Most big networking vendors such as netgear, asus and tplink introduce one or few wireless gaming routers among their wifi products based on wifi 6 technology. Netgear introduce netgear xr1000, asus with asus rt-ax86u and tp-link with its archer c5400x.
Netgear XR1000
This netgear xr1000 is specially designed for folks who like to play online games. This product is released following the previous Netgear wireless gaming router products, the Netgear xr500 which works @ AC2600 network segment. And the other series is Netgear xr700 ad7200 which was released based on wireless AD technology with a total bandwidth of 7200Mbps (4600 + 1733 + 800). Wireless AD standard is not so popular and only couple of products were released to the market.
Wifi 6 Gaming Router
Unlike the two previous models of Netgear wireless gaming router netgear xr500 and netgear xr700, this netgear xr1000 wireless gaming router is designed based on the latest wifi 6 technology that works on the ax5400 network segment. The question is what is the difference between the Netgear xr1000 which works @ ax5400 network segment and the similar product Netgear rax50 which also works on the same network segment ax5400?
Indeed, these two wireless router models have the same ax5400 network segment; physically the two models are nearly the same even though the body color is different. However, there is something different technically when it comes to online gaming, that the Netgear xr1000 is specially designed for gamers in mind with its gaming priority features.
Gaming priority
One of the keys for smooth online gaming is to provide gaming traffic priority. Netgear xr1000 is powered by DumaOS software. DumoOS delivers impressive gaming experience with geofencing feature to reduce lagging, gaming traffic prioritization over other applications on your network ensuring lag free and smooth gaming including ping heat maps and connection benchmarks features.
You may compare with Asus rt-ax86u wireless gaming router which is featured with Game mode.
Highlights
- Simultaneous dual band ax5400 wifi-6 wireless gaming router with DumaOS for smooth and responsive online gaming
- Wifi speeds of up to 600Mbps @2.4GHz with 2×2 and up to 4.8Gbps @5GHz with 4×4 1024 QAM and 160MHz
- 4x detachable external antennas for wider coverage and solid connection
- 1x Gigabit WAN port and 4x Gigabit LAN ports and 1x USB 3.0
- Powered by 1.5GHz Triple core processor with 256MB flash and 512MB RAM
- Powered by DumaOS software for game traffic prioritization for responsive and smooth gaming
- Supports latest WPA3 wifi encryption
Cons
- MSRP is more expensive compared with Asus and Archer, however today you may fid the prices are dropped when new products are introduced to the market.
Now, let’s discuss technical spec differences for this netgear xr1000 vs Asus rt-ax86u and netgear xr1000 vs archer c5400x
Netgear xr1000 vs Asus vs TP-link
One of the competing products of the Netgear xr1000 is the Asus rt-ax86u which is also designed as a wireless gaming router. And one more competitor of this product is the one offered by Tp-link – Archer c5400x which also gives the same total bandwidth of up to 5400Mbps but is still based on 802.11ac wifi technology.
Table 1 below shows a comparison table between the xr1000 and asus rt-ax86u. While table 2 shows a comparison table between xr1000 and archer c5400x.
Gaming prioritization
One thing that distinguishes wireless routers in general from wireless gaming routers is that they give game traffic priority so they can play online game with no lags. Netgear xr1000 uses the prioritization method as has been discussed above. While Asus rt-ax86u uses different approach including the mobile game mode feature, priority by using dedicated 2.5Gbps Ethernet gaming port.
Unlike the Netgear xr1000 and Asus ax86u, the TP-link Archer C5400x uses a different approach, by providing a dedicated radio band for online games, as well as dynamic optimization.
Processor
The processor embedded in a wifi router provides processing power for all networking tasks, the better the processor the greater the processing power of the router.
Netgear xr1000 is powered by triple core processor, compared to Asus rt-ax86u and Archer c5400x that are powered by Quad core processors; sure quad core processor is more powerful than triple core processor.
