Best Products Networking The 9 Best Gaming Routers of 2021 These routers will give you the speed and competitive edge needed to win by Jesse Hollington Writer Jesse Hollington is a tech writer with 10+ years' experience. He has written for iLounge, Forbes, Yahoo, The Independent, and iDropNews, among others. our editorial process Twitter LinkedIn Jesse Hollington Updated on February 23, 2021 The Ultimate Router Buying Guide The Ultimate Router Buying Guide Introduction Router Basics What Is a Router and How Does It Work? How to Pick the Right Wireless Router Router Standards Explained Modem vs Router Can You Use Two Routers Same Network? Do I Need a Modem and a Router? Routers, Switches and Hubs Explained How to Find Your Router's IP Addresses What Is MIMO Technology? 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We may receive commissions on purchases made from our chosen links. The Rundown Best Overall: Asus GT-AX11000 at Best Buy "This ultra-fast Wi-Fi 6 router offers a ton of network optimization features designed specifically for gamers." Best Value: Netgear XR300 at Walmart "Anti-Buffer Bloat technology ensures that your gaming devices get their own Wi-Fi express lane." Best for Hardcore Gamers: Razer Sila at Amazon "Offers amazing performance for serious gamers in a package that's attractive and easy to set up." Best Design: Netgear Nighthawk RAX80 at Amazon "A powerful Wi-Fi 6 router that provides amazing performance even for older Wi-Fi 5 devices." Best Security: Asus ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 at Amazon "Has built-in game acceleration that optimizes routes to game servers with low ping times." Best Tri-Band: Netgear Nighthawk X6 R8000 at Best Buy "This router offers one of the fastest combined Wi-Fi speeds in uninterrupted tests." Best Budget: TP-Link Archer A7 AC1750 at Amazon "Also features convenient control options as you can operate the device with the intuitive TP-Link Tether app." Best for Xbox: Linksys WRT32XB at Amazon "Automatically prioritizes gaming traffic from your Xbox One, reducing peak ping times by up to 65%" Best Speed: Netgear Nighthawk X10 at Amazon "Offers ultrafast WiGig speeds plus six Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports and an integrated Plex Media server" The best gaming routers are designed to deliver the smoothest possible experience for online gaming by offering super-fast speeds and a collection of advanced optimization features designed specifically to give you the advantage you need in fast-paced online games. While serious gamers will also need to look to putting together the best gaming PCs, it’s important to have a router that can keep up with even the most demanding games to make sure that your gaming traffic moves in the fast lane. To really dominate the online battlefields, you need more than just a fast wireless router—it also needs to do everything it can to avoid network latency, which is the most common cause of gaming lag—the kind of thing that causes everything to freeze up just as you’re about to make that critical headshot. The best gaming routers go beyond a typical high-performance wireless router with multi-core CPUs and gaming-centric QoS features that make sure that your traffic gets top priority, no matter what anybody else in your home is doing. Our collection of the best gaming routers are for anybody who wants to up their game, but they can also make sure that everybody else in your home gets the performance they need for streaming and video calling too. Best Overall: Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 Wi-Fi 6 Router 4.6 Buy on Best Buy Buy on B&H Photo Video Buy on EBay What We Like Advanced Wi-Fi 6 Support Great performance and range Cutting-edge game-centric QoS What We Don't Like Large footprint Expensive Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 Router Review The Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is one of the most powerful gaming routers you can get right now, offering unparalleled range and performance in a router that packs in all of the latest gaming optimization features. Blazing-fast 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 performance offers up to 10Gbps of throughput for Wi-Fi 6, plus tri-band Wi-Fi that remains compatible with the more common 802.11ac standards, plus an eight-antenna beamforming array that provides enough coverage for even the largest homes. If those Wi-Fi speeds still aren't fast enough, however, you'll find four Gigabit Ethernet ports around back to hardwire in your gear, along with a dedicated 2.5Gbps gaming port for maximum speed. Thanks to its 1.8GHz quad-core CPU that's been designed specifically for gamers, there are also a wealth of smart features here to help you up your game, including WTFast game acceleration, VPN Fusion to isolate your gaming traffic from your VPN, and Dynamic QoS that automatically prioritizes gaming traffic. Games Radar will also keep you connected to the fastest servers for the most popular online games, and Asus offers the most flexibility of any router we've seen when it comes to optimizing your Wi-Fi, letting you set up a separate SSID for each 5GHz band to help separate your traffic, or configure advanced rules to prioritize and steer higher-bandwidth traffic to the