Asus TUF AX5400 or Netgear Rax20?

[Wasook]

Which one would you buy and why?

Thanks

 

[TheLostSwede]

According to Asus FCC filing, the TUF requires professional installation

The RAX20 has a bit more powerful hardware, but it's only 2x2 whereas the Asus is 4x4 on the 5GHz radio at least.

Those are your only two options?

 

[Wasook]

Those are your only two options?

The Asus is on a early Black Friday offer of £76 and the Netgear can be had cheaper still on Ebay.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Neither is particularly great imho.
Of the two, the Asus would offer better WiFi speeds on the 5GHz band is your intend to connect multiple devices to it.

 

[Wasook]

Neither is particularly great imho.

Though hopefully better than my old archer C7 v2

Of the two, the Asus would offer better WiFi speeds on the 5GHz band is your intend to connect multiple devices to it.

The Netgear Rax20 is ranked #6 for WiFi speed on SNB front page so i wasn't sure about the 2x2 vs 4x4

 

[TheLostSwede]

Though hopefully better than my old archer C7 v2

Sure, it should be a step up from that in many ways.
I'd suggest you install OpenWRT on it, I have done that with mine, although I've never used it as a router, only as a wireless AP due to their utter lack of support. It's a little bit of a PITA to get OpenWRT up and running properly on it if you want to use it as an AP, due to the somewhat strange behaviour of OpenWRT for some things. Still, it's a great way to "recycle" older hardware.

The Netgear Rax20 is ranked #6 for WiFi speed on SNB front page so i wasn't sure about the 2x2 vs 4x4

Well, SNB hasn't tested all that many 802.11ax routers as yet, since the bossman has been busy with other things.
Since beamforming is working as intended on 802.11ax hardware, it helps having more antennas, especially when using multiple 802.11ax devices, especially as most devices are 2x2 or 1x1, so at a bare minimum you should be able to use two devices at near full speed if the router is 4x4, whereas they'd have to "fight" for the airtime if you have a 2x2 router. Obviously how things work in the real world, is not something I can say, but this is how it should work in theory and some of the testing here suggests it works well if all devices are 802.11ax.

 

[Wasook]

Thanks for the feedback.