9 Best Router for Gaming in 2018

1. NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 High Speed Tri-Band Router for Gaming

This is a fantastic wi-fi router that is bound to provide anyone with all the gaming features that will make you a happy gamer indeed! Wireless performance has gone from its previous state of being an added extra feature, to be the central service that is essential to everyone with some kind of wi-fi router such as a smart phone or tablet. The Netgear Nighthawk X6 High Speed Tri-Band Router for Gaming has a dual core CPU that allows it to prioritize traffic and routers, optimizing the connection for each specific device, all on the fly without user intervention.

Sharing media and streaming video can be achieved easily with this product as well, and that makes this a well-rounded wi-fi router that is sure to create a highly functional home based network for you and your users to use and enjoy.

But of course its main feature is network gaming, and it delivers the goods in that respect when we fire up some games. The 6 aerials give the best possible and unparalleled connections for PCs and consoles, wired or wifi. The Netgear Nighthawk X6 High Speed Tri-Band Router for Gaming is an excellent home router that can hold its own with the best in this router article, meaning that your experience is bound to be possibly one of the best routers that you can get in this price range, regardless of whether or not you are comparing it to a wired or over the air connections for you take make use of.

Netgear’s ability to create fantastic gaming oriented hardware has long been known by anyone with even a limited knowledge of the industry, so the Nighthawk series should come as no surprise to those of us that appreciate the finer gaming attributes that these routers possess. So good is this the Netgear Nighthawk X6 High Speed Tri-Band Router for Gaming, that we have gone hog wild and awarded it our gold star of approval, selecting it as our Top Pick! This is no easy feat, mind you, as all the products in our HotRate Lists must complete a virtual gamut of tests, trials and benchmarks that help determine where each product sits on the totem pole of awesomeness.

This is where the Netgear Nighthawk X6 High Speed connector for Gaming really shone, providing tri-band connectivity, Gigabit LAN, and USB 3.0 support. All of these wifi features on this line of routers come together to create a product that is sure to suit your wired and wi-fi needs.

Why We Like It

2. ASUS RT-AC5300 AiProtection Tri-Band Gigabit Gaming Router

The ASUS RT-AC5300 is a fine specimen of router technology if ever there was one. This is a Tri-Band capable router that increases This lightning fast router has 8 antennas built into it, making the router look like some kind of alien dreadnought from outer space, ready to lead the way in some inter galactic altercation. It is equipped with 4x4 802.11ac MU-MIMO technology, meaning that your data is transmitted effectively and seamlessly, and allows gamers to take advantage of some pretty amazing gamer based technologies.

AiProtection gives users a multi-staged vulnerability protection and prevention that is powered by Trend Micro, a renowned antivirus and security company. This lets your users browse and transact with peace of mind. Gamers will be pleased to know that the ASUS RT-AC5300 is an amazingly quick router that will let you game just as if you were plugged in with a cable. There is a lot to like about it as it allows you to connect via its Tri-Band spectrums, and this means that all of your devices are catered for, regardless of their age or capabilities, provided they are Wi-Fi enabled.

The best way to think about these routers is as the backbone of your network. This is the central piece of hardware on your wi-fi network, and it therefore needs to be one of the fastest and most advanced pieces of kit in your inventory. This is where owners of this premium router are in real luck. We have here one of the best Gigabit switches with full Tri-Band connectivity built into it. The cherry on top of these routers, or as we like to say, the best bit, of this great router is the fact that it has AiProtection built into it.

What this does is that it identifies malicious activity on your network and then alerts you to it, so that you can take the appropriate actions as and when they are needed. Asus does a fantastic job at bringing together a high performance router that is fully featured, well styled and highly functional, and the ASUS RT-AC5300 comes through and delivers the goods.

If you are looking to upgrade your home network router to a super-fast, highly efficient gaming router, then this is bound to be the best example that you can definitely look at picking up and enhancing your gaming environment at home. So whether you are gaming competitively in a ranked match, streaming via twitch to your fans, or even playing a VR game on your home LAN, this will be able to handle all of your demands while never dropping the ball. That is why we have decided to go ahead and award this magnificent gaming router the Premium Choice award for top notch quality and epic performance.

Why We Like It

3. D-Link AC3200 High Performance Tri-Band Gaming Wi-Fi Router

The D-Link AC3200 High Performance Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router is a tri-band router that lets users take their performance to the next level. This is possible due to the fact that it uses high speed wi-fi LAN technologies that have been designed from the ground up to support the latest, greatest and best hardware offerings from the various manufacturers around the globe.

The way that these routers have been designed and manufactured makes them about as powerful as having 3 routers in one, and lucky owners of the D-Link AC3200 High Performance Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router will be able to connect devices to all three of these segments simultaneously, while never dropping any packets or data. The key to this router’s success lies in a few different key areas, of which we will try our best to discuss.