fastest and least congested frequencies. You also get all of Asus' other great security and networking features here too, including a built-in VPN server and client, adaptive firewall, and more, plus AIMesh technology that lets you connect a mix of Asus routers to create a mesh network to expand coverage throughout your home (and keep the non-gamers off the important Wi-Fi)—although, with the range and coverage the GT-AX11000 offers by itself, you probably won't need it. "If you do a lot of gaming, or if you just have a lot of data-hungry devices connected to your wireless network on a daily basis, then the ROG Rapture AX11000 won’t disappoint." — Jeremy Laukkonen, Product Tester Best Value: Netgear XR300 Pro Gaming Router Buy on Walmart Buy on EBay Buy on Office Depot What We Like Highly configurable options for gamers Prioritizes Wi-Fi gaming traffic Easy to install and configure What We Don't Like Lacklustre long-range performance Security and parental control features are fairly basic Netgear's Nighthawk XR300 Pro Gaming router is just about the most affordable option you'll find in the realm of routers that actually offer gamer-specific configuration features, but don't let its low price fool you, since while it does involve a few compromises, they've been made in exactly the right places. For example, most gamers don't require the kind of raw speed that an AX11000 or even AC5300 router provides, so the XR300's AC1750 speeds shouldn't scare you off, since low latency (low ping times) are far more important for lag-free gaming performance, and the XR300 has that nailed thanks to a powerful 1GHz dual-core CPU. Further, thanks to what Netgear calls its Anti-Buffer Bloat (ABB) technology, the XR300 will ensure that other devices that are using your Wi-Fi won't slow down your gaming performance. This basically gives your gaming traffic a fast lane over Wi-Fi to make sure that it gets top priority. Since most gamers would rather be playing than tinkering, the XR300 is also a breeze to set up and configure, thanks to its DumaOS interface, which gives you an easy dashboard to visualize your network configuration and performance, plus a whole bunch of settings that are already optimized for gaming, letting you see what kind of performance each of your devices are getting, and even easily dial back those devices that might be hogging your bandwidth. Four Gigabit Ethernet ports can also be found on the back for hardwiring in a PC or game console, along with a front-facing USB port for sharing files from a USB flash drive. Best for Hardcore Gamers: Razer Sila Buy on Amazon Buy on Walmart Buy on EBay What We Like Simple to set up Sleek design Gaming-focused features What We Don't Like Only three LAN ports Limited parental controls and malware protection Narrow focus on gaming features makes it less ideal for everyday use If you’re a serious gamer you’re almost certainly familiar with Razer, which makes a wide variety of gaming hardware from headsets and mice to some pretty awesome gaming laptops, but you might not know that it also offers a Wi-Fi router. Razer’s Sila is the result of the company’s partnership with Ignition Design Labs that combines the technology created for the Portal router with Razer’s own experience with gaming systems. Under the hood, Sila is an AC3000 tri-band router that offers surprisingly great performance considering that it has no antennas protruding from it. You won’t get blazing fast speeds in every corner of the largest homes, but you can tell by its design that Razer expects you to put this one near your gaming rig anyway. The real magic here is Razer’s FasTrack QoS, SmartLanes, and FastLanes technologies that automatically give your games maximum priority and use special algorithms to keep your traffic on congestion-free 5GHz Wi-Fi channels. The result is a Wi-Fi router that’s razor-focused (no pun intended) on hardcore gaming. Not only does it offer amazing low latency and lag-free performance, but since any serious gamer would rather be playing Overwatch or Call of Duty than messing with their router settings, it’s also incredibly simple to get up and running for maximum gaming performance. While it’s a fantastic router for pure gamers, however, this narrow focus also makes it less suitable for more general use, since it lacks malware protection, has weak parental controls, and is designed to always give gaming traffic the highest priority, even if you’d rather be watching Netflix. The 9 Best Gaming PCs of 2021 “Razer’s Sila is a gaming router through-and-through, with powerful performance for users who live, eat, breathe, and sleep gaming, but its focus may be too narrow for those looking for other features.” — Jesse Hollington, Tech Writer Best Design: Netgear Nighthawk RAX80 8-Stream AX6000 Wi-Fi 6 Router 4.5 Buy on Amazon Buy on Walmart Buy on B&H Photo Video What We Like Sleek design Wi-Fi 6 support Excellent performance What We Don't Like Expensive Netgear Nighthawk RAX80 Router Review Not only is Netgear’s Nighthawk RAX80 a great gaming router, but it looks the part too, thanks to the hawk-like wings that encase its four high-powered antennas. This gets you up to 2,500 square feet of Wi-Fi coverage at speeds of up to 4.8Gbps on the 5GHz band and 1.2Gbps on the 2.4GHz side. It’s also