Asus is again with its newest high-end gaming WiFi router, and as soon as once more the corporate is insisting on triggering the arachnophobes and sentient-robot-phobes amongst us with its multi-legged design. The Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000AI even has an ominous identify and naturally it now comes with AI.
The newest addition to Asus‘ greatest gaming router roster is a continuation of a long-running line of fashions that has sported the identical eight-legged… sorry, eight-antennae design. The newest model brings a number of AI capabilities to the get together, simply to supply that additional reassuring private contact to this mechanical monster.
Way back to 2016, I reviewed one of many earliest Asus Rapture routers for one more web site, and though Asus has lightened the look with this new white mannequin, it nonetheless has the identical distinctive dystopian design total. Truthfully, flip the aerials spherical on these routers and they’re genuinely unnerving to take a look at, like the subsequent evolution in Boston Dynamics robots, however smaller and creepier.
We acquired arms on with the Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000AI on the CES 2025 commerce present the place it was being unveiled, alongside a number of different new tech, just like the AMD RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5090. In addition to trying a bit creepy, this factor can be big – hand for scale, beneath – however that measurement is used to good impact, with the router housing six Ethernet ports. Two of those are 10Gbit succesful (and they are often aggregated collectively for a single 20Gbit connection) whereas the opposite 4 are rated to 2.5Gbit.
In the meantime, it’s the WiFi capabilities of this router that’s the actual coronary heart of its energy. Its eight antennae mix to supply a complete of 19Gbps of throughput together with entry to the most recent WiFi 7 (802.11be) 320MHz channels within the 6GHz band, with 4096-QAM.
Additional elevating this newest Rapture router above its predecessors and most different gaming routers, although, is its built-in NPU, which it will possibly use to supply options like “AI-powered triple-level recreation acceleration with ROG AI Recreation Booster” which apparently “optimizes real-time routes to scale back ping, jitter, and packet loss.” It may also be used to supply clever advert and tracker blocking plus AI noise detection which “improves WiFi stability by figuring out interference and providing community insights.”
The Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000AI value and launch date haven’t but been revealed however its predecessor, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Professional prices over $600, so you’ll be able to count on this gadget to demand a equally lofty value.
For extra from the CES 2025 present flooring, verify our CES information hub, together with Asus’ new mini PC with an RTX 5090 and the now official Lenovo Legion Go 2 gaming handheld.