The first and most obvious has to do with the company itself. D-Link are world leaders in the home and commercial markets when it comes to network equipment, and the AC3200 is no exception. There is certainly no shortage of the best features built into this wi-fi router, and the feature set is rich and diverse, allowing for many different configuration options to be enabled or disabled, depending on what it is that the user deems to be best.

For instance, if for some reason there is somebody on your network that is hogging all the bandwidth, a simple provisioning rule will limit their over utilization, and will stabilize the network and restore its more equitable nature, which is the best for everyone that is to be using the router. Band 1 is a 2.4GHz range that services devices such as IOT devices and appliances such as printers and scanners, best thought of as the legacy side of the network.

Bands 2 and 3 allow you to connect multitudes of some of the best devices such as laptops, computers, tablets and cellphones. This segmentation will give you the edge when you are looking to game on your wi-fi from your next-gen console, computer or laptop. This is far from your standard home grade-router, it has one of the best CPU inclusions in this list, clocking in at 1GHz, it is a dual core processor as well, much like our previous two contenders.

The features of these routers all comes together to give you an amazingly well put together wifi router experience that will allow you to enjoy the best in digital entertainment in the home. People with file servers or media centers will be really happy with the general performance and gigabit Ethernet connectivity that is on offer here, although some gamers are likely to get the most out of one of these routers.

This is because D-Link knows what its customers want, and in designing the AC3200 they have shown that they have been listening, waiting for the chance to give their users exactly what they have been asking for: a great wi-fi gaming router at a competitive prince point. Now that’s something that many manufacturers wish that they could say, and D-Link certainly delivers on that front as one of the best manufacturers in the bang for the buck department.

Why We Like It

4. NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S WiFi Gigabit Gaming Router

Our most powerful processing unit in this router thus far in our review, the NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S Wifi Gigabit Gaming Router is one heck of a router, and possibly one of the best wi-fi routers that you will find in this price point. It was quite the contender, but sadly it did not quite make it into the hall of fame this time around, although it was indeed a close call!
The CPU speed of this Wi-Fi router is simply mind numbing if one considers how blazingly fast it is.

Clocking in at a whopping 1.7GHz we have a router that can direct and transmit intensive data streams that allows gamers to make the best of super-fast internet and content streaming. Playing your favorite games over the wi-fi network in your home while streaming 4K video content is certainly possible with this router, and the best built in optimizations allow for this to be done seamlessly and with very little setup needing to be completed before getting up and running Maximum speeds when combined, can reach as much as 2.53Gbps, which would shame many people’s wired infrastructure within the home or small office, especially if they were due for a bit of an upgrade.

There is double the bandwidth available for connected mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets or any other device that makes use of a wi-fi network, such as an Internet of Things type device that needs a solid wi-fi or wired internet connection for best results. Many people wonder how it is exactly that Netgear have been able to achieve such great performance from such a small router, and the internal architecture is probably the biggest contributing factor here.

This is because the wifi routers themselves are constructed from X4 architecture, which enables high-fidelity content such as UHD and HD gaming. Streaming services are also a fantastic way to take advantage of your newly found super-fast internet transfer speeds. This new crop of routers that is ushering in a new era of home entertainment and high performance entertainment.

Console gamers and PC gamers will be able to take full advantage of the connectivity that runs at fantastically fast transmission rates, as well as the wired gigabit connections that the gigabit Ethernet connector provides. This means that your wired backbone connections will never bottleneck or become the main constriction in your network, allowing your wifi to wired connections to plow ahead at full steam, without there being any packet loss or performance degradation. Your wired connections will generally plug into your internet service provider’s cable, so having plenty of head room and capacity on this front will allow gamers to take full advantage of the bandwidth that has been allocated to them.

Why We Like It

5. ASUS RT-AC88U Dual Band Gaming Router with Trend Micro

Looking at the solid list of contenders so far today in our article, we can see that there are many overlapping features from rival companies that have been locked in competition with one another for many years, trying to best one another. We have another router vying for the top spot in the pile as the best of the best from Asus that looks like it could take off and fly around the room if you aren’t careful, and we like this hard aesthetic.

And while it definitely has that same alien design element going for it on this line of routers, it would definitely need to use some kind of inter-dimensional router travel system, or a gravity engine of some kind, because it certainly does not look aerodynamic. Jokes aside though, this is another impressive offering from Asus, the titan company that made itself famous in the motherboard and graphics markets on its path to dominance in the enthusiast segment of the PC component and hardware market.

