The Best Gaming Routers for 2020

[LeaLeona]

If you're a PC gaming enthusiast, you know about speed. Gaming rigs are good only if they're tricked out with the latest and fastest CPUs, lots of memory, the quickest solid state drive (SSD), and, of course, the best graphic cards. But while that combination will definitely give you a fast machine, online gaming performance can still be hampered if it's connected to a crowded network with an Internet connection controlled by an overburdened or old fashioned wireless router. Additionally, the majority of home networks are more taxed than ever because so many folks are working from home due to COVID-19. So if game performance is important to you, it's well worth your time to take a close look at optimizing your network.

[utilitieshyn]

Start with what's connected. A whole family's worth of gear can mean oodles of phones, tablets, HDTVs, streaming video/music devices, and smart-home gear all connecting to—and hammering—the beleaguered household router. (It's not an exaggeration that some households will have dozens of devices.) Any online gamers in the house must compete for that router's bandwidth not only with everyone else but all those smart devices, too. And that can lead to unpredictable, often subpar, performance.

Now, on a basic level, many routers, even those we classify as budget routers, offer Quality of Service (QoS) settings that let you give priority to devices or applications that require lots of bandwidth. But not many of them offer the gamer-centric settings and optimizations that you get with a dedicated gaming router. If network lag is messing with your game, read on to find out how a gaming router can give you back your competitive edge—and how to choose the one that best suits your household, your play style, and your budget.

[earwigenchant]

Gaming routers go a step further, by offering prioritization for specific gaming systems and applications, and allowing you to decide how much bandwidth each client is entitled to. That can be especially important if you have multiple online gamers in the same household, who are all competing for the feed from the same pipe. For example, Linksys gaming routers have firmware that automatically gives network priority to devices that are equipped with Rivet Networks' Killer Prioritization Engine (KPE). When the router detects a device equipped with Killer networking hardware, it gives that device the lion's share of bandwidth to ensure smooth, lag-free online gameplay. The company also has a gaming router that automatically gives network priority to Microsoft Xbox consoles. (It's a variant of the Linksys WRT32X Wi-Fi Gaming Router in our favorites table above.)

Many gaming routers also use a modified management console with a gamer-friendly user interface that makes it easy to assign bandwidth priorities on the fly. Netgear recently began outfitting its gaming routers with DUMAOS, an interactive, gamer-friendly operating system developed by Netduma. It has a sleek-looking dashboard that lets you see what is going on with your network at a glance, with graphs showing real-time CPU and bandwidth usage, currently installed apps, guest networking status, Wi-Fi status, and internet status.

[authorstockley]

You can also use customized software to enhance online gaming performance. Using firmware from sources such as OpenWRT, DD-WRT, and Tomato, you can unleash the full potential of your router to enhance overall signal strength, monitor real-time usage, and prioritize bandwidth usage. To do this, though, the router must support open-source firmware upgrades. Make sure you have a good idea of how routers and firmware work together before you decide to go this route. (See our favorite Wi-Fi routers that support DD-WRT.

[LeaLeona]

Any gaming router worth its salt will offer at least two radio bands. The 2.4GHz band is the most widely used band and tends to get more crowded than the 5GHz one. You'll get much better range on the 2.4GHz band, but it can't match the speeds that you get with the 5GHz. Every router that comes through PCMag Labs is thoroughly tested across all bands, but you should be aware that different bands can have an impact on performance.

If your gaming system is in close proximity to your router, the 5GHz band will provide the best throughput performance. If you have numerous devices connecting to your network, a tri-band router is your best bet, especially if you're also employing range extenders to reach the far corners of your home. Tri-band routers add a second 5GHz band that you can dedicate to certain devices or applications. For example, you can reserve an entire 5GHz band just for gaming (so long as your PC-gaming rig or your console supports 5GHz Wi-Fi) and use the other 5GHz band for high-bandwidth applications such as video streaming, massive file transfers, or torrent downloads. This leaves the more crowded 2.4GHz band free for everyday tasks such as web surfing and connecting to smart-home devices such as lights, cameras, locks, and security systems.

[Alexandramomanov]

The best gaming routers have multiple LAN ports for wired connections—which are preferred, if possible—but most differ from ISP-provided gear through the use of the latest Wi-Fi standards, such as 802.11ax aka Wi-Fi 6. This means faster and more efficient wireless data throughput for a greater number of devices. That last bit is key to rock-solid wireless performance in an age of smart devices and appliances.

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