GT-BE98 WIFI 7

[AndyD]

The estimated delivery date that Amazon.de gave to my order is January 5th to January 15th

 

[sfx2000]

ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 unboxing

Lol - ripping off the antenna condoms...

 

[PR3MIUM]

German Fritzbox from AVM is also Setting its new Products to 2024, but they said they will release it on end of 2023 (WiFi7 Routers)

 

[Jansen3]

Lol - ripping off the antenna condoms...

Dong complained about this as well in his review of the RT-BE96U. Stupid double wrapping, probably came like that from the antenna supplier.

 

[RTWZ80]

I read Dong Ngo's RT-BE96U review and what intrigued me was the bit he wrote about the limitations of quad-band routers. The GT-BE98 splits the 5ghz band in half which limits flexibility of channel use. I experienced the same constraints when trying to use the two 5Ghz bands on the GT-AXE16000, namely having a harder time consistently accessing the DFS channels across the spectrum.

The same limitation seems to also apply with the GT-BE98 Pro's two 6Ghz bands based on the review he wrote on TP Link's Deco BE95 which also has two 6Ghz bands.

My hope is that his concern on MLO complicating/compounding the bandwidth-splitting issue is misplaced, and that MLO along with AFC will actually resolve the problem in the Wifi 7 era.

 

[Tech9]

The GT-BE98 splits the 5ghz band in half

This is what all "tri-band" 2.4/5GHz routers do. One 5GHz radio is used for lower channels and the other 5GHz radio for higher channels. In countries with both U-NII-1 and U-NII-3 available the users have 2x non-DFS range channels. In countries with U-NII-1 only the second radio is in DFS and not guaranteed to work. Many users don't know this before the purchase and experience Wi-Fi issues. When they learn what the issue is - too late.

 

[Jansen3]

I read Dong Ngo's RT-BE96U review and what intrigued me was the bit he wrote about the limitations of quad-band routers. The GT-BE98 splits the 5ghz band in half which limits flexibility of channel use. I experienced the same constraints when trying to use the two 5Ghz bands on the GT-AXE16000, namely having a harder time consistently accessing the DFS channels across the spectrum.

The same limitation seems to also apply with the GT-BE98 Pro's two 6Ghz bands based on the review he wrote on TP Link's Deco BE95 which also has two 6Ghz bands.

My hope is that his concern on MLO complicating/compounding the bandwidth-splitting issue is misplaced, and that MLO along with AFC will actually resolve the problem in the Wifi 7 era.

I’m hoping you can disable the band splitting in the GT-BE98. If not I’m going for the RT-BE96U.

 

[L&LD]

Not possible. Hardwired.

 

[RTWZ80]

This is what all "tri-band" 2.4/5GHz routers do. One 5GHz radio is used for lower channels and the other 5GHz radio for higher channels. In countries with both U-NII-1 and U-NII-3 available the users have 2x non-DFS range channels. In countries with U-NII-1 only the second radio is in DFS and not guaranteed to work. Many users don't know this before the purchase and experience Wi-Fi issues. When they learn what the issue is - too late.

Yeah, thank goodness for Amazon's 30-day returns policy in my case.

 

[pavel2023]

Sale dates for November 29 appeared on the website in the Czech Republic and Poland. At the same time, the Czech website previously had the date December 4th.

ASUS GT-BE98 | Router | cena, raty - sklep Komputronik.pl

WI-FI 7

www.komputronik.pl

ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 herní router s podporou Wi-Fi 7

ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 herní router s podporou Wi-Fi 7 od výrobce ASUS jen za 19990 Kč včetně produktů se slevou 606 Kč. Veškeré produkty pochází z CZ distribuce. Nakupte u největších specialistů v oboru.

www.huramobil.cz

 

[glens]

The GT-BE98 splits the 5ghz band in half which limits flexibility of channel use. I experienced the same constraints when trying to use the two 5Ghz bands on the GT-AXE16000, namely having a harder time consistently accessing the DFS channels across the spectrum.

On the contrary, I find great value (if the cost for it isn't too prohibitive) in a 2nd 5GHz radio. One still has access to all the channels, but is now able to split clients up between radios for better performance. It's not like the division in the band occurs in a place which disallows /any/ 80 or even 160 MHz bonds.

There is no practical downside whatsoever, only up. When MLO becomes available in WiFi7 both segments of the band will become usable to a single client in whichever mode desired.

