Our picks
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Linksys Velop Pro 6E
Best gaming router overall
Pros:
-Excellent jitter scores, especially on the 5GHz band
-Can add other D-Link routers to create a mesh system
-Four gigabit Ethernet ports
-Works with Alexa and Google Assistant
Cons:
-Limited range on 5GHz
-Throughput scores were average on both bands
Why I like it:
While it’s marketed as a mesh system, the D-Link Aquila M30 works just fine as a standalone router. Its test results didn’t exactly jump off the screen, but for a cheap gaming router under $100, you won’t find better performance.
Who it’s for:
The D-Link M30 is strong where it matters for gamers: jitter and packet loss. It brought in a jitter score of 0.03ms on the 5GHz band, which was behind only our best overall gaming router, the Linksys Velop Pro 6E. Its packet loss scores overall weren’t quite as impressive — 0.11% on 2.4GHz and 6.38% on 5GHz — but at a close range or through a wired connection, you likely won’t experience any issues.
Who shouldn’t buy it: If you live in a bigger home or will be gaming in another room than your router, it’s probably worth spending a little more on a mesh system or the ASUS RT-AX86U Pro, our pick for the best gaming router for larger homes. That’s because the D-Link M30 returned pretty weak signal strength results — especially on the 5GHz band.
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Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000
Best Wi-Fi 6 gaming router
Pros:
-Impressive range for a single router
-Excellent throughput performance, even at longer distances
-Incredibly low jitter scores on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands
-Can add another ASUS router to create a mesh system
-Four 1Gbps LAN ports with a dedicated “gaming port”
Cons:
-No 6GHz band, so it doesn’t take full advantage of Wi-Fi 7 devices
-Packet loss was relatively high — especially on the 5GHz band
Why I like it: It all comes down to range. The signal strength maps pictured above might not look like much, but the Asus RT-AX86U Pro outperformed nearly every other wireless router we tested. Speeds barely dropped off when we moved further away from the router — 906Mbps on the 5GHz band from 50 feet away, compared to a baseline of 939Mbps with a wired connection. It also comes with every network security feature we looked for: WPA3 certification, automatic firmware updates and adjustable parental controls.
Who is it for: Anyone living in a larger home with multiple floors. Short of investing in a full-fledged mesh system that utilizes multiple routers, this is as good as I’ve seen a router perform when it comes to travelling through walls and across vast spaces. If your home is more than 2,500 square feet, you might still need a mesh system or Wi-Fi extender to completely eliminate dead zones, but the ASUS RT-AX86U Pro has such strong throughput performance to begin with, you might not even notice the dropoff across rooms.
Who shouldn’t buy it: Even though it’s marketed toward gamers, I would steer them to our best overall or best gaming router picks. That’s because the RT-AX86U Pro had higher packet loss scores than I would have liked, falling in the bottom third of Wi-Fi routers we tested. It was still in the range that’s considered acceptable for most internet users, but gamers might notice a frozen screen or moments of high lag on the 5GHz band.
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Here I am running a throughput test at close distance from the router.
To see how fast a router will perform in real-world conditions, we measure its throughput, or the volume of data that a router actually transmits during a period of time. All Wi-Fi signals travel through 2.5GHz and 5GHz radio frequencies — that’s why most routers you’ll see are referred to as “dual-band.” (Tri-band routers use an extra set of channels in the 6GHz band.)
To start, we conduct a wired measurement on the 2.5GHz, 5GHz and, when available, 6GHz bands to establish a baseline. This is as fast as throughput can get for the router over each band, so it’s a good point of comparison for our wireless tests. From there, we take five different wireless throughput measurements, 60 seconds each, mimicking a household with five devices connected to the router with different throughput needs. These wireless measurements are taken from three different distances from the router: 7 feet, 25 feet and 50 feet.
As any online gamer or remote worker can tell you, speed isn’t the only factor in evaluating routers. Just as important is jitter, which measures the variations in latency, or the time it takes for data to arrive at its destination. When you’re in a video meeting and there’s a delay in audio or someone’s video freezes, jitter is the culprit. We felt jitter was a better measure than latency when evaluating a router, as average latency can show up in testing as low, even when an internet connection is glitchy.
These tests also captured packet loss, which tells us whether any data failed to reach its destination during the test. You’ll often see packet loss as a frozen video screen or a garbled voice during a video call. With both packet loss and jitter, a lower score is better.
Signal strength
The second step in our testing is to measure each router’s wireless signal strength and broadcasting capability. To capture this, we used NetSpot, a wireless site survey and analysis tool. This test also shows how well a router handles interference from other objects and networks you’d find in your home, like TVs or your neighbor’s Wi-Fi. CNET’s labs have many electronics being tested around the facility, and it shares walls with other businesses, so there’s plenty of interference for a router to work through.
We taped targets in 61 locations around CNET’s 12,500-square-foot testing facility to see how well each router transmitted data through obstacles like walls and electronics. As expected, the 2.4GHz band had better range than the 5GHz band, which sends a stronger signal at a closer range.
There’s no technical difference between a gaming router and a regular router, but gaming routers typically come with features useful for online gaming, like quality of service (QoS) that allows you to prioritize traffic to specific devices.
Do I need Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 for gaming?
The router features that actually reduce lag are quality of service (QoS) features that allow you to prioritize traffic to a specific device. Some models, like gaming routers from Asus, come with specific features like “Triple-level Game Acceleration” that optimize traffic to ensure the best performance for online gaming.
How do I properly set up a gaming router?
You don’t need to spend much more than $200 to effectively eliminate lag from your gaming experience. When you spend a lot on a Wi-Fi router, you’re usually paying more for access to the ultrawide 6GHz band. But that’s not absolutely essential for a smooth gaming experience. Many of the routers we tested in the $100 to $200 range outperformed routers that cost three times as much in the key metrics for gamers: jitter and packet loss.
