The 5 Best Wi-Fi Routers to Speed Up Your Gaming

When shopping for a new Wi-Fi router, you should first compare the size of your space with the square footage that a router is designed to cover. If you’re powering only a small apartment, you won’t need a particularly powerful one. But a stronger router is necessary for either a larger house or to use with technology that will put significant strain on your Wi-Fi. With gaming routers, you’ll want to be particularly aware of how much bandwidth you need for your console or computer, and then how much else you will need for the rest of the house, depending if you have a smart system or a number of other people living with you.

What to Know About Radio Bands

Radio bands essentially determine how powerful your Wi-Fi will be, and how well it will be able to travel through walls and other barriers. In any decent router, you will find two bands. One will be a 2.4GHz band, which is what powers through the walls of your house, and a 5GHz band for high-speed internet.

Since 2.4GHz is used by all Bluetooth devices, it can get bogged down. But most routers will allow you to choose which band you wish to connect your devices to, which makes it easier to work around high-traffic situations.

If you need even more bandwidth, you can opt for a tri-band router, which contains two 2.4HGz and one 5Ghz. You’ll still be able to allocate devices to individual bands, so this is a great option if your router typically sees a lot of traffic and you still want to be able to stream your games.

How We Selected and Rated Them

We researched expert sources such as Tech Radar, PC Mag, and PC Gamer, and as well as 2,900 consumer reviews to select the top five gaming routers. Our Consumer Score represents the percentage of customers who rated the product at least four out of five stars on retail and review sites like Amazon, Walmart, and the manufacturers’ webpages.

If you’re looking for an aesthetically pleasing router, this ain’t it. But those able to look past its ugly exterior will find an incredibly fast and powerful model that will meet all of their gaming needs. It boasts speeds of up to 2Gbps and has built-in anti-virus and malware tools. And despite the Archer C5400 being rather pricey, PC Mag gave it an “excellent” rating. This TP-Link is also a great option if you’re a frequent Alexa user or have other smart home devices to connect. You can even use Alexa commands to open up a guest network or connect a new device without having to type in a password, which is a nice feature, especially if you often have internet-using guests over.

This mid-range Asus router is a great option for when you need a bit more bandwidth but don’t want to break the bank. Physically, it’s a much subtler option than the typical gaming aesthetic, but don’t think that it can’t handle some serious gameplay. In addition to impressive speeds, it really shines when it comes to security and prioritization tools. The router has a built-in network protection to prevent malware and suspicious content, and the web-based management console is easy to use to prioritize networks and set up parental controls. The Asus AC2900 must stand upright with no option for wall mounting, but this allows for easy setup and installation, making it a great option for families and single gamers alike.