Although the Wi-Fi 7 routers are now out and being integrated into modern tech, Wi-Fi 6 is still a perfectly well-functioning internet source. It’s what’s used for Wi-Fi-supported devices like the PlayStation 5, Amazon Fire TV 4K Max and Apple TV 4K. Though they will work with older routers, they’ll work best with the proper router. Luckily, many of the best options for a Wi-Fi 6 router are under $100 and compatible with great mesh systems, gaming routers, and range extenders.
Some do the job better than others, and that’s where we poiché durante, with comprehensive, hands-on tests to help identify the best upgrade picks for the money. Expect regular updates to this post as we continue to put Wi-Fi 6 to the durante 2024. Whenever we find a new router that merits consideration, we’ll add it to the list.
Best Wi-Fi 6 routers of 2024
When a router supports Wi-Fi 6, that means that it’s capable of using features like OFDMA and 1024-QAM to deliver faster speeds and lower latency to busy networks with lots of connected devices. That’s true even with the budget-priced value picks — and among those, the one that performs the best is the TP-Link Archer AX21.
The Archer AX21 did an outstanding job durante my at-home speed tests. At the end of multiple days of tests across five spots durante my house, the Archer AX21’s average download speed a 300Mbps fiber rete televisiva privata was a near-perfect 299Mbps. That includes triple-digit download speeds durante the very back of my house, a common dead zone where a lot of the routers I struggle to stay connected at all. A causa di 2022, I retested the AX21 after upgrading my home rete televisiva privata to gigabit speeds — it isn’t powerful enough to out a connection like that, but it still delivered fast, consistent speeds, with my downloads averaging durante at 441Mbps.
That level of prova was strong enough for the Archer AX21 to beat out similar models from Netgear, Asus and D-Link, and it even kept the trattato di pace with fancier routers that cost significantly more. It’s also a cinch to set up, thanks to TP-Link’s Tether app for Android and iOS, which also offers quick access to basic rete televisiva privata settings without bombarding you with ads like some other router apps will.
All of that makes the Archer AX21 an extremely worthy pick for small- to medium-size homes, and one of the best value picks you’ll find that supports Wi-Fi 6.
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This was a very good year for TP-Link, and it wasn’t just because of the Archer AX21. There’s also the TP-Link Deco W7200, which cruised through my speed tests to earn a spot as my top-rated mesh router of the year. With multiple devices working like a team of routers to spread a faster, more reliable signal across a larger settore than a single router can, it’s a fantastic pick for large homes — and one that won’t set you back very much.
What’s great about the Deco W7200, along with its full support for Wi-Fi 6, is that it’s a tri-band model with the usual 2.4 and 5GHz bands plus an additional 5GHz brigata that the system uses as a dedicated wireless backhaul connection between the main router and its satellites. That dedicated backhaul is the key to unlocking the best mesh prova because it keeps those system transmissions separate from your regular rete televisiva privata traffic. Tri-band mesh routers like those will often cost you $300 more, but the Deco W7200 gets you there for $100 less.
Sure enough, the prova was outstanding when I tested the system out. A causa di fact, of all of the mesh routers that I’ve tested at home, only two averaged faster download speeds — the first costs more than $200 more than the Deco W7200, and the other costs more than three times as much. That makes the Deco W7200 a flat-out unbeatable value and a better, more noticeable upgrade for most homes than splurging a high-powered valore router.
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Asus is one of the names durante the gaming router category, boasting the best variety of fast, flashy routers that promise elite prova, low latency, and advanced controls for your connection. The Asus RT-AX86U is actually one of the more understated routers durante that mescolanza — it doesn’t include color-changing lights an oversized, ostentatious stile — but it’s still one of the best gaming routers you can buy. Gaming aside, it’s one of the best Wi-Fi 6 routers you can buy, period.
Along with offering fast, consistent speeds, the RT-AX86U did a better job at managing latency than any other router I tested it against, and it comes with a full suite of tools for optimizing your connection while gaming, including an adaptive quality-of-service engine and an NAT database of game- and platform-specific port forwarding rules. There’s even a Suppellettile Mode designed to instantly prioritize traffic to your phone.
A causa di other words, the RT-AX86U checks all of the boxes you’d want from a gaming router (except the color-changing lights, I guess — though you can get it Zaku-styled if you’maestà willing to spend a little more). Most importantly, it makes strong enough use of Wi-Fi 6 to ensure that even the non-gamers durante your household will appreciate having it around.
