10 Best Gaming Routers of 2020

The upside to this router is that it is very affordable, it has an uncomplicated design and a good range. The downside is that it is merely a dual-band router.

2. Best Mesh: Portal Wi-Fi

This router has nine built-in antennas with MU-MIMO technology and beamforming to give steady AC2400 speeds in its 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands, perfect for a 6,000 square foot home. Also, it has four ports of Gigabit Ethernet on its satellite and base units to wire directly to your computer or gaming console if you so choose.

What you will like about this router is that it has a beautiful design, a mesh solution that will not cost you so much money, and that it is optimized for gamers. However, it has a bad quality signal handoff and a large footprint.

3. Best Speed: Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200
Smart Wi-Fi Router

Tests were done to this router to guarantee that it offers the fastest Wi-Fi connections at a maximum speed of 3.2Gbps. It comes with six antennas to bring enough signal to cover your entire home. It also has a built-in 1GHz processor to avoid lagging while you are playing as well as a beamforming technology to reinforce the physical antennas and the processor as they work together.

There is also a USB-C port and four LAN ports if you opt to do a hardwire connect. All you need to do is go to the Netgear web page to gain access to their open-source software to modify it to your particular requirements.

Ultimately, the fact that it’s packed with all these features will make it the best multiple band Wi-Fi router so far. What you will love about this router is that it has excellent coverage for your household, a Smart Connect feature, and fast and reliable Wi-Fi performance. However, it has less than compact design features, and it is entirely on the expensive side.

7. Best Security: ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AC5300
Gaming Router

These features have been tested to confirm that your games will consistently go as fast as you want them to. This router also gives you thorough options when it comes to configuring your router. You can create a unique SSID for each of the two 5GHz bands such that your gaming traffic is separated from the rest of the traffic used by your household. You can also develop rules advanced enough to direct and give priority to your high-bandwidth traffic going to your band of choice automatically. Eight ports of Gigabit Ethernet are also available if you want to hardwire connect or host a LAN party.

The best feature, so far, of this gaming router, is its ROG Game Dashboard that locates the lowest latency and fastest server for your game through the WTFast Gamers Private Network (GPN). Another one is a VPN Fusion to override your regular VPN and make sure that your private browsing will not slow down your gaming.

Lastly, it has from Trend Micro a Game IPS to safeguard your network from malware and hackers while you are playing. The interface of this dashboard may be too overwhelming for some users, but it provides excellent options for you to configure and better fit your gaming requirements.
The upside to this router is that it provides you with a Gamers Private Network, two USB 3.0 ports, and eight ports of Gigabit Ethernet. The downside is that it has a large footprint, and it is quite expensive for a Wi-Fi router.

8. Best for Hardcore Gamers: Razer Sila

If you look inside, you will find out that Razer Sila is a tri-band router of the AC3000 type, which delivers brilliant performance despite the absence of antennas. It will not provide the same speed in all corners of your home, but routers are meant to stay beside your gaming gears anyway. Its best feature is its FastLane's and SmartLanes technologies and Fastrack QoS that guarantees your games get the highest priority. This router also has developed algorithms to avoid congestion in your traffic in all your 5GHz channels.

All these magical features create a Wi-Fi router exclusively made for hardcore gamers by providing a lag-free and low latency experience. Moreover, it's straightforward to set up so you can focus on your games such as Call of Duty and Overwatch than spend time fiddling with the configurations.

This router is for those who want to mostly play games since it is not so suitable for general use because of its lack of protection from malware, less than healthy parental controls, and is made to give the highest priority to your gaming more than anything else.

The downside features to this router are that it has limited parental controls that you can customize into your system, as well as malware protection that will safeguard your gaming and other online activities. It also has just three LAN ports, which are quite little, considering that others can offer up to eight. However, because it has gaming-focused features, a very sleek design, and offers simplicity in setting up, these more than makeup for what it lacks.

9. Best Design: Netgear Nighthawk RAX80 8-Stream AX6000 Wi-Fi 6 Router

Gaming computers and consoles may not be ready yet, but this router has Wi-Fi 6 capabilities that will be prepared when the time comes. Other top-of-the-line technologies include 160MHz channels and MU-MIMO, giving you gigabit speeds in all of your capable devices.

It has a quad-core 1.8GHz 64-bit processor and eight synchronized streams, so multiple devices can connect to your router without suffering a slow down in speed even for your game. There is also an option to hardwire connect, thanks to four ports of Gigabit Ethernet.

To recap, the upside to this router is that it delivers superior gaming performance. It provides support for W-Fi 6 capabilities making you ready when the enabling technologies for gaming consoles and computers come, and it has an excellently smooth design. The downside, however, is that there are reports received of problems in its firmware. Also, the ethernet ports are much too close to each other, and that it is quite expensive.

10. Best Overall: ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX11000
Wi-Fi 6 Router

There is an option to go for a wired connection with four ports of Gigabit Ethernet plus a dedicated gaming port of 2.5Gbps speed. It has a load of options to optimize your gaming experience because of its quad-core 1.8GHz CPU. You can create algorithms to direct your high-bandwidth traffic to your chosen bands and configure a dedicated SSID for your 5GHz bands. It also has Games Radar that will locate the fasters servers for your online games, Dynamic QoS to prioritize your gaming traffic, VPN Fusion to separate your gaming from your VPN, and WTFast game acceleration.

Although you probably won’t need it, with all of the features this router offers, this Asus router has an AIMesh technology that allows you to connect several routers to develop a mesh network. This way, you can broaden the coverage in your home and direct traffic to prioritize your gaming. You get all of these, including all of Asus’ networking and security capabilities such as its integrated VPN client and server and adaptive firewall, among others.

What you will love about this router is its leading-edge QoS, which is genuinely game-centric, its extremely superior performance over all the routers we mentioned, and its support for advanced Wi-Fi 6 capabilities. However, it is costly given all the features that you can enjoy when you buy it, and it has quite a large footprint.

There you go, your best gaming routers for this year. If you are a genuine and dedicated gamer, you can choose from among these products depending on your specific gaming requirements, your particular gaming rig, and how much budget you can allocate for your gaming activities.