Wi-Fi 6 capable, meaning you’ll get the fastest and most reliable performance on the latest smartphones, and while most game consoles and PCs aren’t there yet, this router means you’ll be ready when they are. There’s also support for other leading-edge technologies too like MU-MIMO and 160MHz channels, letting you get gigabit speeds to every one of your devices that can handle them. With eight simultaneous streams and a 64-bit 1.8GHz quad-core CPU, more devices can use full-speed Wi-Fi at the same time, so you don’t need to worry about your family members or roommates slowing down your connection just as you’re about to take that critical kill shot in Call of Duty. If you’re still not confident in the Wi-Fi performance, though, or if your gaming console or PC isn’t up to the task, there are four Gigabit Ethernet ports that let you hardwire in, plus the ability to use 802.3ad link aggregation to tie two of them together for a single 2Gbps link. "The Netgear Nighthawk RAX80 is a fantastic Wi-Fi 6 router, but you won’t see it live up to its full potential unless you have a lot of Wi-Fi 6 devices." — Jeremy Laukkonen, Product Tester Best Security: Asus ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 Gaming Router 4.5 Buy on Amazon Buy on Best Buy Buy on B&H Photo Video What We Like Eight Gigabit Ethernet ports Two USB 3.0 ports Gamers Private Network What We Don't Like Expensive Large footprint Asus ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 Review The Asus GT-AC5300 is a tri-band router that's built specifically for gamers. With maximum throughput of 5,334Mbps across the two 5GHz bands and single 2.4GHz band, our testing showed there's enough performance here to keep your gaming going fast, especially with MU-MIMO and beamforming to ensure that your PCs and gaming consoles get maximum signal directed straight at them. With enough power to cover a 5,000 square foot home, Asus also offers some of the most comprehensive Wi-Fi configuration options out there, so you can set up a separate SSID for each of your 5GHz bands to keep your gaming console traffic away from the rest of your family, or even configure advanced rules to prioritize and steer your higher-bandwidth traffic to the appropriate band automatically. There are also a whopping eight Gigabit Ethernet ports around back, so there's plenty of room to jack in if the Wi-Fi isn't cutting it, and it's especially great for LAN parties. What really makes the GT-AC5300 stand out from the pack, however, is its support for gaming optimization features through the ROG Game Dashboard that lets you find the fastest and lowest latency servers via the WTFast Gamers Private Network (GPN), VPN Fusion to bypass your normal VPN connections so you can keep your surfing private without slowing down your games, and Game IPS from Trend Micro that protects your gaming network from hackers and malware. The complicated interface may be a bit overwhelming for some users, but it's worth it to be able to tweak the performance to fit your exact needs. "The Asus ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 is a tri-band router that’s packed with features gamers and power users will love." — Yoona Wagener, Product Tester Best Tri-Band: Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router (R8000) 4.3 Buy on Best Buy Buy on B&H Photo Video Buy on Home Depot What We Like Fast Wi-Fi performance Smart Connect feature Good coverage What We Don't Like Expensive Bulky design Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router Review As you’ve no doubt noticed while reading the rest of this list, the Netgear Nighthawk series of routers offers a ton of bandwidth options for the wireless gamer. The X6 gives you plenty of speed with a three-band system, and even features Smart Connect tech which ensures each device is connected to the appropriate band for maximum speeds. At a max speed of 3.2Gbps, our testing revealed that this router offers some of the fastest combined Wi-Fi speeds in its class in uninterrupted tests. There are six high-performance antennas on the outside, ensuring plenty of signal coverage for your home. There's also a 1GHz internal processor to help prevent lag during gaming, and beamforming technology which bolsters the processor and works in tandem with the physical antennas. There are four LAN ports for wired browsing and a USB-C port for additional connectivity. You can visit the Netgear website to access the open-source software of the device to help customize it for your use. "We could consistently operate six to seven devices at once without any speed drops or major performance issues across all three bands."