Asus moving some devices to EOL while issues still remain

[KrypteX]

Not really. Asus just kept going with RT-AC68U as model number, but there were many hardware changes with different radios (C1), different CPUs from 800/1000MHz to 14000MHz (AC68P) up to completely different NHD platform (V4). If you noticed later firmware for RT-AC68U was double size - it had images for different hardware.

AC68P is not 1400MHz.

 

[CaptainSTX]

AC68P is not 1400MHz.

If the AC68P = the AC1900P then the dual core processor is 1,400 Mhz.

 

[KrypteX]

If the AC68P = the AC1900P then the dual core processor is 1,400 Mhz.

AC68P is in fact AC68Uv2 (rev. B1) and is running @1000Mhz.

 

[Paliv]

AC68P is in fact AC68Uv2 (rev. B1) and is running @1000Mhz.

I believe the faster AC1900P replaced the (Best Buy exclusive in my region if I remember correctly) AC68P. Still have AC68P in my closet.

 

[Tech9]

AC68P is not 1400MHz.

You are correct. RT-AC68U h/w B2 or RT-AC1900P h/w B2 (the same router, BestBuy exclusive model) had BCM4709C0 1.4GHz CPU.

 

[iFrogMac]

What's a bit worrying about that list is the AX86U is not listed as a replacement for anything. Makes me wonder how much time it has left? I just bought mine less than 1 year ago.

I bought the Gundam edition of the RT-AX86U back in 2022. While, it's not officially on the Asus EOL list yet, everything I've read suggests that as @Tech9 said that it has been replaced by the pro model. With that siad I didn't want to play guessing games on how long it was going to be supported, so this month I upgraded to a WiFi 7 router, the BE92U and it has the latest firmware features, and was just released this year.

When looking back at the RT-AX86U's lifecycle, it suggests it was released in 2020. Making it 5 years old next year and from what I remember reading Asus typically guarantees 5 years of support.
So, I felt it better to get something newer as I needed updated Ethernet ports and some of the newer features anyway. So, for what I needed / wanted to learn about the price I paid was a good balance for a tri-band WiFi 7 router coming from a router that was about the same price on release. Even if Asus still sends occasional updates to the older router, I still feel better about it being a Mesh node behind a more current model and software, that at least for a while will most likely get more frequent updates.

I had been looking around at different models to see what the best upgrade for me would be and I felt like it was the RT-BE92U over the 86U, or even the more expensive 96U because of the balance of features to price.

For example, I do have access to 2 Gbps internet, and my current 1 Gbps plan is over provisioned, so I need at least 2.5G ports to get the full speed I pay for on compatible devices. 10G doesn't exist here where I live and I don't need to jump that far anyway. So the RT-BE86U would have been a WiFi 7 version of the 86U with no way to get the extra speed. and it was dual band which is fine. But for the same $300 it just seemed a better deal to get Tri-band, a 10G lan / WAN and 4 2.4 ( Lan /WAN) and 3 LAN. So anyway, those are my thoughts after reading through the thread and how i decided to handle making sure I wasn't stuck with an unsupported device.