TP-Link GX90 review: A supremely powerful gaming router

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If you’ve acquired a bigger home with difficult Wi-Fi useless zones, usually your greatest wager goes to be populating your private home with mesh routers. But that doesn’t cease router producers from making an attempt to make highly effective single access-point methods, just like the gamer-focused TP-Link Archer GX90, that accomplish the identical objective. In my time with this wonderful router, I used to be impressed by its excessive throughput and low-latency efficiency in all places in my house. As a gaming router, it could not supply probably the most options, however its base degree of efficiency was so good that if that’s all you need out of your router, I can confidently say you gained’t remorse choosing up the GX90.  

Design 

The GX90 attracts its design from 2018’s Archer C5400X—it options the identical boxy look, encircled by the the identical sail-like eight-antenna array. Where different router makers have antennas you may modify and that screw into the physique of the unit, TP-Link’s are inflexible and snap into place, making preliminary setup fast and simple. It’s notably smaller than its forebear, and the element of the highest panel has been up to date with a barely sleeker look.  

Wes Davis / IDG

In making this router smaller, TP-Link opted to cut back the variety of ethernet ports on the again, for a complete of 5—three gigabit LAN ports, one gigabit LAN/WAN, and one 2.5GbE LAN/WAN. That 2.5GbE port is probably the most extravagant a part of the outside. Two USB ports adorn one aspect—one USB 3.0 and the opposite USB 2.0. The entrance of the router has three buttons for setup with WPS, in addition to toggling your Wi-Fi and the LED. Indeed, a single LED mild on the highest panel supplies all standing data. That may take getting used to for some folks. You will simply must be taught what every colour of the standing mild means, which in fact is specified by the included consumer information. 

TP-Link went with a wall wart for the ability provide, which means it’ll possible take up two plugs on most energy strips. I a lot want energy provides that sit in the midst of an influence wire, or higher but, inner energy provides. 

Features 

Like the C5400X, the GX90 is a tri-band router, with the third band—which, due to its 160MHz channel bandwidth, is considerably quicker than its different 5GHz band—reserved for gaming. That’s to not say you may’t connect with and use it with different gadgets, however SmartConnect will want to shunt your gaming gadgets over to that band when you select to not separate the three. As for the opposite two bands, they’re technically slower than these of the C5400X, although in my testing, each had been nonetheless fairly quick, as I’ll cowl later. 

The GX90 can also be a 4×4 MU-MIMO gadget, which means it could actually concurrently transmit to and obtain knowledge from as much as 4 gadgets concurrently. And for any linked Wi-Fi 6 gadgets, the router additionally makes use of a way known as orthogonal frequency-division a number of entry (OFDMA) to subdivide channels and get knowledge to many, many extra gadgets—a single entry level can doubtlessly accommodate as much as 74 Wi-Fi 6 gadgets concurrently, as detailed by our buddies at Network World. 

The USB ports can in fact be used for direct-attached storage, with assist for NTFS, exFAT, HFS+ and FAT32 codecs, in addition to Time Machine for Apple customers. Security-wise, the HomeCare Antivirus is run by TrendMicro, similar as Asus’ routers, and is equally provided at no cost, which is a pleasant bonus. Also beneath HomeCare are settings for Quality of Service (QoS)—that’s, the router function that helps prioritize the forms of knowledge which can be necessary to you—and a reasonably granular set of parental management choices together with management over entry instances for any gadget that’s linked, and profiles based mostly on age.

If you’d prefer to arrange your router to function as a VPN—both for distant entry or for elevated privateness if you’re away from house by routing visitors via there first—TP-Link means that you can both arrange OpenVPN in your router or use a PPTP VPN for easy distant entry. 

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Much of the configurability of this router is what you’d count on: Settings are superior sufficient for customers who prefer to go deep, or you may maintain it easy and follow the fundamentals like activating sport acceleration and visualizing your community topology. Both the cellphone app and the online UI make interfacing with the fundamentals simple. 

Sadly, it’s missing any form of hyperlink aggregation, however you’d have to surrender two of your 4 LAN ports to make that work, which can be lower than ultimate (then once more, solely having 4 ports can also be lower than ultimate). Having a 2.5GbE LAN/WAN port takes among the sting out, however it might nonetheless be good to have hyperlink aggregation as an possibility on the gigabit ports, within the occasion you’re among the many lucky few with entry to 2Gbps web from an ISP. 

