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Best Wi-Fi 6 Routers of 2024 – CNET

March 16, 2024 Admin

A Netgear r6700ax Wi Fi 6 router on a wooden surface

Wi-Fi 7 routers are just around the corner but until they arrive, Wi-Fi 6 is the latest generation of Wi-Fi supported by your gadgets and devices. Having fast and stable internet in your home or office starts with having a good provider. Once you’ve got that sorted, you’ll need the best Wi-Fi 6 router your budget will allow. To help you equip your home with the fastest and most stable internet connection possible, we’ve rounded up the best Wi-Fi 6 router options on the market right now.

What is the best Wi-Fi 6 router overall?

Our top pick is the TP-Link Archer AX21 because it’s simple but effective. It utilizes easy-to-use app controls, offers faster performance speeds and better ranges than most other Wi-Fi 6 routers.

When a router supports Wi-Fi 6, it can use new features like OFDMA and 1024-QAM to deliver faster speeds of up to 1.2Gbps and lower latency to busy networks with lots of connected devices. That’s true even with the budget-priced value picks — and among those, the one that performs the best is the TP-Link Archer AX21.

The Archer AX21 did an outstanding job in my at-home speed tests. At the end of multiple days of tests across five spots in my house, the Archer AX21’s average download speed on a 300Mbps fiber network was a near-perfect 299Mbps. That includes triple-digit download speeds in the very back of my house, a common dead zone where many of the routers I test struggle to stay connected. In 2022, I retested the AX21 after upgrading my home network to gigabit speeds — it isn’t powerful enough to top out a connection like that, but it still delivered fast, consistent speeds, with my downloads averaging in at 441Mbps.

That level of performance was strong enough for the Archer AX21 to beat out similar models from Netgear, Asus and D-Link, and it even kept the pace with fancier routers that cost significantly more. It’s also a cinch to set up, thanks to TP-Link’s Tether app for Android and iOS, which also offers quick access to basic network settings without bombarding you with ads like some other router apps will.

All of that makes the Archer AX21 an extremely worthy pick for small- to medium-sized homes and one of the best value picks you’ll find that supports Wi-Fi 6.

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Ry Crist/CNET

Ry Crist/CNET

TP-Link Deco W7200

Best mesh system

Asus is one of the top names in the gaming router category, boasting the best variety of fast, flashy routers that promise elite performance, low latency, and advanced controls for your connection. The Asus RT-AX86U is one of the more understated routers in that mix — it doesn’t include color-changing lights or an oversized, ostentatious design — but it’s still one of the best gaming routers you can buy. Gaming aside, it’s one of the best Wi-Fi 6 routers you can buy, period.

Along with offering fast, consistent speeds, the RT-AX86U did a better job at managing latency than any other router I tested it against, and it comes with a full suite of tools for optimizing your connection while gaming, including an adaptive quality-of-service engine and an Open NAT database of game- and platform-specific port forwarding rules. There’s even a Mobile Game Mode to instantly prioritize traffic to your phone.

In other words, the RT-AX86U checks all the boxes you’d want from a gaming router (except the color-changing lights, I guess — although you can get it Zaku-styled if you’re willing to spend a little more). Most importantly, it makes strong enough use of Wi-Fi 6 to ensure that even the non-gamers in your household will appreciate having it around.

At this price point, it’s definitely an upgrade pick, but a reasonable one that’s still less expensive than many gaming routers. If you’re thinking about upgrading to a new multi-gig internet plan from AT&T, Frontier, Xfinity, Verizon, Ziply Fiber or another provider offering plans like those, the RT-AX86U equipped with a multi-gig Ethernet jack supporting incoming wired speeds of up to 2.5Gbps.

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Gigabit internet speeds are growing in availability from a wide number of major ISPs, and they’re a great fit with the faster wireless transfer rates of Wi-Fi 6. If you’ve made the upgrade to gigabit internet speeds at home, then you’ll definitely want a Wi-Fi 6 router that can take full advantage of it.

Your best bet would be to go with a true upgrade pick like the Asus RT-AX86U, or a top-rated mesh system — but if you’re on a budget or you just don’t want to spend more than $100 or so, you should move the Netgear R6700AX right to the top of your list. The current prices that are available start at $90, it’s an AX1800 router with full support for Wi-Fi 6 and 5GHz speeds as high as 1.3 gigabits per second.

In our tests on a gigabit network, the R6700AX outperformed comparable models, including the TP-Link Archer AX21, delivering download speeds that averaged in at 591Mbps across a 1,350-square-foot test environment. At close range, those speeds rose as high as 800Mbps. For comparison, the Archer AX21 finished those same tests with an overall average of 435Mbps, and it wasn’t able to hit download speeds any higher than 598Mbps at close range.

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Ry Crist/CNET

Ry Crist/CNET

Netgear Orbi AX6000

Best high-end mesh system

Going with a mesh router makes a ton of sense if you live in a large, multi-story home with a lot of space to cover. In cases like that, it’s worth it to prioritize getting a system with more than two devices in the mesh — and Amazon’s Eero 6 Plus gets you there for $300, complete with full support for Wi-Fi 6.

The Eero 6 Plus takes the Eero 6 that preceded it and beefs things up with a faster AX3000 build and new support for full-width 160MHz channels, up from 80MHz. Those wider channels allow the system to move data twice as efficiently to compatible devices, and they made a huge difference in my performance tests, where the 6 Plus finished as a top ten finisher among the thirty or so mesh routers I’ve tested at home. None of the routers that beat its average download speeds can beat its value, and that makes the Eero 6 Plus an excellent pick.

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Ry Crist/CNET

Ry Crist/CNET

Asus ZenWifi XD6

Best dual-band mesh system

The Netgear R6700AX is the best budget Wi-Fi router for gigabit networks. It’s currently available for under $90. This AX1800 router supports Wi-Fi 6 and can deliver speeds up to 1.3Gbps. Our tests show that the R6700AX outperformed models such as the TP-Link Archer AX21. If you currently have gigabit internet speeds at home, this router should be at the top of your list.

What Wi-Fi router has the best range?

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, more than 233 million Wi-Fi 7 devices are expected to enter the market in 2024. This number is expected to grow to 2.1 billion devices by 2028. While you might be looking forward to trying Wi-Fi 7’s new features, many phones, laptops and gaming systems are not yet Wi-Fi 7 enabled. We’ll likely see more devices supporting Wi-Fi 7 by the end of 2024.

What are the disadvantages of Wi-Fi 6 routers?

Wi-Fi 6 includes support for new Wi-Fi features that help devices pass data back and forth faster and more efficiently. One of the key upgrades is 1024-QAM, which stands for quadrature amplitude modulation, or the trick your router uses to send radio waves that other devices can read as a series of ones and zeroes — the binary code that makes up everything you see, read and experience online. 1024-QAM allows your router to send out 10 digits of binary code with each transmission, compared to eight digits of binary from Wi-Fi 5 routers that use 256-QAM. That’s one of the key reasons why Wi-Fi 6 offers top speeds that are roughly 30% faster than before.

Will older devices still work with a Wi-Fi 6 router?

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