REVIEW: ASUS RT-AC86U, a powerful gaming router for Brazil

With the emergence of gaming routers like the ASUS RT-AC86U, we can understand how necessary a product dedicated to fast data exchange functions becomes. The hardware of the renowned Taiwanese manufacturer has as its main highlight the possibility of hitting more than 2900 megabit per second (mbps), a surreal rate for the Brazilian consumer – according to the Speedtest website, which measures the connection speed of its users, the average fixed connection speed in Brazil in August/2020 is 66,73 mbps.

In times where games mobile multiplayer can pass the billion downloads (CoD Mobile e Pokémon Go let them say so!), console and PC gamers have been dealing with heavier games with each major release. With this, the reliability of the connection — not only from the internet provider, but also between the devices and the router — becomes extremely important for gamers on duty.

To let you in on the importance of powerful routers for fluid gaming, we tested the RT-AC86U in different scenarios and configurations. We tell you everything in full with this review, as well as contextualizing ways to recognize connection problems in popular games today.

ASUS RT-AC86U gaming router highlights

The router has the highest technology of today's routers: it is a router Wi-Fi 5 AC2900 — that is, 750 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 2167 Mbps at 5 GHz — with a dual-core processor of 1.8GHz (64-bit), 4 gigabit ethernet ports and 2 USB ports (2.0 and 3.1) to transform the RT-AC86U on a private file server or include a 4G backup connection. As the manufacturer informs you, you can “Connect USB-enabled devices such as external storage drives, printers or a 3G/4G dongle to your ASUS router and conveniently share them with other users via Wi-Fi."

through the system MU-MIMO, we have another key point. If you're downloading a game and simultaneously playing another title on your computer, for example, neither will lose download performance. Consoles like the PlayStation 4 do not do this by default (you need to manually pause a game download if you want to play online games smoothly). Remembering that the Asus RT-AC86U still has security technologies, such as GPN (a gaming VPN).

From the convenience of connected mobile devices in your home, you can enjoy the spectacular technology AIMesh, which automatically switches between compatible mesh routers without you losing your connection – prioritizing the closest one – and also not worrying about migrating your SSID (the name of your connection), a common problem in those who have more than one access point at home.

Speaking of configuration, we have the system ASUSWRT, a very interactive user interface. Whether in customization or configuration, by browser or application (smartphone), ASUS interfaces are excellent for those who want to learn about online connections in an intuitive way.

Finally, another highlight is the QoS (Quality of Service, or quality of service, in free translation), where you can control the connection priorities of the router with your devices. For example: if in your accesses you prioritize games more than anything else, you can put your video game or PC gamer at the top of the list, and the router will direct the highest connection priority.

Test complexity

The speed of almost 3000 Mbps of this router may surprise any Brazilian who is used to the commercial standard of a maximum of 500 Mbps. The fact is that one of the comprehensive surveys carried out by the ANATEL (National Telecommunications Agency) a year ago reports: “In July 2019, almost a third of internet connections in Brazil were above 34 Megabits per Second (Mbps), 10,53 million households (33,23% of the total)”. That is, an average value much lower than the maximum number of connections here.

From my own experience, I have had cases of instability intense with three different operators, in three districts of the capital of São Paulo. In my current test connection with the ASUS router I used a 240 Mbps plan, from which I get spikes 180 Mbps (2.4 or 5GHz option).

When we talk about games, we deal with the variable of servers of each title. Sometimes these are local servers where one of the players serves as a host, such as first-person shooters (franchise Call of Duty), and other times the servers are data centers from a specific region, controlled by the game's own company, such as e-sports and/or MMORPGs hits (League of Legends). In this way, a game can depend both on the internet of another gamer, and on the distance from the headquarters of the game in question - the data centers de Apex Legends e FIFA 20 coins are in São Paulo, for example.

Directly: data is sent to the network by you when you control your character, at the same time you download other players' action data. Because of this, games use download and upload, which forces you to have a consistent rate between both. With this reference, we can understand how complex it is to measure where a problem of latency, that is, what can cause a delay in the exchange of information between the server and you.

