The Best Gaming Routers for 2025

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Even a powerful gaming rig can struggle to let you play at your best if an overburdened or old-fashioned Wi-Fi router holds it back. If router performance is paramount, it's time to invest in one optimized for gaming. Your choices might seem overwhelming at first, since even cheap routers can prioritize certain applications (such as games) or devices that require lots of bandwidth. But few offer the granular gaming-centric settings and optimizations that specialized gaming routers do. PCMag has been testing wireless routers since the inception of Wi-Fi, and our current top overall pick among gaming routers is the TP-Link Archer AX11000. (See the Editors' Note below regarding the status of router maker TP-Link.) We've also hand-picked additional gaming routers for more specific usage cases and budgets, all based on our detailed hands-on testing that measures usability, speed, and range. Read on for each model's pros and cons, as well as our detailed buying advice and spec comparison further down the page.

Gaming Router vs. Regular Router: What's the Difference?

Among the biggest differences between a gaming router and a typical consumer router is how it handles quality of service (QoS) or bandwidth prioritization duties. Almost all routers offer some sort of QoS. This can be as basic as the generic Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) extensions that automatically prioritize network packets carrying data necessary for voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing apps. Alternately, QoS controls can be as granular as drag-and-drop prioritization that lets you assign a higher priority to specific devices connected to the network, ensuring they experience better performance than other devices.

Gaming routers go a step further by offering prioritization for specific gaming systems and programs and letting you decide how much bandwidth each client is entitled to. That can be especially important if you have multiple online gamers in the same household, all competing for the feed from the same pipe. For example, some gaming routers have firmware that automatically gives network priority to devices equipped with the Intel Killer Prioritization Engine. When the router detects a device fitted with Killer networking hardware, it provides that device with the lion's share of bandwidth to ensure smooth, lag-free online gameplay.

Many gaming routers also use a modified management console with a gamer-friendly user interface that makes it easy to assign bandwidth priorities on the fly. Many Netgear gaming routers, for example, run DumaOS, an interactive operating system developed by Netduma. It has a sleek-looking dashboard that lets you see what's going on with your network at a glance, with graphs showing real-time CPU and bandwidth usage, currently installed apps, guest networking status, and Wi-Fi and internet status.

DumaOS also has a Geo-Filter feature that can help reduce lag by limiting the distance to the host servers you play on. By setting your home location on the map and specifying a distance range, you can prevent players and servers outside your range from hosting your game.

You can also use customized software to enhance online gaming performance. Using firmware from sources such as OpenWRT, DD-WRT, and Tomato, you can unleash your router's full potential to improve overall signal strength, monitor real-time usage, and prioritize bandwidth usage. To do this, though, the router must support open-source firmware upgrades. Make sure you have a good idea of how routers and firmware work together before you decide to go this route.

How Many Radio Bands Should a Gaming Router Have?

Any gaming router worth its salt will offer at least two Wi-Fi radio bands. The 2.4GHz band is the most widely used and tends to get more crowded than the 5GHz and 6GHz bands. You'll also get much better range on the 2.4GHz band, but it can't match the speeds you get with 5GHz or 6GHz. Every router that comes through PC Labs is thoroughly tested across all bands, but you should know that different bands impact performance.

The 5GHz and 6GHz bands will provide the best throughput if your gaming system is near your router. If you have numerous devices connecting to your network, a router with three or more bands is your best bet, especially if you also employ range extenders to reach the far corners of your home.

Tri-band routers add a second 5GHz band that you can dedicate to specific devices or applications. For example, you can reserve an entire 5GHz band just for gaming (as long as your gaming PC or console supports 5GHz Wi-Fi) and use the other 5GHz band for high-bandwidth apps such as video streaming, massive file transfers, or torrent downloads. This frees the more crowded 2.4GHz band for everyday tasks such as web surfing and connecting to smart-home devices such as lights, cameras, locks, and security systems.

Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7: Which Is Best for Gaming?

