ASUS RT-AC88U AC3100 Extreme Wireless Router Review

Introduction

It has been a while since we had last taken a look at a networking solution from ASUS, so with that in mind, I set out to get my hands-on the RT-AC88U.

ASUS has always had a small share of the wireless router market going all the way back to the WL-500b, but its seems they have been becoming more of a powerhouse with the launch of the 802.11n solutions and now their 802.11ac devices. The AC88U is a rather interesting solution as with its large AC3100 marketing number you would think there are at least three bands within this solution, but instead, ASUS has thanks to advances in beamforming technology, enabled this solution to use 1024QAM on both 2.4 and 5GHz. This means the 88U which operates at 600 Mbps on the 2.4GHz and 1734 Mbps on the 5GHz can now be pushed to 1000 Mbps on 2.4 and 2167 Mbps with 5GHz.

Specifications of the 88U include MIMO functionality with a 4x4 Tx/Rx setup. At the heart of this platform lies the 1.4GHz dual-core Broadcom BCM4709 with 512MB of DDR3 and 128MB of NAND for firmware. Adding to this, ASUS has all the standard bells and whistles including WEP, WPA, and WPA 2 security along with uPnP, IGMP, and SNMP for monitoring. 802.3ad support is really starting to become a mainstream feature with client solutions as ASUS, like Netgear, has deployed this setup over LAN1 and 2 on the 88U. Also, ASUS has enabled 3G/4G functionality along with dual WAN and VPN.

MSRP of the ASUS RT-AC88U sits at $299.99 with a two-year warranty.