Other spec differences can be shown in the following two spec comparison tables, table 1 for Netgear xr1000 vs Asus rt-ax86u and table 2 for Netgear xr1000 vs TP-link Archer c5400x.
Table 1 Netgear xr1000 vs Asus
| Model | Netgear xr1000 | Asus rt-ax86u |
| Wifi technology | Simultaneous dual band ax5400 wifi-6 gaming router with Duma OS | Simultaneous dual band ax5700 wifi-6 gaming router with mobile game mode |
| Wifi speeds | 2.4GHz AX: 2×2 1024/256 QAM 20/40MHz, up to 600Mbps, 5GHz AX: 4×4 1024 QAM 20/40/80/160MHz up to 4.8Gbps | Up to 861Mbps @2.4GHz 3×3 Up to 4804Mbps @5GHz 4×4 |
| Antennas | 4x detachable high-performance antennas | 3x External antenna 1x Internal PCB antenna |
| Ethernet Ports | Five (5) 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet ports – 1 WAN & 4 LAN | 1x 10/100/1000 BaseT for WAN 4x 10/100/1000 BaseT for LAN 1x 2.5G BaseT for WAN/LAN |
| USB Ports | 1x USB 3.0 | 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 |
| Processor | 1.5GHz triple-core processor with 256MB flash and 512MB RAM | 1.8GHz Quad core processor with 256MB Flash and 1GB RAM |
| Security | WPA3 support, guest access, VPN, Netgear Armor powered by Bitdefender | WPA3 support, |
| Gaming features | DumaOS gaming software, gaming prioritizing, geo fencing | Mobile game mode, prioritize via gaming port, prioritize via gear accelerator |
| Price | $265.00 | $269.99 |
TP-link Archer c5400x offers you an option of wifi-5 gaming router with cheaper price instead of wifi-6 gaming router.
Table 2 Netgear xr1000 vs Archer
| Model | Netgear xr1000 | TP-link archer c5400x |
| Wifi technology | Simultaneous dual band ax5400 wifi-6 gaming router with Duma OS | Simultaneous tri-band MU-MIMO ac5400 wireless gaming router |
| Wifi speeds | 2.4GHz AX: 2×2 1024/256 QAM 20/40MHz, up to 600Mbps, 5GHz AX: 4×4 1024 QAM 20/40/80/160MHz up to 4.8Gbps | 1,000 Mbps @2.4GHz 2167Mbps @5GHz band 1 2167Mbps @5GHz band 2 as dedicated band for gaming traffic |
| Antennas | 4x detachable high-performance antennas | 8x external antennas |
| Ethernet Ports | Five (5) 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet ports – 1 WAN & 4 LAN | 1x Gigabit WAN port 8x Gigabit LAN ports |
| USB Ports | 1x USB 3.0 | 2x USB 3.0 |
| Processor | 1.5GHz triple-core processor with 256MB flash and 512MB RAM | 1.8GHz 64-bit Quad core processor with 1GB RAM + 3x Co processors |
| Security | WPA3 support, guest access, VPN, Netgear Armor powered by Bitdefender | WPA2; free lifetime subscription to TP-Link HomeCare |
| Gaming features | DumaOS gaming software, gaming prioritizing, geo fencing | Dynamic optimization, dedicated gaming band |
| Price | $265.00 | $179.99 |
The price listed could be different with the current price. To shop each of the products, click the following links below to shop the product in Amazon (#ads).
- Click here to SHOP Netgear xr1000 (#ad)
- Or Click here to SHOP Asus rt-ax86u (#ad)
- Or probably like to Click here to SHOP TP-link Archer c5400x (#ad)
Related products
For mesh wifi system you may consider new products of eero-6 ax1800 mesh wifi and eero-6 Pro ax4200 mesh wifi, the new generation of eero-series under Amazon umbrella. Or you may also like Linksys Velop mx12600 or Deco X60 mesh wifi.