— Yoona Wagener, Product Tester Best Budget: TP-Link Archer A7 AC1750 Smart Wi-Fi Router Buy on Amazon Buy on Walmart Buy on B&H Photo Video What We Like Inexpensive More traditional design Good range What We Don't Like Dual-Band Wi-Fi Only Without the imposing look of some of the other gaming-centric router lines like the Netgear Nighthawk, you might overlook this offering from TP-Link. But with plenty of speed and a ton of interesting smart features, that would be a mistake. The AC1750 gives you two bands of reliable Wi-Fi, combining for a max transfer speed of 1,750Mbps (450Mbps for 2.4GHz and 1.3Gbps for the 5GHz), making it perfect for high-demand media streaming. Three large external antennas give you reliable signal and a wide range, and four LAN inputs and a USB-C port offer additional connectivity. The router also features convenient control options as you can operate the device with the intuitive TP-Link Tether app. That said, arguably the coolest feature offered by this router is its compatibility with smart home devices via Amazon's Alexa. Round that all out with an inclusive two-year warranty and a few consumer reliability awards, and you’ve got a router you can rest easy purchasing. The 10 Best Budget Routers in 2021 Best for Xbox: Linksys WRT32X Dual-Band Gaming Router for Xbox Buy on Amazon Buy on Walmart What We Like Killer Prioritization Engine Low latency design Gamer-centric interface What We Don't Like Requires a gaming PC with specific hardware to take full advantage of its features Lacks customization options like parental controls If you're an Xbox gamer and you're looking for the ultimate in network performance, you'll want to check out Linksys' WRT32XB. It's the first router in Microsoft's "Designed for Xbox" accessory program, taking the Killer Prioritization Engine designed for hardcore PC gaming rigs and optimizing it specifically to recognize and speed up traffic coming from an Xbox One, reducing peak ping times by up to 65 percent for your online games. The WRT32XB is actually a gaming-centric version of the popular WRT3200ACM router, so it gives you the same great performance and powerful open source capabilities of its sibling, with firmware that's tweaked very specifically for the needs of serious gamers. Although it's specifically optimized for the Xbox One out of the box, the Killer Prioritization Engine can also still handle gaming traffic from PCs with Killer network cards, such as those from brands like Alienware, MSI, or Razer for faster lag-free gaming. You can also monitor and control all of your gaming traffic, whether it's from your Xbox One or your Alienware PC right from the PC-based Killer Control Center app. While the focus is obviously on Xbox gaming, the WRT32XB is still a really solid router for things like 4K streaming, and it's fully customizable too thanks to support for open source OpenWrt and DD-WRT firmware, so you can tailor it to your specific gaming needs with alternative firmware packages. The hardware is no slouch either, with a 1.8GHz CPU, tri-band AC3200 Wi-Fi, beamforming antennas, MU-MIMO support, and Tri-Stream 160 Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) that helps it stay on the least congested channels in your neighbourhood. The 10 Best Linksys Routers of 2021 Best Speed: Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Smart Wi-Fi Router 4 Buy on Amazon Buy on Dell What We Like Six Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports Integrated Plex Media Server 10 Gbps SFP+ Port for Fibre and NAS connections What We Don't Like Client devices need 802.11ad for maximum speeds Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Router Review With combined speeds up to 7.2Gbps, the Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 is a beast that offers some of the fastest Wi-Fi perofrmance available, making it a top choice for gaming, assuming you have the hardware in your PC or console to back it up. The Nighthawk X10 uses both 802.11ac and 60GHz 802.11ad for fast Wi-Fi connectivity that also delivers incredibly smooth 4K streaming and quick downloads. Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 is built with a 1.7GHz quad-core processor that allocates fast bandwidth speeds via wireless connections or through one of its six Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports for wired connections. Its MU-MIMO allows for stable links with multiple streaming scenarios, and its 160MHz channels offer plenty of Wi-Fi speed overhead in a less congested range. Assuming your ISP provides the speed, the Nighthawk X10 is also capable of giving you a 10-gigabit fiber connection directly, although the 10Gbps SFP+ port is more typically used for connecting a high-speed NAS device. It comes with an integrated Plex media server so you can organize all your media through the router and stream your content to your set-top box, PC, smartphone, or tablet. "This 802.11ad router’s strongest selling point might be the impressively robust nature of its 5 GHz network." — Jeremy Laukkonen, Product Tester Final Verdict With advanced Wi-Fi 6 technology, 5,000 square feet of coverage, a powerful quad-core CPU, and a wealth of game optimization features, Asus’s ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is the ultimate gaming router. Naturally, all that power comes a high price tag, however, and the more wallet-friendly Netgear XR300 offers many of the same gaming features in a package that’s much more suitable for smaller homes and families. How We Tested Our picks for the best gaming routers are tested under the most rigorous conditions. Our trusted experts use free tools like Ookla's Speedtest to determine the relative speed of a router in its current networking environment before logging into some matches of Apex Legends or Overwatch to determine the severity or frequency of any latency with a particular model. About Our Trusted Experts Jesse