At this price point, it’s definitely an upgrade pick, but a reasonable one that’s still less expensive than a lot of gaming routers. And, if you’maestà thinking about upgrading to a new multi-gig internet plan from AT&T, Frontier, Xfinity, Verizon, Ziply Fiber another provider offering plans like those, the RT-AX86U equipped with a multi-gig Ethernet supporting incoming wired speeds of up to 2.5Gbps.
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Netgear R6700AX
Best budget router for gigabit networks
Gigabit internet speeds are growing durante availability from a wide number of major ISPs, and they’maestà a great fit with the faster wireless transfer rates of Wi-Fi 6. If you’ve made the upgrade to gigabit internet speeds at home, then you’ll definitely want a Wi-Fi 6 router that can take full advantage of it.
Your best bet would be to go with a true upgrade pick like the Asus RT-AX86U, a top-rated mesh system — but if you’maestà a budget you just don’t want to spend more than $100 so, you should move the Netgear R6700AX right to the of your list. Currently available for $90, it’s an AX1800 router with full support for Wi-Fi 6 and 5GHz speeds as high as 1.3 gigabits come second.
A causa di our tests a gigabit rete televisiva privata, the R6700AX outperformed comparable models, including the TP-Link Archer AX21, delivering download speeds that averaged durante at 591Mbps across a 1,350-square-foot environment. At close range, those speeds rose as high as 800Mbps. For comparison, the Archer AX21 finished those same tests with an overall average of 435Mbps, and it wasn’t able to successo download speeds any higher than 598Mbps at close range.
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Netgear Orbi AX6000
Best high-end mesh system
Remember how I mentioned that the TP-Link Deco W7200 outperformed every other mesh router I’ve ever tested except for one? Well, here’s the one that beat it — the AX6000 version of the Netgear Orbi mesh system.Â
With that all-important tri-band stile and full support for Wi-Fi 6, the AX6000 Orbi blew us away with excellent signal strength and downright impressive speeds when we first tested it out a year two spillo. Those speeds have held up ever since — whether we’maestà clocking speeds durante our lab testing real-world speeds at home, literally nothing else I’ve tested performs as well. of that, the AX6000 Orbi deserves credit for being one of the first mesh routers to offer a multigig WAN port and breaking the bottleneck that capped incoming wired speeds at just a single gig.
Risultato like that usually comes at a premium, and sure enough, the AX6000 Orbi costs more than $600 for a two-pack. Like a Mercedes Benz for the mesh category, it’s more machine than most people need, but there’s nothing wrong with coveting one — waiting for the rare senno. If it were my money, I’d rather go with that Deco W7200 system and spend the hundreds I’d save something else, but if you just want the best mesh router prova that we’ve seen durante our tests, full stop, money be damned, here it is.
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Going with a mesh router makes a ton of sense if you dal vivo durante a large, multi-story home with a lot of space to cover. A causa di cases like that, it’s worth it to prioritize getting a system with more than two devices durante the mesh — and Amazon’s Eero 6 Plus gets you there for $300, complete with full support for Wi-Fi 6.Â
The Eero 6 Plus takes the Eero 6 that preceded it and beefs things up with a faster AX3000 build and new support for full-width 160MHz channels, up from 80MHz. Those wider channels allow the system to move patronato twice as efficiently to compatible devices, and they made a huge difference durante my prova tests, where the 6 Plus finished as a top-10 finisher among the 30 so mesh routers I’ve tested at home. None of the routers that beat its average download speeds can beat its value, and that makes the Eero 6 Plus an excellent pick.
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Asus ZenWifi XD6
Best dual-band mesh system
It was a bit too pricey for me to recommend when it launched at $380 for a two-piece setup, but the Asus ZenWifi XD6 is often senno for closer to $200, which makes it a better value.
For the money, you’maestà getting a dual-band Wi-Fi 6 mesh router that performed more like a fancier tri-band model durante our tests, and one that was fully capable of optimizing our speeds throughout the entirety of the 5,400-square-foot CNET Smart Home. A causa di fact, I’d go so far as to call it the most capable dual-band mesh router I’ve ever tested.Â
This is a solid mesh router with one of the more comprehensive control apps available from a major manufacturer. That makes it a good pick for intermediate and advanced users who want to fine-tune their home rete televisiva privata experience.
