Over the past ten years I have tried a large number of routers, and many of them have failed to withstand the load and fail after three or four months. However, among all the devices I used, solutions from two manufacturers stood out – Mikrotik and TP-LINK… If Mikrotik focuses primarily on those users who are ready to deal with the settings, then TP-LINK always tries to be more friendly. Not so long ago, a tri-band gaming router was sent to our editorial office TP-LINK Archer AX11000, the average price of which on Yandex.Market (as of September 18) is about 29,990 rubles, we have studied it and now we will tell you about it.
PACKAGING AND DELIVERY
This device is delivered in a neat black and red box, on the front side of which the router itself flaunts, similar to the top of some tower from “The Lord of the Rings”. The packaging contains many different specifications and features of this product, among which I would like to highlight the Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) logo.
Inside the box, various documents, a power supply, eight antennas and, of course, the router itself are neatly laid out. The size of the Archer AX11000 has proven to be quite impressive, especially when compared to other devices I’ve used. Dimensions are 288 × 288 × 184 mm with antennas. Without them – 240x240x54. On the top of the device, you can see the stylized perforation for air ventilation, and in the center – a small glowing TP-LINK logo. It is made not just for beauty, but as an indicator of system operation. For example, if the light is white, then everything works as it should, if it is orange, then the wireless connection is disabled, and if it is red, then there is no Internet at all. The glowing emblem can be turned off and on only when necessary. This is done in the system settings or with a special button on the side of the front of the device. There are two more nearby. One turns Wi-Fi on and off, and the other is responsible for the WPS function, which makes it easier to connect to the router.
On the right side, on the side edge, there are two USB 3.0 ports: one is Type-A, and the other is Type-C. TP-LINK Archer AX11000 supports FTP and media server functions as well as Apple Time Machine. You can use NTFS, exFAT, HFS + (Mac OS Extended) and FAT32 drives with this device.
On the back of the router, there are traditionally ports for connecting a wired Internet, as well as a power cable. In the center is a block with eight Gigabit LAN ports, while closer to the left and slightly apart is a 2.5 Gigabit WAN connector. There is also a very small hole in which the reset button of the device to the factory settings is deepened. On the same side, but on the right edge, is the power supply connector. A complete list of the technical characteristics of the router is as follows:
Wireless broadcasting:
- Standards: Wi-Fi 6, IEEE 802.11ax / ac / n / a 5 GHz and IEEE 802.11ax / n / b / g 2.4 GHz;
- Wi-Fi speed: 5 GHz: 4804 Mbps (802.11ax), 5 GHz: 4804 Mbps (802.11ax), 2.4 GHz: 1148 Mbps (802.11ax);
- Wi-Fi Bandwidth: Tri-band, 12 streams, 4×4 MU-MIMO, OFDMA, Airtime Fairness, DFS, and Smart Connect.
Hardware part:
- Processor: 1.8GHz Quad-Core 64-bit Processor;
- Ethernet ports: 1 x 2.5 Gbps WAN port and 8 Gigabit LAN ports. Link aggregation (802.3ad) for two LAN ports;
- USB support: 1 USB-C 3.0 port and 1 USB-A 3.0 port;
- Supported file systems: NTFS, exFAT, HFS +, FAT32;
- Supported Features: Apple Time Machine, FTP Server, Media Server;
- Buttons: Wi-Fi (on / off), Power (power on / off), LED (indicator on / off), WPS, Reset (reset);
- Power supply: 12 V ⎓ 5 A.
Safety:
- Wi-Fi encryption: WPA, WPA2, WPA3, WPA / WPA2-Enterprise (802.1x);
- Network Security: SPI Firewall, Access Control, IP and MAC Binding, Application Layer Gateway, HomeCare ™ Antivirus.
TESTS AND WORK
TP-LINK Archer AX11000 supports high performance wireless communication standards. Compared to Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), the sixth iteration of the standard increases the bandwidth as well as the maximum possible speed up to 10 Gbps. Thanks to OFDMA technology, this device supports simultaneous communication with multiple clients and is also capable of transmitting data in 12 streams. There is also a Smart Connect feature that will automatically assign your gadgets to the best Wi-Fi range available. With the proliferation of smart devices, Wi-Fi 6 routers are already becoming a necessity, not just a feature.