Most gaming routers today are members of the (802.11ax) Wi-Fi 6 generation, an evolution of 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) technology. It offers increased throughput speeds (up to 4.8Gbps), less network congestion, greater client capacity, and better range performance courtesy of several new and improved wireless technologies, including Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) and Target Wake Time (TWT).

OFDMA improves overall throughput by breaking Wi-Fi channels into subchannels, allowing up to 30 users to share a channel simultaneously. Target Wake Time (TWT) reduces power consumption by allowing devices to determine when and how often they will wake up to begin sending and receiving data. TWT tech is expected to extend the battery life of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, as well as battery-powered smart home devices such as security cameras and video doorbells.

All these capabilities make Wi-Fi 6 perfect for Wi-Fi mesh networks, which are fast becoming the most popular choice for home networking overall.

Aside from its suitability as a mesh protocol, Wi-Fi 6 takes advantage of previously unused radio frequencies to provide faster 2.4GHz performance and uses refined uplink and downlink bandwidth management to enhance QoS. It also offers uplink and downlink MU-MIMO streaming. (By contrast, 802.11ac supports only downlink MU-MIMO.) As with 802.11ac, 802.11ax is backward-compatible and works with devices that use 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi radios.

Many more expensive gaming routers support the even newer Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 specs. The former is the same as Wi-Fi 6 regarding software and features, but it adds access to the 6GHz band. That provides a huge bandwidth boost, so it helps with bandwidth-hungry apps, especially games, as well as chronic connection problems due to congestion in more crowded environments like apartment buildings. However, your Wi-Fi 6E-enabled gaming device must be located in the same room (or very near) to connect to a Wi-Fi 6E router using the 6GHz band, as 6GHz signal range is much shorter than 2.4GHz range.

In addition to opening up access to the 6GHz band, Wi-Fi 7 supports a few additional features, including 320MHz channel bandwidth and multi-link operation (MLO), which lets devices simultaneously send and receive data over multiple radio bands. While several gaming routers are available with Wi-Fi 6E technology, Wi-Fi 7, whose specifications were only recently finalized, is still in its infancy from a router perspective.

More to Know: Ports, Security, Access Controls

Most gaming routers use the same hardware inside as traditional Wi-Fi routers, but you'll often be able to tell the gaming models apart from the rest on sight. They usually sport a somewhat different chassis design than their general-purpose counterparts. Shop around, and you may see unusual flair, such as a stylish finned enclosure or LED illumination.

On a more practical level, at a minimum, you should look for a router with at least four gigabit LAN ports to offer wired connectivity to nearby gaming consoles, PCs, and printers. Many gaming routers also offer a multi-gigabit WAN port and at least one multi-gigabit LAN port, which is useful if you subscribe to internet speeds greater than 1Gbps. At least one USB port, preferably supporting USB 3.0 or higher, is handy for attaching peripherals you want to share across the network, such as portable hard drives and flash drives. A router with two or more USB ports offers extra flexibility.

Parental controls are also essential, especially if you have younger children. These tools allow you to block access to specific sites (think adult content), limit online gaming or overall network access to specific hours and days of the week, and monitor network usage for each client. A guest-networking feature is also worth looking for if you often have digitally savvy house guests, as it lets you provide limited wireless access to your network using a separate SSID and password. This way, your guests can access the internet but can't see other network assets such as folders, files, printers, and the identities of other connected clients. (Plus, you can assign guests to a radio band that won't interfere with your gaming!)

All routers, of course, offer some type of security. Wi-Fi Protected Access (in WPA and/or WPA2 flavors) is the most common, requiring that each client use a password to access the network. Support for Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) is also common and very convenient, as it allows you to add WPS-compatible clients to your network with the push of a button. For more robust security measures, though, look for a router that supports WPS-Enterprise or Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) authentication.

Ready to Buy the Right Gaming Router for You?

We trust our advice and picks have set you on your way; after all, no single router is best for every type of gamer. This guide can help you find the suitable model for your home and budget. After you've chosen one, you'll also want to see our tips for setting up your router and boosting your Wi-Fi signal.