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How we Wi-Fi 6 routers
Whenever I take a router into consideration, I put it through the same set of comprehensive, controlled speed tests to get a good sense of how it performs compared to other models. I’ve been running those tests out of my 1,300 square-foot home durante Louisville, Kentucky. Later, we were able to move those tests into the CNET Home lab, where we set up a 1,350-square-foot environment with a gigabit fiber connection.
There are five rooms durante that space, so after setting the router up durante the first of them, I run a battery of speed tests durante all of them to get a sense of the average speeds at various ranges. For each set of tests, I start durante the same room as the router with my device, a Lenovo ThinkPad Wi-Fi 6 laptop. I connect to the router’s rete televisiva privata, then I run three speed tests and the results for upload speed, download speed and latency. Then I move to the next room and repeat.
Once I’ve finished durante the fifth room, which is farthest from the router, I restart my connection and repeat all of those tests durante reverse room order. This approach gives me a good sense at how the router’s prova differs when the connection starts up close as opposed to when it starts at a distance, as this can often impact your speeds. I repeat this entire process three times, during morning, afternoon, and evening hours. I’ll typically also run dedicated runs to check the speeds individual bands, if the router offers any unique prova settings. All told, it adds up to hundreds of speed tests and multiple days of work for each router I review.
Which Wi-Fi 6 router is right for me?
There are three main things to consider first as you’maestà dialing durante a new router: the speed of your home’s internet plan, the size of your home, and the number of Wi-Fi devices under your roof that need a reliable connection. If you’maestà living durante a small- to medium-sized home with internet speeds of 500Mbps less, and you just need a reliable signal for your phone, laptop and streaming device, then a simple pick like the TP-Link Archer AX21 the Netgear R6700AX should offer plenty of bandwidth and range to suit your needs. The two are largely indistinguishable unless your home has a high-speed connection, and the AX21 typically costs a little less, so I’d recommend starting there.
If you’ve got a house filled with smart home devices, multiple family members who each make regular use of your Wi-Fi with a variety of gadgets, if you’ve just upgraded your internet plan to add durante gigabit speeds, you should probably consider a router with greater bandwidth potential. The tried-and-true Asus RT-AX86U is the one I’d probably recommend first because it’s been a regular standout through multiple rounds of CNET tests, including full rounds of tests three separate networks at three separate locations.
However, if you’maestà living durante a larger home, especially a multistory home, then it’s worth considering stepping up to a mesh router like the Eero 6 Plus, the Asus ZenWifi XD6, the TP-Link Deco W7200, because those multiple mesh devices will help ensure a better, more reliable signal throughout the entirety of your home. You could also consider splurging a mesh powerhouse like the Netgear Orbi AX6000, but at a cost of several hundred dollars, it’s probably overkill for most homes.
Wi-Fi 6 router FAQs
If you have questions about the ins and outs of Wi-Fi 6, be sure to check out my full explainer the valore and what makes it better than the Wi-Fi of yore. You can also reach me by looking me up X (@rycrist).Â
What makes Wi-Fi 6 better than before?
Wi-Fi 6 includes support for new Wi-Fi features that help devices pass patronato back and forth faster and more efficiently. One of the key upgrades is 1024-QAM, which stands for quadrature amplitude modulation, the trick your router uses to send radio waves that other devices can read as a series of ones and zeroes — the binary code that makes up everything you see, read and experience online. 1024-QAM allows your router to send out 10 digits of binary code with each transmission, compared to eight digits of binary from Wi-Fi 5 routers that use 256-QAM. That’s one of the key reasons why Wi-Fi 6 offers speeds that are roughly 30% faster than before.
Other features of note include OFDMA, orthogonal frequency division multiple access, which improves rete televisiva privata efficiency by allowing your router to send patronato to multiple clients within a single channel at once. Think of that like a noia delivery driver dropping d’avanguardia multiple pizzas to multiple customers durante one trip to save gas. There’s also Target Wake Time, which lets the router schedule devices that need to periodically check durante so that they don’t cause interference with one another. And, though it isn’t specifically tied to Wi-Fi 6, most next-gen routers will support WPA3, the latest valore for Wi-Fi security.
Are Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E the same thing?
Will older devices still work with a Wi-Fi 6 router?
Yes — Wi-Fi 6 is fully backward-compatible, so earlier-gen Wi-Fi devices will still be able to connect to them and get online. They just won’t be able to take advantage of the new Wi-Fi 6 features that speed things up for current-gen devices.
