Review New In the Charts: ASUS RT-AX88U

[thiggins]

ASUS' RT-AX88U AX6000 Dual Band 802.11ax WiFi Router has been tested and added to SmallNetBuilder's Wi-Fi Router Charts. While it uses the same Broadcom four-stream 5 GHz radio SoC, the AX88U's throughput performance lags behind the less-expensive RT-AX86U. Check the Wi-Fi Router Charts for more details.

 

[L&LD]

Yes, like I've mentioned multiple times, this can be 'felt' when switching between these two.

Everything below both of these routers is worse, in real world use.

 

[torstein]

Everything below both of these routers is worse, in real world use.

You mean models below these two, ie AX58U? (Which I currently have, but am contemplating replacing with the AX86U based on multiple posts in these forums)

 

[ColinTaylor]

@thiggins I notice that the latency scores are worse for the AX86U compared to the AX88U. Do you think that might account for the increased throughput of the AX86U?

 

[thiggins]

Higher latency generally means lower throughput. The reason why the AX86U has higher throughput is its 2.5 GbE port. the AX88U's 1 GbE port is limiting throughput.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Higher latency generally means lower throughput.

Yes, that's what I thought. For example, the 5 GHz Multiband Latency is 52 (19ms) for the AX86U and 73 (14ms) for the AX88U. I just wondered whether that might have some bearing on the 5 GHz Downlink difference you highlighted.

The reason why the AX86U has higher throughput is its 2.5 GbE port. the AX88U's 1 GbE port is limiting throughput.

Ah, sorry for the confusion. I was referring to the wireless throughput/latency in the charts you linked to in post #1, not the router latency.

 

[thiggins]

Ah, sorry for the confusion. I was referring to the wireless throughput/latency in the charts you linked to in post #1, not the router latency.

I *am* referring to wireless latency. I'm now running tests through the router WAN port because you can't swap the > 1 GbE port on some products (XT8 for example) between WAN and LAN.

So, the Wi-Fi latency measurements do include router latency, but that what users will experience anyway, unless their traffic is local.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I *am* referring to wireless latency. I'm now running tests through the router WAN port ...

Ah, I see. Thanks, that makes perfect sense now. I'm an idiot for not re-reading your testing procedure . Apologies for wasting your time.

 

[thiggins]

Not a problem, Colin. The new benchmarks take some getting used to. It's always good to have fresh eyes on the results to keep me honest.
I had to go back and review the data to make sure I hadn't made a data entry mistake. It took me awhile before I realized that the difference was the Ethernet port speed.

 

[SAL9K]

My apologies, I'm a little late to the show. I've had an ax86u for over a year now, and am looking to update (not using the term "upgrade" just yet) to a 6E router, and before doing so am trying to digest some of the excellent test data you guys have!

Like others have noticed here, when comparing the ax88u/ax86u, what could be the reason for the much higher latency score (and lower latency ping times) for the ax88u? Is the ax88u just better at multi-client routing? Or is it simply a CPU bottleneck that only the ax86u will experience, since it's capable of multi-band routing 1.4Gbps, versus the 941Mbps of the ax88u?

Also, would a better latency metric be latency vs throughput, that way latency could be compared across routers at a particular client loading (E.g. at ~1Gbps for both ax88u/ax86u)?