Hollington is a freelance writer with over 10 years of experience writing about technology and three decades of experience in information technology and networking. He's installed, tested, and configured just about every type and brand of router, firewall, wireless access point, and network extender in places ranging from single-family dwellings to office buildings. university campuses, and even coast-to-coast wide-area network (WAN) deployments. Jeremy Laukkonen is an experienced tech journalist with a background in automotive repair that has taught him the importance of breaking down complex technical subjects in understandable ways. He specializes in VPNs, antivirus, and home electronics, and manages his own automotive blog on the side. Yoona Wagener has a background in content and technical writing. She has written for BigTime Software, Idealist Careers, and other small tech companies. Yoona enjoys helping people simplify processes. She has experience providing technical support and help documentation to end users, building websites for small business owners, and offering career advice to social-impact job seekers. FAQ How do I know if I really need a Gaming Router?If you’ve got a powerful gaming PC or console and you still find that your games are lagging and freezing up, then you need a router that can handle your gaming traffic. Even though some of the best wireless routers may get the job done, gaming routers are a special breed of devices that are focused on helping you up your game. The best gaming routers are guaranteed to deliver the raw performance you need for serious gaming with a wealth of optimization features to make sure that your gaming traffic moves fast and gets maximum priority. What is “Low Ping?”“Ping times” are a measure of network latency, which represents how fast even the smallest packets of data can travel from your computer to their destination. You can measure your ping times using online tools like Speedtest.net, and for online gaming, low ping times—less than 100ms—are far more important than raw speed, since game traffic isn’t about moving a lot of data so much as it’s moving many smaller pieces of data as quickly as possible. Just keep in mind that while the best gaming routers can significantly reduce ping times, you’ll still experience some latency from your ISP.Should I used a wired connection for gaming? Many hardcore gamers don’t trust wireless connections at all for serious online gaming, and those fears aren’t without merit as there was a time when Wi-Fi added significant latency and unreliability to gaming traffic. With modern gaming routers, however, that’s no longer an issue, and most of the best gaming routers will provide amazing performance over a wireless connection, as long as you remain within a reasonable range and don’t overload it with too many devices. The Ultimate Gaming Router Buying Guide If you're a serious gamer, or you have one in your household, you'll know that gamers are a special breed when it comes to making demands on your home network. It's not enough just to have a fast router, or a long-range router, or one that provides good mesh network coverage throughout your home; you also need to make sure that it can offer the kind of lag-free performance that your favourite first-person shooters demand. After all, there's nothing worse than having your network slow down just as you're about to make that critical kill shot in Call of Duty. A solid gaming router not only delivers when it comes to low latency, but it also needs to be able to recognize gaming traffic so that it can make sure it gets priority, since you don't want to be slowed down just because somebody else in your home is downloading 4K movies. In fact, some of the better gaming routers can not only make sure your gaming traffic goes through first, but even direct it to the fastest servers automatically while also providing an intelligent firewall to protect the rest of your network and keep your gaming traffic from getting slowed down by a VPN, packing in the kind of processing power that's necessary to manage it all. Keep in mind though that just because you're looking for a router that's focused on gaming doesn't mean that you need to cut corners in other areas, or even that you should. Since gaming routers usually offer really fast performance, this makes them great choices for many other things too, such as streaming 4K movies, offering advanced quality-of-service features to prioritize other traffic such as voice and video calls, and more. Lifewire / Yoona Wagener Why Buy a Gaming Router? A good network connection can make all the difference between success and failure in many fast-paced online games, so there's no doubt that it should be a key part of your tool belt if you're a serious gamer. While you might get by with a high-performance general purpose router, it's hard to beat the more focused performance and advanced optimization features that a proper gaming router can offer. Make no mistake, though, just because you happen to play games doesn't mean you need a gaming router—it's not going to help you get higher scores at Candy Crush, for instance—but at the same time just about anybody can benefit from the great performance and features that gaming routers offer, so while one of