

By way of comparison, the Asus RT-AX88U is equipped with eight LAN ports. It can be placed on a desktop surface or mounted on a wall.Īt the rear of the router are five gigabit LAN ports (two of which can be used together for link aggregation), a WAN port, two USB 3.0 ports, a reset button, an LED on/off button, a power button, and a power jack. Fully extended, the router measures 6.7 by 11.5 by 8.0 inches (HWD), and when folded its dimensions are 2.7 by 10.5 by 8.0 inches. It has two "wings" that fold up to give the router its odd shape, and each wing contains two high-performance Wi-Fi antennas. The black and charcoal gray RAX80 looks like something you'd expect to see buzzing around in a Star Wars movie.
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802.11ax is backward compatible and will work with devices that use older 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi tech, but only 802.11ax clients can take full advantage of its enhanced performance and features, and they are few and far between right now. It also offers uplink and downlink MU-MIMO streaming (802.11ac only supports downlink MU-MIMO).

Wi-Fi 6 also takes advantage of previously unused radio frequencies to help boost 2.4GHz performance, and it uses refined uplink and downlink bandwidth management to provide enhanced QoS (Quality of Service). The use of Target Wake Time is expected to extend the battery life of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets as well as battery-powered smart home devices such as security cameras and video doorbells. Target Wake Time (TWT) is designed to reduce power consumption by allowing devices to determine when and how often they will wake up to begin sending and receiving data. This allows up to 30 users to share a channel at the same time. Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) improves overall throughput by breaking Wi-Fi channels into sub-channels. An evolution of 802.11ac technology, 802.11ax promises increased throughput speeds (up to 4.8Gbps), less network congestion, greater client capacity, and better range performance courtesy of several new and improved wireless technologies. Wi-Fi 6, also known as 802.11ax or High Efficiency (HE) Wireless, is the latest Wi-Fi protocol. However, you don't get the robust game-friendly QoS options and anti-malware tools that you get with the Asus RT-AX88U, and as is the case with the RT-AX88U, you'll have to wait for Wi-Fi 6 clients to hit the market to take full advantage of all that the RAX80 has to offer. At $399.99, the RAX80 doesn't come cheap, but it turned in some impressive scores on our throughput tests, and its file-transfer performance is top-notch. Shaped like a futuristic starship, the RAX80 boasts an impressive feature set that includes five gigabit LAN ports, link aggregation, a powerful quad-core processor, and of course, 802.11ax wireless technology, also known as Wi-Fi 6.

Netgear's Nighthawk AX8 8-Stream Wi-Fi 6 Router (RAX80) joins the Asus RT-AX88U as the first 802.11ax routers to hit our labs.
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Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Software.Enjoy the convenience and accessibility of google drive and dropbox without the fees, storage limitations or privacy concerns. Simply plug your USB hard drive into your NETGEAR Nighthawk X8 Smart Wi-Fi Router to create secure personal cloud storage. Simple and secure cloud storage via USBĪccess and share your files stored on a USB Drive through NETGEAR Read圜LOUD USB Access. Using a single core processor would cause severe performance issues as various processes compete for CPU power. Nighthawk X8 delivers Tri-band Wi-Fi, quad-stream performance on each band, Multi-User MIMO capable, has six gigabit LAN ports with port aggregation and dual USB interfaces to connect external USB storage. Powerful dual core 1.4 HGz router processor NETGEAR moved the Wi-Fi amplifiers from their usual location on the motherboard to the top of antennas for a cleaner and stronger receive signal from mobile devices. NETGEAR an active antennas technology improves Wi-Fi performance by amplifying signal in the antenna itself.