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General efficiency 

Just taken as a daily wi-fi router, the TP-Link GX90 was a type of uncommon gadgets that I used to be capable of shift my whole community over to with virtually no problem. Part of my testing, after initially benchmarking a router and operating it via its paces with a restricted variety of gadgets, includes merely giving it my community’s SSID and password—in spite of everything, had been I to purchase this router, I’d hope it may tackle all of my community’s purchasers—and I normally take this step wincingly. The transition is usually very bumpy, with sure repeat offenders in my sensible house gadget checklist merely refusing to attach, and getting them to take action will be as simple as an influence cycle or as concerned as manufacturing facility resetting them.  

Additionally, sensible house assistants can change into unreliable or downright damaged as parts of my community appear merely unable to speak. With the GX90, I skilled little or no of that; the one cussed gadgets had been a pair of significantly troublesome sensible plugs that appear to lose their means to attach when you have a look at them improper. Put merely, my community, beneath the stewardship of the GX90, was responsive, quick, and steady. 

Gaming 

Like most different routers, the GX90 provides QoS to prioritize sure forms of community visitors for useful resource allocation. Like different gaming routers, the GX90 contains a gaming-specific QoS mode: Called Game Accelerator, this function prioritizes gaming visitors first, which you’ll be able to see in motion throughout the UI—for these gadgets actively gaming, just a little controller badge icon can be appended to their icon, and I famous decrease ping to these gadgets as nicely.  

TP-Link additionally says Game Accelerator helps tailor-made connections for a lot of particular standard video games, listed here. The web site doesn’t describe the optimizing mechanism, so I inquired additional. I used to be given an outline of the function that made it sound primarily like a very aggressive QoS, the place packet prioritization is basically tiered, with game-related knowledge getting absolute precedence over the whole lot else. Apart from that function, the opposite choices beneath the Game Center tab are literally simply regular router configuration screens, letting you arrange port forwarding guidelines or allow the router’s VPN performance, in addition to a diagnostic display that allows you to ping addresses (ostensibly, these of gaming servers) to find out if its you or the server that’s gone screwy. Basically, it’s principally padding. 

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As precise testing goes, I ought to say I haven’t had a gaming rig in a while. That stated, I can nonetheless get measure of on-line gaming utilizing both of my M1 Macs, each of that are greater than able to operating my most well-liked sport for testing—Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO)—due to its easy-to-use, real-time community statistics overlay that reveals, amongst different issues, your present ping, packet loss, and present body fee. Its comparatively low graphical necessities imply that even with a modest machine, the first bottleneck goes to be within the laptop’s community connection. Lastly, I take advantage of solely Valve’s servers for the sake of consistency, as I’ve discovered my connection there to be usually steady and predictable. 

Serious avid gamers are inclined to need to play wired, for good motive: Cutting out the wild card of wi-fi interference offers you one much less factor to fret about. However, trendy gaming routers make a powerful case for abandoning the outdated methods, or no less than being much less stringent about adhering to them. Wired I noticed ping measured steadily at 23ms, which we’ll take to be the baseline from my house to CS:GO servers. For most common routers, you may count on so as to add 30 to 40 milliseconds to this quantity—my house Eero community normally ranges between 60 and 90ms, with lag spikes over 100ms. For the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 gaming router, I’ll see wi-fi ping measured within the excessive 30s with some spikes into the 50s. The GX90, nonetheless, virtually matched wired numbers, hovering between 23 and 27ms, reaching as much as 30 beneath a standard family load.  

Even the slower non-gaming 5GHz band confirmed stable efficiency, with ping measuring within the 50s, however remaining rock-solid there with little or no variation. Really, it was solely once I tried to push the router to its limits that I noticed any degradation. I did this by streaming HD-or-better video (principally 4K HDR and Dolby Vision) on six complete gadgets, most of which was served up by the high-bitrate Apple TV Plus service, in addition to a video name between my iPhone and iPad by way of FaceTime, streaming multi-room audio to 5 rooms, and having my spouse browse the online. Under these situations, although I couldn’t watch them abruptly, I didn’t discover any further compression or buffering within the video streams, however latency in CS:GO elevated… by simply 10ms. I additionally noticed some temporary lag spikes, however nothing regarding, and solely as soon as over 60ms. You wouldn’t need to be part of a match with all that exercise in your community, however gaming was however surprisingly regular and easy, all issues thought-about. 

