As we now know, inside every home we can find a lot of wireless devices constantly connected to our Wi-Fi network. However, connecting them all at the same time to a single router causes a strong signal instability, causing in the worst case even the disconnection of some devices. To overcome this problem, the new Wi-Fi standard has recently been introduced, namely 802.11 AX. This new standard, in addition to improving the stability of the signal, also significantly increases the transfer speed, bringing it to the 5 Ghz network, up to a theoretical maximum of 3000 Mb / s, thus allowing us to permanently abandon ethernet cables. The new Wi-Fi standard is now with us, and every manufacturer is adapting their products to better implement it.
Compared to a few months ago, it is now easier to find in the market Routers, wireless network cards, smartphones, motherboards and notebooks that adopt the 802.11 AX standard. Today we are here to tell you about Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U, dual band router of the Taiwanese house. Asus in this router has introduced a lot of new features such as the support for MU-MIMO and OFDMA technologies.
The very basic packaging alternates black and gray colors. On the front we find, in addition to the product name, an image of it and some technical features, such as the presence of the AiMesh system and obviously the wording Wi-Fi 6.
The rear part is much richer: here you can find all the key information of the product, such as the maximum transfer speed, the possibility of configuring the router via the App and some information relating to the security systems present in the software.
The bundle, albeit minimal, contains everything you need to be able to use the router right away. In addition to Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U, we find its power supply and a category 5e ethernet cable, to be used for modem connection.
The design reflects a lot that of the other routers of the RT family, obviously revised and updated for the occasion. Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U is made entirely of black plastic and excellent workmanship, able to withstand even accidental bumps. the upper part is extremely worked, presenting various edges that give a more aggressive look to the router.
At the center of it we find the Asus writing in golden color, while in the lower end we find the various status LEDs in white color. On the sides of the upper part we also find two ventilation grids, whose task will be to expel the heat generated by the chip. In the back we find 5 ethernet ports, 4 yellow to connect our devices and a blue that will be used to connect the modem.
We also find an 3.0 USB port to connect and project an external hard disk, USB key or printer over the network. There are also the power button, the connector for the power supply, the reset button and the button to activate the WPS connection. From here also three huge Wi-Fi antennas that can be completely tilted but not removable.
The installation of Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U is extremely simple, in fact, once connected via ethernet with our modem and with our PC, just open the browser, connect to the router.asus.com page and the installation wizard will start from there. This will take us a few minutes, the installation will only ask us to set the name of our Wi-Fi network and the password. Once this is done we will be able to access the control panel of the router.
Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U will offer us a lot of interesting options, such as enabling a VPN so as not to leave any of our traces on the web, analyzing data traffic within our network, hijacking most of the resources to a single device, creating a Wi-Fi network dedicated only to guests and manage the firewall, finally configure AiCloud.
Obviously we can also change the IP address of the router and assign a static one to each single connected device, as well as interrupt the connection of each one. An extremely interesting thing about the Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U is the compatibility with Amazon Alexa. Here we can ask him many things, such as activating the guest Wi-Fi network, interrupting the internet connection or updating the firewall.
As already explained, the strong point of Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U is precisely the Wi-Fi, because it is able to support the new 802.11 AX standard, as well as being backwards compatible with all existing formats. Thanks to this new standard and the 4 antennas placed in the back, the router is able to reach transfer speeds of 3000 Mb / s. The new AX standard includes advanced technologies such as OFDMA, MU-MIMO, 160 MHz channel support and 1024 QAM, which help greatly improve network efficiency. We will be able to connect over 30 Wireless devices without any problem, and our Wi-Fi line will not suffer from percussion.
We had the opportunity to test Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U with different PCs, all equipped with 6AX Wi-Fi 802.11 network cards. In one of the test PCs we used the Asus AX 3000 PCE-AX58BT PCI Express network card, but we will talk about this in an exhaustive way in another review. During our tests, we copied several large files from one PC to another. All the PCs in question are equipped with SSD drives capable of achieving truly remarkable read and write speeds.
While copying, we were able to achieve quite remarkable speeds compared to what we can achieve with an ethernet connection, this is because many routers and motherboards are still equipped with 1 Gb / s network cards. We managed to get a peak speed of around 220MB / s, but then settle on around 190MB / s. We also tested Steam's remote play functionality, which managed to play smoothly and flawlessly at 4K resolution and with a really high bitrate, all without compression problems. We also tested the Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U with 802.11 AC Wi-Fi devices, such as a smarT, which managed to connect to the router with the maximum speed of 1,3 Gb / s. We had the opportunity to try Plex, a free service that streams all our video content directly to the TV or any other device.
It goes without saying that in playing a video in 4K HDR with a total weight of about 60 GB we did not have any problems, without encountering a lot and fearful buffering. Using the Windows remote desktop feature under Wi-Fi 6 was also smooth, and we were able to control our second PC without changing the resolution and thus still working quietly in 4K even from another room.
The Wi-Fi coverage of Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U is also excellent and we were able to cover the entire house, including the garage, for a total of about 400 square meters.
However, using the 802.11AX standard, posting from one room to another with our notebook, we will notice a discreet drop in the maximum transfer speed, while remaining very high compared to what we saw with the previous standards. Finally we connected all the devices inside our home, about 23, to the Wi-Fi network of the Asus router, all without incurring bandwidth slowdowns or sudden disconnection of some devices, as was the case using the Wi-Fi network. Fi of FRITZ! Box 7590.
Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U proved to be a really performing router. Thanks to the support for the new Wi-Fi 6 802.11 AX standard we are able to exceed the speeds of the most common ethernet network cards, especially useful for those who hate having cables around the house. Coverage is also excellent, able to manage entire homes without having to resort to Wi-Fi extenders. In short, we are faced with a router able to satisfy even the most demanding user.
If you want to upgrade your Wi-Fi network and take advantage of new technologies, you can buy the Asus AX 3000 RT-AX58U without delay at a price of around 199 €.
