Review Three Wi-Fi 6 Routers Under $100 Reviewed

[HWDan]

RAX20 is now $99 CAD at most places up here this week.

 

[anotherengineer]

RAX20 is now $99 CAD at most places up here this week.

So question is, is it worth it vs other routers in the $100 ball park??

 

[thiggins]

So question is, is it worth it vs other routers in the $100 ball park??

I think I answered that in the review, at least for the routers tested.

 

[anotherengineer]

I think I answered that in the review, at least for the routers tested.

Ya. It’s just sometimes prices and availability can vary dramatically in Canada compared to USA for whatever reason but usually they are inline with exchange rate. I was wondering about Asus routers in the $100 range compared to the RAX20. Thanks though I will keep that RAX20 on my budget shortlist

 

[castlefox]

Dumb question. Would any of these be better than my Asus RT-N66U ??? My RN-N66u does not wifi6 and is stuck on 802.11n Been acting up lately also....

 

[thiggins]

yes

 

[castlefox]

yes

Thanks for the quick reply. Well, that seals the deal. Looks like I am back in the market for a new router again.

 

[castlefox]

Uhh so this is the best non-biased networking website that I trust. I love the wifi basics section on here have explain on here.

This has probably been asked somewhere else, but what is the best way to support / donate(?) money to SmallNetBuilder? Other than buying stuff through referral links on Amazon.
I find the commentary & notes on your reviews very helpful. Some of those charts are rather meaningless to me -- I do not have the context/knowledge on all of those number charts to understand how those numbers would effect how the router would preform for me

 

[thiggins]

@castlefox I appreciate the thought and am glad you find helpful information here at SmallNetBuilder.

The Amazon links are the only way to support us.

 

[Dark910]

Would you be able to review the Netgear WAX206? It's labeled as an access point, but it seems to be a router by default based on the manual(and I believe that's the case with the other Netgear 'access points' like the WAX204). It's under $100 right now and has a 2.5 GB WAN which is unheard of for the price.

It's apparently 4x4 2.4 and 4x4 ax 5 GHz, no 160 MHz support. 2.4 GHz might be N though. Netgear's small business stuff seems like a better value than their consumer line at the low-end, at least on paper, if you're able to accept the sort of ugly design lol. The main loss between this and the consumer router is the WAX has no USB. If the Belkin non-2.5G version and this Netgear are basically related, it's likely Mediatek based.

The manual however states that the 2.4 GHz settings are 54(G), 346 Mbps(20 MHz AX), or 800 Mbps(40 MHz AX). While the 5 GHz is 2400 80 MHz AX as expected. The FCC testing lists 4 chains on both radios however, so not sure what's the deal with the 2.4 GHz. Is that 4x4 AX without extra QAM rates or something?

​

 

[thiggins]

Would you be able to review the Netgear WAX206?

Sorry, but not likely to happen.

 

[Burstaholic]

Hey, I hope it's OK to mention this here - the Netgear RAX20 looks pretty great here, but I remembered I'd seen it panned elsewhere. Realized that was in Wirecutter's router article: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/...mes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-wi-fi-router/ .

Now I'm wondering how they could have tested for the RAX20 to come in UNDER the old single-stream Archer A7?! That's crazy, right? (I'm so confused)

 

[thiggins]

@Burstaholic The Archer A7 has three streams on each band.

 

[Burstaholic]

@Burstaholic The Archer A7 has three streams on each band.

Oh! That makes more sense. I tried to figure that out, but even TP-Link's official page for it is pretty unhelpful. I guess you have to work backwards from the "AC 1750,“ which seems obvious now.

I have an A7 now, so i guess a RAX20 wouldn't be much of an upgrade, except for (hopefully) faster 2.4ghz speed.

Still surprising it would be worse, rather than only slightly better. Guess that's the market for ya.

 

[Wasook]

Netgear RAX20 - Advanced Setup - Router Information

CPU Load

CPU1: 1.75% CPU2: 1.32% CPU3: 1.47%

I thought the RAX20 was a quad core router?

 

[TheLostSwede]

CPU Load

CPU1: 1.75% CPU2: 1.32% CPU3: 1.47%

I thought the RAX20 was a quad core router?

Broadcom makes some triple core Cortex-A7 router chips.

 

[RMerlin]

Broadcom makes some triple core Cortex-A7 router chips.

Wikidevi lists that model as a quad-core bcm6755, not the tri-core bcm6750. Maybe they are wrong tho (wouldn't be the first time).

 

[Wasook]

4-Stream AX1800 Dual-Band WiFi 6 Router - RAX20 | NETGEAR

Discover the RAX20 4-Stream, Dual-Band AX1800 WiFi 6 Router with WiFi speeds up to 1.8Gbps. Includes NETGEAR Armor™ to provide advanced cyber threat protection and USB 3.0 port. Buy now.

www.netgear.com

Processor : Quad-core processor

Netgear sell it as a quad core.

Would a fourth core show as CPU0: or as CPU4: ?

 

[Wasook]

debug.htm

CPU1: 1.12% CPU2: 1.27% CPU3: 1.72% CPU4: 1.72%

Something funky is going on.

Debug shows 4 cores and cores 1,2 and 3 have different load values but core 4 always shows the same load value as core 3?