Asus RT-AC56U review

That said, the router isn’t particularly happy in 2.4GHz mode, particularly if you’re in an area with lots of other signals using the same band, such as our testing lab or the average city flat. We saw the worst results when using our laptop’s integrated wireless adaptor: 38.2Mbit/s at 1m and 36.5Mbit/s at 10m, both of which are acceptable, but it was a shame that we couldn’t complete the test at 20m. This is disappointing, as most people still use integrated 2.4GHz laptop or mobile phone chipsets with their wireless routers. Using Asus’s £60 USB-AC53 USB wireless dongle improved things quite a bit. This time, we managed to get a connection at 20m, although the 5.3Mbit/s throughput was poor; however, performance at 10m improved to 56.7Mbit/s and throughput at 1m was a blistering 90.1Mbit/s.

Something we couldn’t complain about was the router’s 5GHz performance. Getting it work with our laptop’s 802.11 Centrino 2 wireless chipset required no tweaking or adjustment at all and produced speeds of 74.1Mbit/s at 1m, 60.1Mibt/s at 10m and 25.5Mbit/s at 20m. Performance was even more impressive with Asus’s USB adaptor: a very consistent 158.5Mbit/s at both 1m and 10m, dropping to 66.2Mbit/s at 20m. We got the best performance at 20m by using the £70 Asus PCE-AC68 PCI-E wireless adaptor installed into a desktop PC. With a transfer speed of 81.56, this was one of the fastest throughputs we’ve ever seen at that distance.

Although the router’s 5GHz performance is generally excellent, we were somewhat disappointed by its 2.4GHz performance in an area cluttered with rival 2.4GHz signals. The BT Home Hub 5 has better performance at a similar price, making it a better buy.