Throughput testing 

I measure throughput by connecting my M1 MacBook Air on to the router with a Plugable USB-C 2.5 GbE network adapter, then connecting the Lenovo Yoga I discussed above to every of the router’s bands, and I run TCP knowledge switch exams with the community testing software iPerf 3. These exams are extra exact than, say, merely transferring and timing file transfers with a stopwatch, and so they check precise throughput on the community, versus operating web pace exams, which depend on too many variables out of my management.  

I’ll say it now: Of the routers I’ve personally examined in my present house, this one has by far the most effective throughput and vary, and by quite a bit in most cases. I’ve seen related efficiency with the Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500, however that was examined in a special location. The most comparable router I’ve examined right here was the Asus ROG Rapture I discussed above. Both of these Wi-Fi 6E routers, by the best way, price over $500. 

Brad Chacos/IDG

On common, evaluating the GX90’s gaming band to the Rapture’s solitary (however nonetheless fairly quick) 5GHz band and utilizing the Wi-Fi 6 protocol, the GX90 was greater than 45 % quicker, starting from a 19 % disparity in my basement—about 15 ft in a diagonal straight line down from my eating room—to 92 % at a very troublesome spot in my yard, roughly 45 ft from the router with three partitions, together with one exterior wall, and a range within the intervening house. In that spot, I used to be nonetheless averaging 155Mbps down, giving it by far the most effective 5GHz vary of any router I’ve examined right here.  

Brad Chacos/IDG

Switching to the Wi-Fi 5 protocol, the ROG Rapture fared higher, however the GX90 nonetheless had a mean of 27 % increased throughput throughout examined places.

Brad Chacos/IDG

While on the two.4GHz band over WiFi 6, the Asus really beat the GX90 by as a lot as 61 % at shut ranges—though the ROG Rapture’s 2.4GHz throughput dropped precipitously beginning round 20 ft via a single ground, and its sign all however disappeared 45 to 60 ft out, in my yard, whereas TP-Link’s GX90 nonetheless managed low double-digit throughput throughout most exams within the two hardest-to-reach location—loads on your common 2.4GHz-only safety digicam. 

Brad Chacos/IDG

Versus different, extra customary Wi-Fi 5 routers I’ve examined right here, which incorporates an Eero Pro in each single entry level and mesh configurations and a Linksys EA9500, it’s truthful to say the GX90 smoked them virtually throughout the board, until you have a look at a extra apples-to-apples comparability between the GX90’s non-gaming 5GHz band. In that comparability (not pictured), the GX90 and the opposite routers carried out totally on par with each other, with TP-Link’s router exhibiting increased throughput than most or the entire different routers within the first two examined places, in addition to the primary spot in my yard, however dropping by various quantities in all places else, however nonetheless making a decent exhibiting. Using Wi-Fi 5 on the two.4GHz band (pictured above), the GX90 was once more nothing particular, and simply seemed like every other router. 

Bottom line 

There’s not a lot improper with the TP-Link GX90, at the same time as a daily router, however there’s a ton proper. It’s extraordinarily quick, simple to arrange, and it coated my whole house with out even the necessity for a mesh configuration (although it does assist mesh networking and integrates with any TP-Link One Mesh gadget—sadly I used to be unable to check this). What’s extra, its gaming efficiency was nearly as good as I’ve seen, and even when it doesn’t have the bells and whistles that among the greater names supply, like a cool, real-time efficiency graph or particular gaming VPN, it actually doesn’t really feel prefer it wants it. At this value—$250, which has change into lately a mid-tier router value—it belies its efficiency, if we’re to imagine such means is value tons of extra, and it’s an absolute purchase for anybody who desires to sport however doesn’t need to fiddle with a bunch of settings. As the house man as soon as stated, “She may not look like much, kid, but she’s got it where it counts.”