Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300

Description

If you’re ready to change everything to 11, it’s the fastest router I’ve tested. The curved spaceship in matte black is a bit more stealthy than your average gaming rig, but these wings include several antennas for a strong signal throughout your home. The Nighthawk RAXE300 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is a tri-band Wi-Fi 6E router that supports the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands. It handled high-speed Wi-Fi seamlessly during two weeks of testing, with no issues when handling a rotating mix of four simultaneous game streams and video streams. I downloaded a 30GB game in less than 10 minutes. A single 2.5Gbps WAN/LAN port, five gigabit LAN ports, and a USB-C 3.0 port will suffice for most people.

The Nighthawk app is excellent with bandwidth sharing, guest network options, and a range of analytics tools. While both Premium Smart Parental Controls ($8/month or $70/year) and Netgear Armor ($100/year) are versatile and smart, the extra expense is hard to swallow when many competitors offer cheaper or free alternatives with similar features. That said, Netgear Armor includes Bitdefender Security for your devices and Bitdefender VPN for use on the go. Don’t even think about spending more than that unless your internet connection exceeds 1Gbps, and even then you can expect diminishing returns.