ASUS RT-AX88U router review: A promising glimpse of the possibilities of Wi-Fi 6

Note: This article was first published on 27th February 2019.

In late September last year, we ran a preview of the ASUS RT-AX88U. It was the first Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) router to be available in Singapore and easily one of the most anticipated routers at that time. If you don’t know what Wi-Fi 6 is, here's our handy guides to better undersand it before proceeding:

• The newbie’s guide to 802.11ax: The next big wireless standard
• Wi-Fi has been renamed, but is it really easier to understand?

In the time since, ASUS has released a new firmware that improves performance and fixes some of the bugs that I encountered during my testing for the performance preview. So here is the full review of the ASUS RT-A88U. Check out the router on ASUS' official Lazmall store too.

The ASUS RT-AX88U

The ASUS RT-AX88U looks familiar on first glance. It looks just like the older RT-AC88U. That is until you look closer and realize it has subtle gold accents around the external antennae and cooling vent which hints at the RT-AX88U’s higher specifications.

The RT-AX88U is one of the few Wi-Fi 6 routers on sale now. Like its contemporaries, the RT-AX88U is powered by the quad-core Broadcom BCM49408 CPU that runs at 1.8GHz. The CPU is paired with a generous 1GB of RAM and 256MB of flash. The RT-AX88U is an AX6000-class dual-band router. Its 2.4GHz network supports a maximum data transfer rate of 1,148Mbps and its 5GHz network supports a maximum data transfer rate of 4,804Mbps. Add them up and you have 5,952Mbps - hence the AX6000 classification.

The router has a lot of ports. There are two USB-A ports that support USB 3.0 - one hidden in front under a flap and another at the back. These can be used for print and file-sharing. And at the back, there’s a single Gigabit WAN port and no less than eight Gigabit LAN ports. One major drawback of the RT-AX88U is that its WAN port only supports speeds of up to 1Gbps and not more like some of its rivals do.

Router management can be done using the conventional ASUSWRT web-based router management interface or via the ASUS Router app that is available for iOS and Android mobile devices. The amount of features and options is bewildering and can be overwhelming to first-time users. Fortunately, the interface is well labeled and logical to navigate. And since ASUS routers are so popular, it’s not hard to find an online guide for them. For most users, what you need to know is that you have all the usual features and functions like parental controls, QoS, bandwidth monitor, traffic monitor, cloud storage, guest networks, VPN, dynamic DNS, and many more.

The most important feature is perhaps AiMesh. To recap, AiMesh is ASUS’ clever feature that allows owners to create their own mesh Wi-Fi network with ASUS routers that they might have lying around. People won’t feel so bad about upgrading their routers if they know they can put their old ones to good use - and especially if it can be used to increase their Wi-Fi coverage. You can find out more about AiMesh and how it works in our guide here.

Test Setup

Since there are no 802.11ax clients or Wi-Fi adapters available, we are conducting this test using two ASUS RT-AX88U routers, one acting as a host and the other as a network bridge. The host and client devices (two ASUS ROG notebooks with Ethernet ports) are then connected to the routers via Ethernet to ensure the fastest possible performance.

The test distances and what they simulate are as follows:

• 5m - in an adjacent room
• 10m - in a room that is farther away
• Second story - One floor above

Before we go on to the performance charts, it is important to note that comparison results from the Linksys EA9500, Netgear Orbi, and Google Wifi were achieved using our usual setup which consists of a MacBook Pro notebook acting as a client device. The MacBook Pro has supports 802.11ac and has a 3x3 radio which can support speeds of up to 1,300Mbps, so naturally, the results won’t be competitive. Even so, this test gives a good idea of what kind of performance users can expect when 802.11ax becomes the predominant wireless standard (antenna configuration and antenna power levels notwithstanding). Let’s see how fast 802.11ax can be from the setup we've in place.

The results are nothing short of impressive. Even at 5 meters, the two RT-AX88U routers managed almost 70% higher speeds than the Linksys EA9500, which is one of the fastest routers we have ever tested - it even won the Best Wireless Router Award at Tech Awards 2017. It is also significantly faster than when we first previewed it last year.

At 10 meters and beyond, the RT-AX88U peels away from the competition like Usain Bolt in a race with a bunch of school kids. Perhaps the most impressive thing is how its performance held up even when we were one floor above. At the second story, the two RT-AX88U routers only saw a performance degradation of less than 20% whereas the other routers couldn’t even maintain a decent connection at that point.

Take note that the results from the mesh capable products were tested with only a single node. The next section deals with the RT-AX88U against multi-node mesh setups.

ASUS RT-AX88U vs. mesh networks

But what about against mesh networks? The graphs above show the RT-AX88U's performance against the mesh performance of the Netgear Orbi and Google Wifi. Even with the Netgear and Google operating in mesh networking mode with a node on the second floor, the RT-AX88U still beats them by a considerable margin. Does the RT-AX88U provide such impressive range that it makes mesh networking systems redundant? It’s hard to say right now without using actual clients supporting the new 802.11ax standard but the numbers are very, very promising.

Things to keep in mind

Though the performance of the RT-AX88U is very good, it is important to remember that these tests were done using two RT-AX88U routers. It's safe to assume that most client devices won’t have Wi-Fi 6 chipsets or radios that are as elaborate or powerful as the RT-AX88U - they would have to be shrunk and made less powerful to fit in devices such as phones and tablets. Furthermore, the sheer size of the router alone enables a better layout of antennas which will undoubtedly have a positive effect on overall performance. Nonetheless, based on what we have seen here at least, Wi-Fi 6 looks like a very promising piece of wireless technology. Certainly much better than what 802.11ad was capable as its underlying technology had a severe performance penalty over increasing distances.

Conclusion

It’s hard to look at these results and not be excited about the possibilities of Wi-Fi 6 and also the ASUS RT-AX88U router. The router’s performance, when compared to every other networking device we have tested so far, is superlative. But the ASUS RT-AX88U isn't perfect. Its most glaring shortcoming is that its WAN port should support higher speeds as Wi-Fi 6 has the capability of delivering speeds well in access of the 1Gbps that we have become accustomed to.

But the biggest reservation that we have is that the kind of speeds that we've experienced here are only attainable with a suitably high-end Wi-Fi 6-compliant client device, of which there are none at the time of writing. There are a couple that are going to be hitting the market really soon, the most prominent of which is the new Samsung Galaxy S10, which happens to be the world's first Wi-Fi 6 capable mobile device. The ASUS ROG Mothership is also one of the first notebooks announced to be supporting Wi-Fi 6.

The only way you can get these speeds now is to get a second Wi-Fi 6-compliant router and that’s a very pricey proposition considering a single ASUS RT-AX88U router is an eye-watering S$599. As it is, the RT-AX88U provides a tantalizing glimpse of the future of Wi-Fi. Power users who demand the absolute best will find the RT-AX88U a compelling upgrade. For everyone else, it's best to wait until Wi-Fi 6 becomes mainstream.

If the wait's too long, get the router at a discounted price from ASUS' Lazmall store now.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.