The antennas protruding around the perimeter of the router look like horns or even tusks, which gives the device a truly brutal and eccentric look. However, they are not here just for beauty. These “horns” allow you to achieve high quality communication over a long distance. It is not necessary to use all eight antennas. A complete set is required if you have a large apartment or house, then this device is capable of covering a fairly large area. My situation is more specific. The router is located almost at the very end of the apartment, and in order for the Wi-Fi wave to reach the opposite edge to the kitchen, it needs to overcome several thick walls and other obstacles. Without antennas, the Archer AX11000 quite “reaches” the indicated place, but only at a minimum of -86 dBm. But when four antennas were connected from the side where the kitchen is located, this indicator improved significantly, and the quality of communication stabilized at about -64 dBm. Near the router, the signal is always kept at around -36dBm, and in the room through the wall, the reception can change to ~ -52dBm, which is quite acceptable.
Overall the wireless quality feels very good. With multiple antennas connected, this device covered the entire apartment much better than the router provided by the provider. In addition, three different access points will allow you to separate your devices so that they do not interfere with each other.
For many ordinary users, setting up a router seems to be a difficult task, and often people, having received an already configured version from a provider, do not want to do anything on their own or cannot. From this, there are often difficulties with the quality of the connection in games or when watching streaming video. Even experienced users want to just press a couple of buttons and get it to work. Simplified configuration is common in routers, but it does not always function correctly. Since my configuration is not the easiest, I was preparing for great difficulties. The fact is that I use a fiber-optic connection from MGTS together with their special router, which the company does not allow to change. Due to this situation, at first, I had serious difficulties with online games. Only after a few long conversations with technical support, I was able to configure their device to the parameters of the consoles and was able to play more comfortably over the network.
To start the test, I connected TP-LINK Archer AX11000 to the provider’s router, and he switched to the “bridge” mode and then prepared for the worst, because all settings should be taken automatically from the provider, and a device not certified by them is simply not supported in such cases. However, in reality everything turned out to be very simple. When I first started Archer AX11000 in the web interface, I was immediately offered autotuning, in which one of the items was “which MAC address to use?”. Here you could specify the default option or enter data manually. Choosing the second method and entering the MAC address of the device from the provider there, all other settings were picked up automatically and the Internet started working literally in a minute. At the same time, the devices connected with a cable (PS4, XBO and Mac Mini), with which I registered a static IP in the previous router, retained their addresses – I did not have to configure it all over again. Such simplicity and full automation by the manufacturer is undoubtedly pleasing.
INTERFACE AND CONVENIENCE
You can control the router both in the browser and through the special Tether application for iOS and Android. There, as well as in the Web interface, you can see all connected devices, give priority to the desired gadget or, on the contrary, exclude from the network. In addition, you can turn on parental controls or make more detailed adjustments to some of the other settings.
By the way, on the main screen of Tether, three available Wi-Fi points are immediately displayed, which you can optionally rename, hide or change the password. There is also a button that allows you to send the name and password of your network to any messenger available on your phone. They also give this data to be transmitted via a QR code, which in some circumstances may be more convenient. These features make it easier to register new devices on your network, and will also be useful for those users who like to invite guests and throw parties. Among other things, you can set up a notification system that will notify you when a device is connected to the router, which allows you to fully control the network and protect it from unauthorized entry.
The system menu contains a built-in speed measurement toolkit from speedtest.net. This is very convenient and allows you to test your Internet channel without unnecessary gestures. Another important feature for players is the diagnostic system, which is only available when logging in through a browser. Here you can trace the route or check the ping indicating the size of packets to a particular address. What was previously performed using the command line now looks like a convenient Web application, which is undoubtedly pleasing.
The TP-LINK Archer AX11000 router has built-in security that filters malicious content and blocks dangerous sites listed in the Trend Micro database. Although during testing, I never encountered any, except for those that are already blocked by the provider or even by the browser itself. In addition, the system provides a HomeCare function, which, if something happens, isolates the infected device and protects personal data, preventing viruses from spreading inside your network.
Since the Archer AX11000 is a gaming router, it provides several special features to optimize the transfer of data from the game to the server and vice versa. The device automatically detects game traffic and can give this data a higher priority, which saves you headaches if you are playing, and someone else connected to your network is watching YouTube or Netflix. Of course, it’s good to have a wide communication channel and not think about such things, but in general, the function is very useful and important for every lover of online battles. It is worth noting that the system automatically detects the consoles as game devices, and it doesn’t even take extra hassle to play comfortably on the network on the PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch.