Please explain the constraints you encountered. I'm extremely curious since for me it's been akin to having handcuffs /removed/, not emplaced.

 

[RTWZ80]

On the contrary, I find great value (if the cost for it isn't too prohibitive) in a 2nd 5GHz radio. One still has access to all the channels, but is now able to split clients up between radios for better performance. It's not like the division in the band occurs in a place which disallows /any/ 80 or even 160 MHz bonds.

There is no practical downside whatsoever, only up. When MLO becomes available in WiFi7 both segments of the band will become usable to a single client in whichever mode desired.

Please explain the constraints you encountered. I'm extremely curious since for me it's been akin to having handcuffs /removed/, not emplaced.

Good for you. We're all entitled to our opinions and views in this forum so feel free to disagree with what I had observed. I was merely comparing what was seen in the review vs my personal experience with the quad-band GT-AXE16000 (consistent access to the 5Ghz DFS channels for multigig speeds with better range vs the 6Ghz band) and it seems to be in line with what Tech9 described above.

And if you've read my post carefully enough, you would have noticed my caveat about the possibility that MLO and AFC, when implemented, may be able to overcome the limitation of band splitting in terms of consistently reaching multigig Wifi speeds in the Wifi 7 era.

 

[glens]

Thanks for your permission. I grant you the same. : )

Again you refer to it as limiting. Just /how/ were you /limited/? Which {2,4,8,16}0 MHz-wide channels were made unavailable to you? Please, I'm curious.

 

[strtp]

4 units available on Amazon.de: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CKBY2NGV/

 

[PR3MIUM]

4 units available on Amazon.de: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CKBY2NGV/

Price: 914€

https://www.coolblue.de/produkt/942216/asus-rog-rapture-gt-be98.html

Price: 624€ (within 24 hours shipping)

 

[RTWZ80]

Thanks for your permission. I grant you the same. : )

Again you refer to it as limiting. Just /how/ were you /limited/? Which {2,4,8,16}0 MHz-wide channels were made unavailable to you? Please, I'm curious.

I referred to DFS above so that means the 160 Mhz channels on the 5Ghz band/s. While testing the GT-AXE11000 and RT-AX89X, both with one 5Ghz band, the instances where my Wifi 6/e clients could hit multi gig speeds (above 1Gbps) were far greater than when I was using the same clients on the two 5Ghz bands with the GT-AXE16000. In terms of connection/link speeds that means instead of 2.4Gbps for the earlier two, they're frequently maxed out at 1.2Gbps or less. Happy?

Meanwhile, I too am curious as to which Wifi 6/e/7 routers and clients you have used/tested to warrant such unbridled optimism in quad-band hardware as well as a yet-to-be-certified wireless standard.

I'm sure that we, as adults, are wise enough to recognise that marketing hype is usually just that - hype, until proved otherwise with real world use and testing. It is for that reason that I maintain a cautiously optimistic view of Wifi 7 for now, until the promised features come through and clients become more widely available.

 

[glens]

Meanwhile, I too am curious as to which Wifi 6/e/7 routers and clients you have used/tested to warrant such unbridled optimism in quad-band hardware as well as a yet-to-be-certified wireless standard.

Quite fair, that.

Maybe coming up on two years ago I purchased my first wifi hardware since a Netgear wireless G device. There's a gap, but won't expound now. Anyway, after messing with an available ISP Eero "set" I researched and landed on Asus gear. Got an XT8 pair used mostly as router/AP, then relatively recently supplemented that with a GT-AX6000 for the main unit. Got plenty of airspace so use about all the available spectrum, though not all the radios.

Not that it matters, but have symmetrical 1/2Gb fiber to the outside world.

On the two main GNU/Linux laptops I've employed Intel AX200 cards and each is associated to a 160-wide feed "of its own" connected by 2.5Gb ethernet. One has got an oblique path through a stud wall and floor (perpendicular to the joists) to its AP above (the good radio on an XT8) so its xmit path is weaker, but feeding it from mine I routinely exceed 1Gb realized.

Just the high points for reference.

Now, tat for tit, /how/ were you "limited" by the split 5GHz band? I'd venture you didn't use it the way I do...

 

[Tech9]

wise enough to recognise that marketing hype

Are you saying you've never reached 16Gbps over Wi-Fi with your GT-AXE16000? Very interesting...

