Best gaming routers: Say goodbye to Wi-Fi lag

So you’ve got a killer gaming laptop , top-of-the-line peripherals , and even a comfortable gaming chair. All you need to compete online now (apart from some skill, but you’re on your own there) is a killer gaming router. Not only will this virtually eliminate lag when playing on Wi-Fi, they offer other special benefits like gigabit ethernet ports and software solutions to manage bandwidth.
If you’re looking to take your wireless gaming to the next level, here are the best gaming routers on the market in 2020.
Best gaming routers

Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000
Asus RT-AX88U
Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700
TP-Link Archer AX6000
TP-Link Archer C5400X
Zyxel Armor Z2 AC2600

Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000

As far as gaming routers go, you won’t find a more fitting example than the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000. Not only does its sci-fi spider look fit the gamer aesthetic, it’s one of the fastest and most powerful routers on the market.
With full support for 802.11ax ( Wi-Fi 6 ), the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is a tri-band router, so you can dedicated one 5GHz band exclusively to gaming. Plus, unique software implementations allow further prioritization of gaming traffic and optimized connections to game servers to reduce ping and latency to a minimum. If that’s still not fast enough, there’s also a 2.5G ethernet port for blazing fast wired gaming. It isn’t cheap, but this is easily one of the best gaming routers you can buy.
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Asus RT-AX88U

If Asus’ premier gaming router is too expensive for you, the RT-AX88U is a great alternative. It still supports next-gen Wi-Fi 6 with speeds up to 6000Mbs, but does away with some of the more advanced software features of its more expensive cousin.
What makes this one of the best gaming routers you can buy is not just the incredible speeds, it’s also the eight gigabit LAN ports on the back of the router. All this connectivity means you can get the fastest possible speeds from both wired and wireless connections on all devices. For larger homes, it can be combined with the RT-AX92U mesh kit to boost coverage throughout the house.
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Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700

When money is no object and you want the absolute best gaming router you can buy, look no further than the Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700. Sure, it has six gigabit ethernet ports and one 10 gigabit SFP+ port for incredible wired speeds, but with Wi-Fi speeds up to 7.2Gbps you can safely leave cables behind.
Pure speed isn’t all this gaming router offers, with advanced Quality of Service features to make sure your ping is as low as possible. It also has a built-in Geo-Filter to make sure you’re always connected to the fastest server, plus a fully customizable dashboard to monitor bandwidth utilization by all devices on...