EdwardChesterputssomeof the latest
high-endWi-Fi6 gearto the test
Next-gen
Wi-Fi
LABS TEST
Howwe test
W
e’ll cut to the chase, there’s little to no point in trying to test
the maximum speed of Wi-Fi 6 routers. For a start, the new
standard doesn’t actually push maximum speed all that high.
The theoretical maximum speed of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) is only 37 per
cent faster than Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), which itself was already beyond the
maximum speed of a Gigabit Ethernet connection, and you only get this
maximum speed in specific circumstances at very short range.
Instead, Wi-Fi 6 is all about routers being able to better cope with
multiple connected devices at once, providing a 75 per cent drop in
latency and 4x overall throughput speed in densely populated
networks. However, that’s only if all the client devices have Wi-Fi 6 too.
So instead, we’ve concentrated our testing on the real-world practical
experience of deploying a Wi-Fi 6 router in a current typical home
environment, testing for speed and range throughout a house.
We set up each router on the ground floor of a brick-built, semi-
detached, three-storey house, over to one side next to the outer wall.
We then tested Wi-Fi performance between a PC attached to the router
via Ethernet and a laptop connected to the router over Wi-Fi, using
three different test locations for the laptop. One is on the first floor, on
the far side of the house, while the other two are on the second floor
directly above the router and again over to the other side of the house.
We test throughput using LAN Speed Test, setting up a server on a
computer attached to the Ethernet port of the router, along with a test
client on our 802.11ax-equipped laptop. We don’t test Ethernet speed,
as any variance here is under 1 per cent with modern routers. We do,
though, test USB speed, writing and reading a large file to any USB-
attached storage. Outside of performance, we also look for ease of
setup, as well as any ports, software and other physical features.Contents
Asus AiMesh AX6100 / p54
Asus RT-AX88U/ p55
Netgear Nighthawk AX8 / p56
TP-Link Archer AX6000/ p57
TP-Link Archer TX3000E/ p58
Graphs / p59