these doesn't need to be your first choice if you're not a gamer, you shouldn't rule out buying one simply because it has the word "gaming" in the description. Quality of Service Quality of Service, or QoS is just a fancy term for a feature that allows a router to identity different types of network traffic so that it can decide what should get priority. For example, real-time internet activities such as gaming, video calling, and streaming are generally more time-sensitive than simply downloading large files, sending emails, or surfing the web. If an email you're sending takes a few seconds longer to go through because you've added a large attachment, you probably won't even notice, but you'll definitely feel the pain if the movie you're watching starts stuttering because your TV can't maintain a fast enough connection to the Netflix servers. The same is also true with gaming, where traffic needs to get through fast enough to ensure that when you pull the trigger, everybody else in the game immediately knows about it—especially the player on the receiving end. To be clear, QoS isn't all that critical if you have a really fast internet connection, since it's hard for most families to saturate a Gigabit fibre service, but most gaming routers include the feature anyway, so you'll always be able to benefit from it. Best of all, you usually don't have to do much of anything to set it up, since the whole point of a gaming router is for it to identify gaming traffic and make sure it gets priority, ensuring that you'll always be able to make those critical headshots even when other family members are watching Netflix. Low Latency Among the most important features unique to gaming routers is guaranteeing lag-free connections by ensuring that it doesn't take any more time than absolutely necessary to process network traffic and move it on to its destination. This is sometimes described as offering low latency or low "ping times." In this context, you can think of your router as a really fast post office. Each piece of data that passes through it still has to be scanned and forwarded on to its destination, and just like in the real post office, there's going to be some delay involved while addresses and routes are checked. While these processing times are measured in fractions of a second rather than days, they're still present, and the faster a router can move your data, the better. Lifewire / Yoona Wagener While some latency is unavoidable, gaming routers include faster and more efficient CPUs than you'll find in most typical routers, so they can process traffic more quickly and handle more traffic at once. This is especially important when it comes to features like QoS, as it takes even more time to figure out which traffic to prioritize. This is why not just any router can meet the demands of gamers simply because it supports QoS—it also has to be able to sort that traffic out fast to avoid creating even more lag. Note that latency isn't the same as bandwidth. Although they're both part of how fast your router can handle traffic, to go back to our post office analogy, bandwidth would be the size and speed of the trucks that deliver the mail, while latency is the time it takes to actually process the mail and get it onto the trucks. Special Gaming Features All gaming routers offer advanced QoS features and low latency that will provide almost everything you need for solid gaming performance, but the best ones go the extra mile by offering a variety of gaming-centric features to quite literally up your game. One example of this is support for the WTFast Gamers Private Network (GPN), a specialized service that automatically routes your gaming connections to the fastest servers available, ensuring that your traffic travels along the fastest routes even after it leaves your home network, since even the fastest and lowest latency router can't help if you're dealing with a slower connection on the other end. Some gaming routers also offer special features such as the Republic of Gamers (ROG) GameFirst or the Killer Prioritization Engine that can automatically communicate with specially equipped gaming PCs to ensure that traffic from those devices always gets priority through the router. Wired vs. Wireless Wi-Fi has gotten a bad rap among gamers, since issues with interference and network congestion often create additional latency and other performance problems. Fortunately, modern gaming routers have come a long way in addressing these issues, thanks to features like MU-MIMO, beamforming antennas, multiple frequency bands, and advanced Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax support. These come together to offer the kind of performance that gamers demand from their internet connections, and for the most part, if a well-known brand is promoting their Wi-Fi router as a gaming router, you can be sure that it's been designed to offer solid Wi-Fi performance as well, so for the most part, we're well past the days of needing to jack in your gaming console or PC. That said, every gaming router provides at least four Gigabit Ethernet ports, with some offering up to eight, and a few of the newest high-end gaming routers even offer special 2.5Gbps gaming ports for the ultimate in wired performance. So in the event your