What is the best router for gaming

While you're shopping for a gaming router, you should be on the lookout for which version of Wi-Fi it supports. The main two you'll want to look out for are Wi-Fi 6 During your search for a gaming router, you'll undoubtedly come across units designed for Wi-Fi 4 Wi-Fi 4 is an outdated standard that provides fairly slow speeds compared to its two more modern renditions.

You'll also want to find a gaming router that is at least dual-band. Single-band routers only support the 2. You'll also find Tri-Band routers—and we've featured a number of them above as well—that feature an additional 5GHz band you can completely dedicate to gaming. Be aware, just having a gaming router doesn't mean you're going to automatically get the best home network instantly. You still should follow a number of best practices for optimizing your home network.

Don't try tucking your router out of the way in a closet at the bottom of a shelf, as that's the quickest way to ensure you won't get the full performance out of it. Your router should be placed somewhere central in your living space, ideally high up, and it shouldn't have many obstacles in the way i. Everything in the path from your router to your connected devices will impact the signal and thus the quality of your connection.

You can also help out your wireless devices by using a wired Ethernet connection wherever possible. Limiting the number of devices connected to your Wi-Fi at a time can help ensure each device gets better performance. Securing your wireless router is also important not just for security but also for your performance.

Sure you don't want potentially malicious users accessing your home network, but you also don't want your neighbors piggybacking onto your network, as they'll eat into your bandwidth and potentially drag down your network performance.

Use a strong password and consider disabling any guest networks. You might even consider not broadcasting your network ID, which makes it far less likely someone will access your network with the tradeoff that setting up new devices can be a little more time-consuming. Follow him on Twitter baggingspam. Best Router for Gaming Get online with these gaming routers. Best Router for Gaming. Best Budget Router for Gaming. Pro Gaming Router XR Best Wi-Fi 6 Router for Gaming.

Was this article informative? YES NO. If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, learn more. We do our best to account for those variables in our tests, but some factors are beyond our control -- and beyond your router's control, too. For instance, your home's specific internet service provider connection is like a speed limit for your router.

If you're paying for speeds of up to, say, 50 megabits per second, then your router won't transmit data from the cloud any faster than that. The average ISP download speed in the US is somewhere around Mbps, while those living in areas with access to fiber connections might enjoy speeds of , or -- if they're really lucky -- even 1,Mbps. Read more : The best racing wheels and pedals for iRacing and your budget. Our approach bypasses the ISP entirely.

Instead of using a modem to pull data from the cloud, we pull data from a local server using a wired connection. Our local server of choice is a MacBook Pro. We connect it to the router using a CAT 7 Ethernet cable to keep interference as low as possible, plus we use an adapter to connect to the MacBook's Thunderbolt 3 port, since it supports data transfer speeds that are plenty fast for our purposes.

From there, we take a second laptop and connect to the router's wireless network; then we clock the speeds as we download the data that the router is fetching from the MacBook via that wired connection. We run this test several times on each router's 2. In the end, we get a great look at how quickly each router is able to transmit data to a connected device like your phone, gaming PC, gaming laptop or gaming console of choice.

Yes, you'll see much faster speeds if you connect that gaming console directly to the router via Ethernet cable. We tested those wired speeds too and didn't see any noticeable difference between any of the routers we measured. Each came within a megabit or two of Mbps, which is what you'd expect from a Gigabit Ethernet connection.

As for wireless speeds, the graph above shows the top speeds for each router on both the 2. Here's what jumps out at me from these results. First, it's easy to spot the three Wi-Fi 6 routers we tested up at the top -- they clocked top speeds on the 5GHz band that were much, much faster than any other router we tested.

Bear in mind that we're running these speed tests on a laptop that supports Wi-Fi 6! If we weren't, those bars would likely be a lot shorter.

When we increased the distance to 75 feet, the average speed fell to Mbps, which is still a faster speed than any of the Wi-Fi 5 routers we tested were able to reach at all, even up close. I should note that those Wi-Fi 6 routers didn't blow the competition away on the 2.

In fact, the router with the fastest average speeds across all distances on the 2. Right behind it, the D-Link DIR, which also holds the distinction of being the cheapest router we tested for this roundup.

That, coupled with the fact that it includes a Quality of Service engine that can prioritize gaming traffic, is what made it an easy value pick among this field. That Netgear model was also the fastest Wi-Fi 5 router on the 5GHz band, which tells us that it's a pretty capable piece of hardware.

One last note: We don't have full access to our test lab this year as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, so we haven't been able to run this same test with some of the newer models we've reviewed. Once we're able to test everything in a controlled setting once more, we'll update this section with fresh data.

Measuring top speeds in a controlled test environment gives us a clear look at what these routers are technically capable of, but you won't see speeds that fast in your home. Remember, your router can only pull data from the cloud as fast as your ISP speed allows and signal strength will vary from home to home based on the layout and the amount of obstructions in the way. To account for this, we ran a second batch of tests. The goal was to get a good look at the types of speeds most people would experience if they brought one of these routers into their home.

Amplifi's app lets you choose between Latency and Throughput modes depending on your needs, and it includes helpful features like signal strength indicators for the plug-in extenders. To gather my data, I ran an abundance of speed tests from five different locations in my home, ranging from the living room where the router lives to a back bathroom on the opposite end of the house.

Throughout all of my tests, I always kept a TV streaming live video from PlayStation Vue RIP to simulate normal household network traffic in a controlled fashion and also so my very patient roommate could at least watch TV while politely staying off the Wi-Fi during my tests. After running multiple speed tests from each of those locations, I averaged everything together. ISP speeds can fluctuate throughout the day, so to help account for this as best as I could, I'd run this whole process again with each router at a later time.

Then, I'd average that data with the first batch of tests. Fourteen routers, five locations in my home, three tests per location, two rounds of tests at minimum. When you add in the additional tests I ran to double-check a result or measure the impact of specific features, it amounts to roughly 1, speed tests and counting. Those averages proved telling. The top finisher on the 5GHz band turned out to be the Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR, which averaged more than Mbps across all of my speed tests, including ones in the back of my house where the signal strength is typically poor.

However, when it comes to online games , the last thing you want is some kind of disruption or slowdown to happen at a crucial moment. Especially if you or someone in your household is a massive gamer, you need to leave a mediocre network where it belongs — in the past — and invest in the best gaming router that can keep up with your demands.

This is a high-speed, reliable Wi-Fi 6 router that boasts a handful of features for hard-core gamers. Have younger gamers at home? It also provides good parental controls like content filters to block unsuitable material, with pre-set profiles for children of different ages. The Asus RT-AC is one of the best gaming routers — it has a collection of advanced features, making online and network gaming as lag and frustration free as possible.

This includes a straightforward yet powerful interface, as well as comprehensive QoS settings. The spider-like design is somewhat of an acquired taste, but the eight antennae serve a purpose since they can be used to direct the Wi-Fi signal throughout your home, providing this router with remarkable range.

You should take a look at something like the Netgear Nighthawk XR Not only will this elite gaming router deliver a ridiculously fast 2. The Asus RT-AC is a fantastic high-end gaming router that is filled with a bunch of striking features.

This includes an incredibly simple yet powerful interface, on top of comprehensive QoS settings. Brimming with the latest MU-MIMO support, which boosts speed when multiple devices are connected to the same network, this gaming router prides itself on its performance capabilities.

However, it justifies its price with crazy It comes with a good range of ports, as well as a nicely designed UI. Why invest in a gaming router when you have a perfectly good one at home? Whether online and co-op games are your thing or you download a lot of games on Steam, gaming can monopolize a chunk of your bandwidth, slowing your network down considerably.