In the game settings, there is a panel showing the processor load of the router, as well as the response time to each device connected to it. Engineers from TP-LINK installed a quad-core processor with a clock speed of 1.8 GHz in the Archer AX11000, so during my testing I never noticed that the processor load reached at least 50%. Most of the time the CPU is loaded by 5-10%.
In order to test the Archer AX11000’s capabilities wirelessly, I connected a Nintendo Switch via Wi-Fi and played a multiplayer match in Splatoon 2. Nintendo’s hybrid system uses a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11 a / b / g / n / ac). The response time ranged from 2 to 90 ms, with most often showing a value at a lower mark, more close to the first number than to the maximum. In general, there were no noticeable lags for several matches.
After that, I decided to test the wireless quality on the PS4 Pro. The Sony console also has a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11a / b / g / n / ac) module, but it showed more stable results. The response times from the console to the router were all the time at the level of 1-3 ms for several hours, while I took turns running different games like PES 2023, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, For Honor, Mortal Kombat 11 and some other sensitive to the quality of communication projects. If you run them on a router from a provider using a Wi-Fi connection, and at the same time turn on YouTube from another device in parallel, then in the same For Honor you can notice small but unpleasant lags. Which in competitive games often leads to annoying mistakes and defeats. I did not notice such problems with a TP-LINK router. According to subjective impressions, the quality of Wi-Fi connection is practically not inferior to a wired connection, and given that the device understands well what traffic needs to be prioritized, you can comfortably play over Wi-Fi without worrying that someone will launch a video in parallel and that’s it. spoil you. When reconnecting to a wire, the difference is, of course, noticeable, but it primarily concerns not the response time, but the download speed, this can be seen when loading a game from the library or a test built into the PS4. In wired mode, the average speed is kept within 260/130 Mbit / s, while on Wi-Fi it fluctuates in the range from 170/60 Mbit / s to 40/9 Mbit / s. Obviously, the console itself is not capable of delivering more than the indicated results over Wi-Fi. Even with a cable connection, a lot depends on PSN servers, so the speed is far from the maximum possible on this router and the tariff plan of my provider.
Chances are, next-gen consoles will harness the potential of Wi-Fi 6 much better. However, in my arsenal of gadgets, I still found a device capable of showing high results in wireless mode. We are talking about the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ smartphone. When it was connected to the network, the Wi-Fi 6 icon immediately appeared in the header, and site downloads became noticeably faster than on the previous router. After doing a few tests through the already mentioned speedtest.net, I got results close to those shown by a computer connected by wire. The response time is from 3 to 10 ms, and the download speed is from 400 to 600 Mbps, which is close to the tariff plan.
In order to test the maximum range of Wi-Fi in the difficult conditions of an apartment building, I went to the entrance. At a distance of about 10 meters from the router, through several walls and a neighbor’s apartment, the power of the 5 GHz point dropped to almost a minimum and amounted to -83dBm. Standing in the same place, I ran speedtest.net and got the following results: response time – 3ms, jitter – 1ms, download – 128, and download – 92.5. It is worth noting that the Wi-Fi 6 standard supports not only the 5GHz band, but also 2.4GHz, the range of which is longer. Switching to this access point, I went even further and went up to the next floor to measure the speed from there. There the signal quality was -70dBm, and in speedtest.net the indicators turned out to be as follows: response time – 3 ms, jitter – 3 ms, download – 42.2, and recoil – 20.2. Standing in the same place, it was not possible to catch the point with 5 GHz. Well, moving on, this signal disappeared. In general, the range of this router in such difficult conditions is quite good, especially for a 2.4GHz access point.
TP-LINK Archer AX11000 – albeit quite expensive, but an excellent router with support for Wi-Fi 6 and many other modern technologies. Ease of setup, as well as correctly working process automation make interaction with this device simple and comfortable. The traffic prioritization system will be useful to all fans of online battles, and the built-in virus protection and flexible parental control options make this router a versatile and useful gadget for the whole family.
The test was carried out on the MGTS provider (the rate at the tariff is 600 Mbit / s), and the Internet connection was carried out through the “bridge” mode on the provider’s device, to which TP-LINK Archer AX11000 was connected.
Author: Azamat Tegaev (Azzy)
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