Just over a week ago I bought myself a new router. The plan was, get a good mesh capable but powered by a solid operating system. I came across with many good options especially those TP-LINK Deco lineup. But.. but.. I had enough with TP-LINK. They usually put many routers out of life in just around 2 years. When you get invested into network equipments, you want it to last quite a long time. Sadly, not with them.
Opening up my window, I checked on Mikrotik hAP AX3, but it’s not solid enough in terms of WLAN capability, unless you pair a couple of Mikrotiks.
Then I decided to just go back to the old good asuswrt lineup. They have quite a few and I got hooked with RT-AX86U Pro. Hooked, not bought or decided to get it just yet. Unfortunately, the price is not up to my budget since I’m planning to get a second device as soon as I move to my new home. And being me, I dont want to mesh it with different device like RT-AX53U as the mesh, etc. So after spending a bit more time I came across this budget friendly but still mid-high tier router.
Meet the ASUS TUF GAMING AX6000. Hideous name but for the price range and gimick offering targeting the gamers, this is something enthusiast can somehow enjoy. Why? TUF AX6000 offer all those gaming booster, easy portforwarding and quite a few other things. But my main focus is on the firmwares. This budget device is running on the same asuswrt 4.388. Asus take on bringing merlin features into their own router. Not limited to just that, the router itself is quite impressive for having 2.4Ghz 4x4 and 5Ghz 4x4. I really need this. With 2.4GHz can fly to 1.1Gbgps and 5Ghz around 4.8Gbps, this is more than enough for my homebrew servers, nas and some other things. Dual 2.5Gbit WAN/LAN port, and you can aggregate it into 5Gbps. So much future proofing.
Since it’s 50% cheaper, you figure, they might be shoving in some cheaper components in it. And they did. Instead of broadcom, they are using mostly mediatek. I dont really mind because of none of that really matter these days. Those silicones getting better day after day and why overpay when the cheaper one is working quite well. And the biggest comparable one probably just the RAM. 1GB in AX86U Pro but only 512MB on TUF AX-6000.
I bought it. Yes. I’m invested. Cheap, reliable and good enough for 5-8 years run. No reviews, just wanna tell you guys that I got it running nicely. Probably I will do some updates when I feel like so.