ASUS' new 25,000Mbps Wi-Fi 7 ROG Rapture GT-BE98 router is finally available in Singapore (Updated)

Note: This article was first published on 8 January 2023 and was updated on 26 February 2024 because the router is finally coming to Singapore.

ASUS has just unveiled a new flagship ROG gaming router called the ROG Rapture GT-BE98 and it is a very impressive piece of networking kit.

To start, ASUS says this is the world's first quad-band Wi-Fi 7 router. And the headline stat is 25,000Mbps – that's the total amount of bandwidth the router is capable of transmitting. We'll get into that later.

Firstly, what's Wi-Fi 7? It is the latest networking standard and it promises dramatic improvements over both Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E.

Apart from the usual enhancements such as wider channels and higher QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), the two main improvements are access to the 6GHz band and something called Multi-Link Operation (MLO).

Multi-Link Operation is arguably the most crucial as it allows the router to establish a connection to a client device over multiple bands. This means it can connect to, say, a smartphone over band the 5GHz and 6GHz bands. You can see how that can drastically improve speeds and signal reliability.

As for the ROG-GTBE98, ASUS is claiming the following speeds for its single 6GHz band, dual 5GHz bands, and single 2.4GHz band:

• 6GHz - Up to 11,525Mbps
• 5GHz (1) - Up to 5,762Mbps
• 5GHz (2) - Up to 5,762Mbps
• 2.4GHz - Up to 1,376Mbps

Add them all up and you get around 25,000Mbps.

To fully maximise its prodigious wireless speeds, the ROG Rapture GT-BE98 will feature a single 10Gbps WAN port. It will also come with dual 10Gbps LAN ports and the usual four Gigabit Ethernet ports.

There's also a less hardcore version called the ASUS RT-BE96U. This is a tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router. And it differs from the flagship ROG unit by having one less 5GHz band (so only a maximum transfer rate of 19,000Mbps) and only two 10Gbps ports instead of three.

Now, while all these speeds sound tantalising, it's important to note that they can only be fully realised with compatible client devices. And as of now, there are only a handful of devices that do support Wi-Fi 7 (like Samsung's new Galaxy S24 series).

That said, given that we can expect more Wi-Fi 7 routers to come later this year, it's safe to say that client devices soon will have Wi-Fi 7 support too.

Availability and pricing

No word yet on availability and pricing, but we'll be sure to update the article once we hear more. As for now, ASUS says it will release more Wi-Fi 7 routers later this year. And as is the case for any cutting-edge piece of wireless tech, don't expect these Wi-Fi 7 routers to come cheap.

The ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 will be available at the end of March 2024 and will be priced at S$1,099.

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