 

[RTWZ80]

Quite fair, that.

Maybe coming up on two years ago I purchased my first wifi hardware since a Netgear wireless G device. There's a gap, but won't expound now. Anyway, after messing with an available ISP Eero "set" I researched and landed on Asus gear. Got an XT8 pair used mostly as router/AP, then relatively recently supplemented that with a GT-AX6000 for the main unit. Got plenty of airspace so use about all the available spectrum, though not all the radios.

Not that it matters, but have symmetrical 1/2Gb fiber to the outside world.

On the two main GNU/Linux laptops I've employed Intel AX200 cards and each is associated to a 160-wide feed "of its own" connected by 2.5Gb ethernet. One has got an oblique path through a stud wall and floor (perpendicular to the joists) to its AP above (the good radio on an XT8) so its xmit path is weaker, but feeding it from mine I routinely exceed 1Gb realized.

Just the high points for reference.

Now, tat for tit, /how/ were you "limited" by the split 5GHz band? I'd venture you didn't use it the way I do...

Thank you for sharing your networking setup.

And in return, I did not use the 5Ghz bands the way you had mentioned in your first post, as in segmenting clients on different radios. In the interests of reaching close to theoretical connection speeds on the 5Ghz band/s DFS channels (2.4Gbps)

I had done things the 'traditional' way, namely placing most my 'smart' devices (the usual array of smart plugs, switches etc) on the 2.4Ghz band while reserving the 5Ghz bands for those which can access the (DFS) 160Mhz channels (PC with AX210 NIC, laptop with AX201 NIC, Android smartphones etc) as per on my GT-AXE11000 and RT-AX89X.

Also as per my usual setup, I had AXE16000s on opposite ends of the house connected by 10G ethernet backhaul. The main router's 10G WAN port was linked to an SFP+ to 10GBaseT (RJ45) media converter where I plug the LR SFP+ transceiver/module provided by my then ISP. It's an Active Optical Network configuration so no ONT/ONR is needed vs a Passive Optical Network setup.

When I started using the AXE16000s, I realised that the devices on the 5Ghz bands kept getting kicked off one band and reconnecting to the other band throughout the day. I assumed that was due to improved range on the routers due to the then newly-introduced RangeBoost feature and attempted to adjust the RSSI settings in the WebGUI to allow one unit to hand off the respective clients to the other at a higher dBM/shorter range eg. -47 to -57 vs the default -67 dBM. However, that did not fix the problem.

And to add on to my earlier post, this frequent switching between the 5Ghz1 and 5Ghz2 bands also hampered attempts to hit the maximum possible wireless upload/download speeds as well as link speeds on the said devices that could access the 160Mhz-wide DFS channels. I'd say for about 90% of the time, the maximum link speeds were only at 1.2Gbps or less, while average Wifi u/l and d/l speeds as tested on Ookla were in the 800-900Mbps range which was really disappointing (a major limitation in my view) considering that I'd consistently (roughly 80% of the time) gotten at least 1.2Gbps to 1.5Gbps Ookla tested speeds on the AXE11000 (in spite of its 2.5Gbps bottleneck) and the RT-AX89X. Same for the link speeds of 2.3-2.4Gbps.

But the straw which broke the proverbial camel's back and led me to return both AXE16000s was their inability to reach anywhere close to the theoretical 10Gbps ethernet/wired speeds once you had any QoS, web monitoring or AiProtection features enabled. In that scenario, wired speeds as tested on Ookla were capped at below 2.6Gbps vs 8-9Gbps before.

I recall discussing these issues on another thread and RMerlin mentioning that this was due to a CPU limitation on the router regarding the poor 10Gbe speeds.

It's teaser-time. Because why not.

2.5 Gbps WAN isn't new tho, the RT-AX86U was the first model to come with a 2.5 Gbps port. but it is quite ugly (IMO :) ) I like how XT8 looks, but was never able to get all 3 interfaces working As router CPUs get more faster, consume more power, and become more expensive, people will turn to...

www.snbforums.com

Hope this satisfies your curiosity.

 

[RTWZ80]

Are you saying you've never reached 16Gbps over Wi-Fi with your GT-AXE16000? Very interesting...

Nope it took me a couple of tries to get that through my marketing-hype addled head. Now I know better.