Best range?

[Tech9]

Why do you say failure ??

Because officially it was 2.4GHz/5GHz chip, but had severe driver support issues at Broadcom, only four products were ever released with this chip for 5GHz, all EoL now and the product is discontinued. It's actually listed as Active at Broadcom, but no one uses it anymore. The last one standing product was RT-AX68U from Asus, also EoL now with shorter than usual life span for AX-class product. I was surprised to see RT-AX86U Pro with BCM6710, but perhaps someone had unused stock. RT-AX86U Pro may also have shorter life span just because of this radio inside. Time will tell. Asus may have to reuse old drivers at some point, whatever was last released upstream.

 

[bibikalka]

Going from RT-AC86U to RT-AX86U Pro resulted in noticeably reduced 2.4 GHz range with my phone. This was especially true when comparing AC to AC performance, but even when running the AX86U Pro in AX mode for the 2.4 GHz band and my phone connecting with 2.4 GHz AX, range was still less than with the phone on 2.4 GHz AC talking to the AC86U router. Considering that these two routers have identical form factor, identical antenna layout, and were identically located and oriented, I think this was a true assessment. Overall, it was a bit of let-down. I had to purchase an outdoor AP to get my outdoor range back.

Used AC86U is ~$40 on eBay now, hard to beat in every sense of the word then!

 

[jksmurf]

Used AC86U is ~$40 on eBay now, hard to beat in every sense of the word then!

If you search this forum for issues with failing (HW Failures) RT-AC86U's, you would see why many would approach this specific model with a wee bit of caution.

 

[maxbraketorque]

If you search this forum for issues with failing (HW Failures) RT-AC86U's, you would see why many would approach this specific model with a wee bit of caution.

I've got four that never failed me. Now gathering dust. Bigger issue is that this router is EOL. Somehow, ASUS keeps cranking out updated firmwares for this router, but that could end at any time.

At this point in time its either an AX or BE router, IMO. My GT-AX6000s are at the top of the dual band AX class and have been great both in terms of price and performance, but its now a 3-year old router. Currently on Amazon for $260. The closest current BE equivalent is the RT-BE88U which is $330 on Amazon. Its a 2-year old router but its based on BE, so I expect EOL should be more than a year after the GT-AX6000 goes EOL.

So the question comes down to AX at a lower price but sooner EOL, or BE at higher price but likely significantly later EOL.

 

[jksmurf]

So the question comes down to AX at a lower price but sooner EOL, or BE at higher price but likely significantly later EOL.

Yep, absolutely. With Wi-Fi 7 not exactly blowing Wi-Fi 6 out of the water, MLO still a bit wobbly, it’s a very good question indeed. BE would have to improve a lot to move the AX-BE-ometer significantly to the BE side…

 

[RMerlin]

Yep, absolutely. With Wi-Fi 7 not exactly blowing Wi-Fi 6 out of the water, MLO still a bit wobbly, it’s a very good question indeed. BE would have to improve a lot to move the AX-BE-ometer significantly to the BE side…

It depends.

Wifi 7 is able to fully saturate my NAS's 2.5 Gbps Ethernet interface, without requiring MLO (no idea what the real max speed is, I don't have anything fast enough to test against it). Wifi 6e would cap at around 1.8 Gbps of throughput.

 

[Tech9]

Wifi 7 is able to fully saturate my NAS's 2.5 Gbps Ethernet interface

This is not happening with RT-BE88U @maxbraketorque is looking at. Only "true" Wi-Fi 7 devices with 6GHz band.