5 Of The Fastest Wi-Fi Routers Available In 2024

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The COVID pandemic changed how and where we work, with Forbes reporting that about one in eight full-time workers work exclusively from home and about 28% have a hybrid work situation, working at times in an office and others at home. That shift coincided with an uptick in video streaming, according to Play Today, as home video streaming jumped from 10% of all viewing in 2018 to 19% in 2019. In fact, today 77% of viewers aged 18 to 34 prefer watching streaming programming to traditional cable TV.

All of this meant more users needed access to high-speed internet than ever before. In 2020, Broadband Now estimated that 56% of residents in the United States had access to internet service with speeds of 1 GB or more, enabling multiple users in a home to work, watch videos, and play games simultaneously. 

To do so requires a router with the ability to handle the speeds a fiber optic or other fast connection offers, and major brands have stepped up to provide dozens of affordable wireless routers. Sifting through them can be overwhelming, though, so Slashgear has sorted through all the currently available home wifi routers to find five of the fastest.  

ASUS is another hardware maker with a long history, as the Taiwan-based company was founded in 1989 and now ranks as the world's top motherboard manufacturer. Its ROG Rapture Wi-Fi 6 router sells for $346.65 at Amazon and can deliver speeds up to 11,000 Mbps. It has a 64-bit 2.0 GHz quad-core processor, 256 MB of flash memory, and 1GB of DDR3 RAM, specs that would blow away many PCs of the bygone days of dial-up internet. It is also optimized for gaming with a dedicated 2.5 GHz ethernet port for connecting the router to a server.

The ROG Rapture also has a gigabit WAN port and four gigabit LAN ports, as well as AIMesh compatibility for extending its coverage area. The ROG Rapture was a top pick this year by the editors at CableTV, and PC Magazine named it the best router for gaming. They wrote, "This tri-band Wi-Fi 6 router carries a hefty price tag, but you get your money's worth in terms of performance, high-speed network ports, and features including game-enhancing settings and parental control, traffic monitoring, and network security software."

The best value in terms of maximizing speed for your money is the Acer Predator Connect W6. This router sells for just $149.99 at Walmart and delivers speeds of up to 2.4Gb per second on the  6 GHz Wi-Fi band. It also operates at 5GHz and 2.4Ghz for longer range at maximum speeds of 4.8Gb per second and 600 Mb per second, respectively. It has a 2.0GHz quad-core processor, 16GB of DDR4 memory, and 4GB of eMMC storage on board along with a setting that optimizes bandwidth for NVIDIA GeForce Now video cards. It also has a 2.5GBps WAN port, four gigabit LAN ports, and a single USB 3.0 port.

You can configure some of the router's settings via the Predator Connect smartphone app, but VPN, firewall, and port forwarding settings can only be managed via the web browser console. Yahoo found the setup easy and the speeds and latency impressive, ultimately deciding that "There's quite a lot to like about the Acer Predator Connect W6, whether it's the cloud gaming optimisations, the bundled security software, the USB-A 3.0 port that lets you connect storage to your network, or the antenna signal configuration utility."