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Asus AX56U upgrade to AX86U or AX88U worth it?

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poolbeetse7en

Occasional Visitor
I am considering upgrading my current Asus AX56U to either the AX86U or AX88U, but I'm not sure if this is really worth doing.

I've had the AX56U for a few years now and it's been great. I even have a second one in my garage purely as an AP. I find sometimes it slows down and takes a while for pages to load etc. I have a few things tunning on the router like AdGuard, so maybe it isn't quite powerful enough. I've also moved the router to the other side of a brick wall which has impacted the WiFI signal strength, so something with better range is also a bonus.

I changed to a GL.iNET MT-6000 OpenWRT router, but I'm really struggling to get IPTV to work, and I'm not a massive fan of the OpenWRT 'Luci' GUI. I wish I could get Merlin on this router and I'd be more than happy to keep it!

Is there another router I should consider that I am overlooking? I just want it to run my IPTV multicast service from my ISP, AdGuard, and a few guest networks. Nothing too fancy. I think I'm maybe asking a little bit too much of the AX56U. Appreciate any suggestions. Thank you!
 
Sorry just to add further to this, what do the 'Pro' variants add? Are they worth the additional premium? Thanks :)
 
Pro gives you a newer platform = longer time before EoL, and it gives you VLAN configuration. Hardware specs can be found online. (FW 3.0.0.6 has network templates to help config new networks; don't know if 3.0.0.4 has the same.)
 
Sorry just to add further to this, what do the 'Pro' variants add?

Non-Pro versions are still supported, but discontinued. There is no new units anymore, only old stock, returned or used. RT-AX86U is 2020 model, RT-AX88U is 2018 model. They will reach End-of-Life first. Get the newer RT-AX86U Pro or RT-AX88U Pro instead with 3006 (Asuswrt 5.0) support.
 

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