Thus, the connection tests of a gaming router become more transparent, as we follow in the practical explanation below.

performance results

The difference mentioned above, about the WTFast, has a preset dedicated to a series of games – check the full list of supported games on the website. For those who have the router, it's free. For other interested parties, it costs US$9.99 per month (about R$50 in direct conversion). Activation, however, is done directly through the ASUS configuration login.

Even though I played the recently released game a lot Fall Guys, game that was free for PlayStation Plus subscribers, I understand that your requirement is much lower than shooting games (and the graphics performance too). Anyway, as far as good online performance is concerned, everything went well in dozens of hours of play.

A game that requires the use of the connection, for being 100% of the time online, is the The Division 2 – Third-person shooter game. Even when loading multiplayer scenarios (in the game, this happens at specific points on the map) the loading happened without raw transitions. Other demanding games to consider are those of the Call of Duty franchise, being WW2 and Modern Warfare. In some games the ping fluctuated, but I believe it was the game: the monitoring via the ASUS app was in constant flow, without showing router connection errors.

That said, in most cases I didn't notice a difference between WTFast on or off. There were peaks and moments of total fluidity in both test scenarios. These last three games mentioned have their own profiles on WTFast, which in theory would help to prioritize connection and data exchange, but whether it really worked was not a factor that weighed much.

Now, what in practice took effect, was to control the QoS to prioritize games. The difference was noticeable and the setup is simple: just drag an item into the app. Otherwise, even though WTFast has a simple interface, you need to leave the page open and merge the selections each time you want to change the game. The gamer looking for practicality will rarely opt for this platform.

Another way to test the connection was to abuse the stream from another device: I downloaded files via computer (torrent) while playing the above mentioned shooting titles on the console. In what in another scenario (with another router) there would be lagging in the game, in the tests with Asus everything went well. It is important to note that I kept the QoS configuration to prioritize games, with “Transferring file” and “Web Browsing” in the background.

On one CPU (wired) and two other devices (wireless), simultaneous download tests were performed and the split performance was slightly better than connecting to the modem itself. Without the need to detail technical points (types of files and services from which I downloaded), I estimate that the download of the two wireless devices sometimes arrived double of Mbps compared to setup alternative without the router.

What we can evaluate apart from the stability of the connection is the signal strength. At this point, the Asus RT-AC86U stands out from the rest. Particularly, it was better than all the routers I've ever used. In my house, the signal strength between the router in the living room and the smartphone in the bedroom (5 walls, about 8 meters in a straight line) remained at the same level. maximum. Furthermore, even outside the house, at what I estimate to be 30 meters and at least 10 walls, it still remained high/medium – even if much slower.

After all, who is the ASUS RT-AC86U for?

By design and dedicated functions, the ASUS RT-AC86U is not afraid to hide its main target audience: the gamer who needs a reliable connection, 24 hours a day. However, due to the interface facilities, long range, high-end configurations and “smart” functions that common routers do not have, it can be enjoyed by a wide range of audiences.

Since in 2020 the home office has become more popular for multiple professional areas, the router can handle a house full of notebooks accessing and downloading online content simultaneously. So if in your home more than one person uses the internet to the fullest, on multiple devices, the ASUS RT-AC86U will manage to divide these connections intelligently, without isolating anyone's performance.

who live in a large residence and you have other routers that support AiMesh, you can only connect to a single network, without worrying about loss of intensity, as this switch between routers is done automatically. If you currently depend on repeaters or more than one signal point (modem) at home, consider this acquisition. Those who share a house with colleagues and have shared internet expenses can even take advantage of the router's more “democratic” network division.

the excellent router ASUS RT-AC86U exceeds any testing expectations, but it can weigh heavily on the pocket of anyone considering purchasing it: it can be found for $ 1.820 in nas Americans. It is worth mentioning that the device with a very similar name, gamer router RT-AC68U, has similar specifications (some are lower) and a slightly more affordable price, in the range of R$1200. However, this second one has a peak of only 1900 Mbps, being dispensable for those who want maximum performance - that only the RT-AC86U tested by us is able to bring.

So, did you like our review of ASUS RT-AC86U and will you exchange for a respectable gamer router? Tell us in the comments!

Technical Specifications – ASUS RT AC86U

Source: Anatel