There are many premium options on offer here, and the normal Asus styled software options are available for those that need to tweak their wi-fi network, and customizing the network setup on your wi-fi LAN is essential for gamers that are hosting services that require externally facing services such as webhosting or even VNC connectivity. The router is a great performer, and is made using some of the finest components and selected hardware materials.

Achieving higher transfer speeds is as easy as buying an ASUS RT-AC88U Dual Band Gaming Router with Trend Micro, and plug it in. This is a fantastic router for wired connections as well. This is because it also has 8 gigabit ports built into it! There is a 1.4GHz processor that has also been thrown into the mix, meaning that this little wifi router will provide you with great streaming capabilities as well as low latency, hard hitting services.

AiProtection offers fantastic security features just as the other Asus routers in our list has as well. This is a decent wifi router with excellent speed capabilities, so you know that anything that you need to do will be more than catered for by using the wifi router, and that means that your gaming can experience lag free, low latency entertainment that is sure to get you playing to your full potential, and at your best when using one of these routers.

Your router streaming abilities with this router are the same as any other high end Asus product, and that means that those that purchase this router will be greatly surprised. Having a tri-band frequency setup in the home for gaming is becoming more necessary as time goes on, and this is down to the many different Wi-Fi enabled systems that have become available on the market in recent years, making for the best home gaming experiences ever seen before..

Why We Like It

6. NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 High Performance Wifi Gaming Router

This router from Netgear is aimed squarely at gamers that want to play lag free games and stream UHD content such as 4K video with no issues over the Wi-Fi, demanding only the best performance with these routers. It ships with a dual core 1GHz CPU and also utilizes dynamic QOS. QOS is a provisioning protocol that allows people to set limits, tolerances and routing rules for all of their games and content that they will be using on their environment. Gaming is a given with this gaming-centric setup.

The company makes the bold claim that they can improve your speeds by 100% and that much faster by using these wifi routers, but luckily for us, Netgear has been in the business of networking peripherals for a very, very long time, meaning that if anyone can make the claim, then they can. Netgear achieves this by making boosting stations that get powered from this router via standard Ethernet cables, much like the Power over Ethernet standard that has been adopted by so many other manufacturers, and this allows for the transmission of data between the main station and the various different wifi stations.

This great system makes your mobile wi-fi devices like laptops and smartphones totally usable provided that they are within range whenever you are trying to connect them to the internet or local wi-fi. This makes for a much more convenient experience for your guests when they are trying to connect to your network and access the internet. There is a USB 3.0 port on this product that turns this wifi hub into a wi-fi storage device, meaning that your media such as music, videos and pictures can be accessed over your wi-fi with minimal effort, and to great effect. This kind of functionality offers the best of both worlds to savvy consumers that demand the best of the best.

The other purpose of this USB adoption in routers is for the potential for a 3G backup dongle. This dongle can be plugged in and configured so that if your main communications go down, then the 3G failover can kick in. As a high performance product, this is an excellent piece of wi-fi gear that will serve as your entertainment and gaming backbone within your home. There is much to like about this product, and it is full of great options that allow you to enjoy the best in gaming performance.

Other features that are best suited to high performance networking operations include the best of the best such as the QOS and provisioning tools make this a system administrator’s dream, and custom network environments can be catered for with very little problems, such as routing and protocol configurations, fail over setup and much more. It is these kinds of innovations that make this item stand out a bit, so it is a good idea to do a thorough comparison between all of these different routers in our epic round up to find out which one will suit you and your purposes the best. That way, you can be sure that you have exhausted all avenues before committing to a purchase that may or may not suit your particular application later on, such as gaming.

Why We Like It

7. TP-Link Archer C7 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router

Not all hardware needs to be expensive, and this is a mantra that TP-Link has certainly lived by in recent years, offering budget friendly hardware that doesn’t skimp out on quality or the best features. TP-Link is a well-known company that makes exceptionally high quality consumer electronics devices, and at a compelling price point that encourages the best consumer uptake that we have seen with this brand in recent years.

WPA enables WPS technologies, which help with the easy, one step addition of devices to your home setup. Things like wi-fi printers and scanners can be added quickly and easily, with no fuss directly through the WPS functionality. The total 1.75GHz of total available bandwidth, which includes 450Mbps at 2.4GHz, and around 1300MHz at 5GHz. It supports 802.1ac wi-fi standards, and will create an amazingly fast and efficient wi-fi storage that will serve you well as the media hub and gaming hub.

When it comes to the best of the best when it comes to cost effective gaming routers for your home, the TP-Link Archer C7 is certainly a tempting option to consider, especially if you are on a budget. The total bandwidth utilization is a great feature for gamers to view, as it can certainly help to identify any slow-downs or resource hogs that are stealing all of your precious bandwidth. Easy configuration and ease of use is what you can expect to receive when you decide to pair off with this great gaming router for your home setup, and wi-fi performance is certainly there for the taking if you decide to throw your hat into the ring.

