, compared to the same WiFi 6 client connected at 200 Mbps to a WiFi 5 router without RangeBoost Plus.
**Compared with former WiFi 6 platform.