Wi-Fi isn't cutting it, or you just don't want to take any chances, you always have the option of a hardwired connection. Lifewire / Yoona Wagener Range and Coverage How much range and coverage you'll need in a gaming router is going to largely depend on where your gaming PC or console is in relation to the router. While many gaming routers provide solid coverage, there's no need to make that a priority if your router is going to be in the same room as your gaming rig, although of course you'll still want to consider the other devices in your home too. Keep in mind as well that even though a router offers good range and coverage, speeds decrease as you move farther away. For example, many higher-end routers can easily cover a 5,000 square foot home, but you may only get the kind of gaming performance you need when you're closer to it. If your router needs to be some distance away from your gaming PC or console you may need to look to a Wi-Fi extender, Powerline adapter, or mesh solution to bridge the gap. Some brands like Asus also offer their own AiMesh technology, so you can extend your network by purchasing a second Asus router, which can also offer the benefit of keeping the non-gamers off your important Wi-Fi. Dual-Band or Tri-Band? Unless you plan to hardwire in your gaming console or PC, you'll want a router that offers at least dual-band 802.11ac support as a bare minimum. This allows older and slower devices to connect on the lower-frequency 2.4GHz band, while your gaming and streaming devices can use the higher-frequency 5GHz band, which offers faster speeds and is less prone to interference from other household devices like microwave ovens, cordless phones, and Bluetooth speakers. If you have multiple family members who want to game or stream movies at the same time, you'll benefit from a tri-band router, which offers a second 5GHz band to help separate traffic to avoid congestion. Many gaming routers also support a feature called "band steering," which can automatically direct your gaming devices into their own high-speed 5GHz lane for maximum performance, since even the best QoS features won't help if your gaming traffic can't make it to the router in the first place. Keep in mind, however, that any given device can only connect to a single band at a time, so you'll only benefit from the additional 5GHz band if you have several active 802.11ac devices; you probably don't need a tri-band router if you live by yourself or have other family members that are extremely light internet users. Top Brands Asus With its flagship GT-AX11000 as the latest entry in its GT series of gaming routers, Asus has become one of the leading names in the category, and even its more general-purpose RT series routers offer some pretty advanced gaming features. While you'll pay a slight premium for Asus' gaming routers, the investment is well worth it if you're a serious gamer, since Asus' packs in many advanced features for gamers, including WTFast Gamers Private Network support, GameBoost QoS that's specifically designed to optimize gaming traffic, and even VPN Fusion to let you keep your VPN up and running without worrying about it slowing down your gaming. Plus, if you're using Asus notebooks or PCs, its Republic of Gamers (ROG) ecosystem will make everything work together seamlessly for maximum performance. Netgear Although Netgear only makes a couple of gaming-centric routers like the XR500, its entire Nighthawk lineup of routers are some of the best in the industry, and can be trusted to provide outstanding performance for a wide variety of applications, making its routers a great choice if you're looking for something that's more suited to not only gaming but also things like streaming while being easy to configure and still providing good performance and coverage. Razer For gaming enthusiasts, the name Razer needs no introduction, as the company is well known for its lineup of PCs, laptops, keyboards, mice and other gaming hardware, so serious gamers will appreciate that the company offers its own routers as well. The Razer Sila is a high-end router that's focused strongly on gamers — although somewhat to the exclusion of anything else — while the Portal offers one of the few mesh solutions designed to prioritize gaming traffic. Lifewire / Yoona Wagener Conclusion By necessity, gaming routers offer some of the best networking performance you can get, so it's probably not surprising that they don't come cheap. If you're a serious gamer, the investment in a good gaming router will be well worth it, but keep in mind that a router can't help out much if your internet connection isn't up to snuff, so you may need to consider replacing your cable modem too, especially if you find that you're not getting good ping times. QoS can help if you're sharing a slow connection, but it can't do much about latency. Also be sure that when buying a gaming router you don't forget about the other devices in your house. Even if your gaming rig is going to be in the same room, you'll want to ensure your router offers good coverage and performance for all of your other devices to get the bandwidth they need. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. Thank you for signing up. Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit