Are the new RT-BE96U / GT-BE98_PRO really worth it over my current Asus RT-AX88U?

[Tech9]

I would upgrade the router only when I have at least 10 devices 6GHz capable excluding phones and tablets. Otherwise it's like investing in speed tests and accepting beta tester membership. Why paying premium for a router you don't really need today? By the time you actually need it it will burn 2-3 years of support already with 2-3 years at best to EoL. Look at home AIO routers as disposable hardware. No much futureproofing there.

 

[Deleted member 66500]

I would upgrade the router only when I have at least 10 devices 6GHz capable excluding phones and tablets.

I don't buy that argument of upgrading the router when "at least 10 devices" are 6 GHz capable, when I actively spend more than 90 % of my usage and productive time on my 2 Macbook Airs (one work, another personal) - whose 6 GHz performance in latency and throughput is what I actually care about, within my intranet, from my NAS. I don't care about the 10-15 IoT devices on the 2.4 GHz band. And being in the crowded 5 GHz bands is not proving great on the Macbook Airs. Hence 6 GHz is worth looking into.

While I'm not into buying gear for the sake of it, I'm prepared to invest in worthwhile gains. Which is why I'm doing these explorations across the merlin-supported routers for the best strategy.

 

[Tech9]

Explore and test your luck then. Let us know the results. Best strategy - for guaranteed results high bandwidth devices must be wired.

 

[CornfieldWin]

So, had my Asus RT-AX88U since 2019, no problems with it as far as I know. But what would I gain from going over to the super expensive RT-BE96U / GT-BE98_PRO models (outside of supporting newer wifi standards)?

The new models seem to hit absurd prices, and I am not sure why. So I kinda have a hard time justifying getting one of them if there isnt a major reason to upgrade.

Any advice from you guys?..

So, had my Asus RT-AX88U since 2019, no problems with it as far as I know. But what would I gain from going over to the super expensive RT-BE96U / GT-BE98_PRO models (outside of supporting newer wifi standards)?

The new models seem to hit absurd prices, and I am not sure why. So I kinda have a hard time justifying getting one of them if there isnt a major reason to upgrade.

Any advice from you guys?..

I don't know which is more irritating - the advice to never change just because it isn't broken yet or the advice to change to in order to stay in fashion. I have a AX88U Pro. Not an AX86U because that model is a dead end. It has an older processor which means won't get firmware upgrades, and far, far worse does not have MERLINwrt support. Funny I haven't seen that not so trivial attribute mentioned in regards to obsolescence. The AX88U Pro, however, shares the same processor as the new WIFI 7 BE product line. It does get firmware upgrades and will do so until WIFI 7 products appear with divergent hardware so firmware support will continue for some time.

Most to the point - I will not buy another brand of non-ASUS router or try to run god awful public domain firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato. ASUSwrt is already the best router UI in the industry and has been for the last 15 years. But it pales in comparison to its open source spin off MERLINwrt which upgrades the source released by ASUS. Vanilla MERLINwrt is worth the upgrade for a full compatible display plus a few upgrades with the additional benefit of continual updates and fixes compared to ASUSwrt reaching a stable release and stopping. But ... with the AMTM script installer used via SSH, MERLINwrt explodes into an amazing home network management system integrated deep into the Webgui - the familiar ASUSwrt UI on steroids from a user/sys admin perspective. You can get rid of all external DSN servers for very significant speed up, privacy, and network safety by running your on fully recursive resolving DNS on the router with the popular Unbound package. Add much enhanced firewall features with also popular Skynet package. Add ad blocking with the Diversity package. Add network usage and other monitoring tools, complete router backup, and the like. Most of this appears in the Webgui which really lets you know what is going on with router and to control much of it. There is nothing I know of which does all these things so well with such a clean and useable UI (web based, I don't care for system admin by phone screen). All you need is basic ssh experience and tolerance for tracking down the occasional UNIX style wrinkle (or just ignore the option).

 

[CornfieldWin]

What (or why) do you fear on missing out on by using the RT-AX88U instead of buying a RT-BE96U or GT-BE98_PRO?

The AX88U runs on obsolete hardware which will not get firmware upgrades. I doubt it ever reached VLAN state but if it did, it will go no farther. The AX88U Pro, however, runs on the newer processor which power the WIFI 7 BE product line as well. It does and will get firmware upgrades, although from ASUS that is like waiting for a glacier to melt (completely). At the very least check out the open source MERLINwrt for a safe upgrade and enhance UI very similar to the ASUSwrt base code which ASUS puts in the public domain. It does get upgrades and has several improved features. To build your router into an amazingly compete home network management system check out MERLINwrt plus the AMTM installed scripts installed through ssh.