This TP-Link takes modern concerns of the consumer into consideration, as it has built in controls, such as bandwidth management and other options that anyone would need to have, such as wifi profile management and user setup menus. As a complete gaming platform solution, this is a fantastic option. It has pretty much all the features that you could possibly want in a gaming hub: decent wifi performance, USB 3.0 connectivity, multi band transmission capabilities and much more.

Gigabit LAN is standard fare, and it is therefore not only really good to use wirelessly, but also on an Ethernet cable as well. All of this top notch functionality is sure to come together and offer you, the consumer, an amazingly effective product that is priced just right. Budget conscious gamers that are looking for the best in price versus performance will be hard pressed to find something quite like this is the same price bracket, and saving a buck or 2 is never a bad thing.

Why We Like It

8. NETGEAR N600 Dual Band Wi-Fi Router for Gaming

Next on our awesome Top 9 list, we have the NETGEAR N600 , which hopes to become the life support system of your wi-fi network within the home. Looking more at home in an office than in your living quarters, it offers twice the throughput speeds of a 300+ router, so it is able to compete on a similar playing field as some of the other more modern routers in our review.

It certainly has a more refined design aesthetic to it, and it could well be used at your business premises just as easily as it could be used at home as it suits either of them best in an equitable manner. It features all the standard features that you would expect, and it is sure to provide your gaming systems plenty of bandwidth and wi-fi functionality that you have come to expect from your networking hardware.

They also come with guest functionality, meaning that you can provision services and bandwidth allocations according to what you would like to have setup. This is especially useful for places that have high volumes of visitor traffic, and it will guarantee privacy on your network if you have any network shares that don’t need to be shared with people that are just connecting to the wi-fi so that they can get some internet access.

This is also especially useful for those games that have the best gaming experience by using a dedicated line for their gaming, and an alternative connection for general browsing and streaming. This allows you to route specific traffic from different wifi networks to the appropriate internet connection. Gamers will be pleased to note that this high speed hub is more than equal to the task of streaming game data and any other multimedia that needs to be accessed, and slid performance, coupled with industrial specification like throughput, is sure to sweeten the deal when considering what other options there are on the market at present.

This is a great router for gaming, and the performance really shows when we put it through its paces, tested gaming simultaneously while streaming localized 4K content. Talk about a tough task master. This means that you can enjoy the thrill of gaming online and playing low latency.

It is equates to gamers having a much better gaming experience with their online gaming when using this product, and the local capabilities are also nothing to be sneezed at. These routers offer an overall gaming performance experience that you will be hard pressed to beat in this price range, so it is best to think about this seriously if you are looking for the best in wi-fi gaming or the best office wi-fi system, it could be used best in both situations equally.

Why We Like It

9. ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band Wireless Gigabit Router

The Asus RT-N66U is a 3 antenna model that broadcasts a really strong signal for gamers to take full advantage of the speed that is on offer, even if the antenna count is slightly lower than some of the other routers that we have managed to get our grubby mitts on for our awesome HotRate review. It will perform at full speed whether you are connecting with 2.4GHz or 5GHz devices, and Asus brings its usual style and quality to the party with these routers.

Asus has always prided itself on its immaculate build quality and top notch research and development. Ethernet connections are provided for in the form of blistering Gigabit speed connections, allowing for wired transmissions to fly across your hardwired network before being transmitted via wireless. As with most of the gaming routers in our review, the wired segment of your network is still really important, especially as it connects to the rest of your network and even your internet router in many cases, so skimping out on a Gigabit card in this area can sometimes cause a bit of a bottleneck, creating slowdowns, packet drops and timeouts, which you don’t want!

It also has USB connectivity that allows for media to be shared through wireless to all of your wireless devices. These great options all culminate in giving gamers a refined and well-rounded digital entertainment experience, meaning that when you are not gaming or streaming online content, you will be able to take full advantage of all of your local content as well, such as MP3s, movies and much more.

Creating an entertainment hub in the home is essential for anyone that is looking to have more than a one trick pony when it comes to making a truly multi-functional broadcast service, which is the best thing for anyone that appreciates the best in high quality home based entertainment. So what does this mean for the average home user then? For many, it means being able to take advantage of the best of both worlds, between gaming and media streaming.

For gamers that play fast paced, action packed shooters, or intense real time strategy based games, it is really important to be able to react instantly, with no lag or delay. Luckily for anyone that made the decision to choose the ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band, they can have their cake and eat it too. Streaming and gaming services that stream across the local connection can exist in perfect harmony together with no issues.

Why We Like It