Asus has refreshed its high-performance tri-band ROG Rapture GT gaming router with Wi-Fi 7 support while also unveiling a new dual-band router and a Wi-Fi 7 USB adapter.
Asus unveiled three new Wi-Fi products at the 2024 Gamescon in Cologne, Germany, on August 21. Unfortunately, the company didn’t announce release dates or prices for these accessories. The new ROG Rapture (model GT-BE19000) is a tri-band router featuring Wi-Fi 7 networking with wireless transfer speeds of up to 19 Gbps and multilink support.
The latter permits compatible Wi-Fi 7 phones, tablets, computers, and other devices to connect simultaneously on the 6GHz and 5GHz bands for more reliable connections and faster throughput via link aggregation. To make the most out of Wi-Fi 7, also called 802.11be Extremely High Throughput (EHT), you’ll need a device that supports Wi-Fi 7. Some PC owners may need to wait until September or October when Microsoft is expected to add Wi-Fi 7 support to existing Windows 11 installations with Windows 11 2024 Update version 24H2. That update is available on Copilot+ PCs right now.
The GT-BE19000 has seven Ethernet ports—two 10Gbps and five 2.5Gbps—for a total wired capacity of up to 31 Gbps. Those with a speedy fiber optical service like 2Gbps and higher are recommended to connect their computers via Ethernet to eliminate bottlenecks. If your phone, computer, or tablet has built-in Wi-Fi 7 support, you can enable 320MHz channel bandwidth on the modem’s 6GHz band to boost its throughput significantly.
Asus also unveiled a less powerful dual-band router, the RT-BE86U, that multilink Wi-Fi 7 operation on the 2.4GHz and 5Ghz bands. The device is equipped with one speedy 10G WAN port connecting it to your modem or fiber ONT. There are also four 2.5G LAN ports for plugging gaming PCs and a USB port dedicated to 4G LTE and 5G tethering.
Chances are your PC lacks Wi-Fi 7 unless you bought it recently. If not, Asus has a solution for you: the ROG USB-BE92 external wireless networking card plugs into a host device via USB-C or USB-A. Asus says the ROG USB-BE92 features plug-and-play compatibility with Windows 10 and 11, representing an easy option to add Wi-Fi 7 support to a PC.
It’s up to you to decide whether to spend extra cash to upgrade to a Wi-Fi 7 router or wait. Wi-Fi 7 is much better than Wi-Fi 6E, and there are some great Wi-Fi 7 routers on the market, so it’s not like there’s little choice. The first Wi-Fi 7 modems began arriving at the start of 2024, and there are now at least a dozen compelling options to choose from.
You can check out the new ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 and RT-BE86U routes and the latest Wi-Fi 7 card on the Asus website. Exact pricing and availability information is not yet available.
Source: Asus
