Never available again
View alternatives in the sidebar
View alternatives in the sidebar
According to our router expert
Equip your home with a fast wireless network with the Asus RT-AC68U. This high-speed router will effortlessly stream HD movies to your smart TV while you're gaming on your tablet at the same time. The Quality of Service feature prioritizes streams and makes sure your video runs smoothly, even during heavy internet use. Link multiple routers with AiMesh to create a multi-room WiFi network. This ensures a stable WiFi network with a large range. Use AiProtection to secure your home network from viruses and hackers. Connect an external hard drive or USB to the router and access your files everywhere via the Asus app.
Ethernet speed | Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps) | |
Frequency bands | Simultaneous dual-band | |
WiFi speed | AC1900 | |
Number of Ethernet ports | 4 | |
Type router | WiFi router | |
Number of stations | 1 | |
Living situation | Small apartment, Student room |
5 stars
192
4 stars
113
3 stars
6
2 stars
0
1 star
0
Range
Installation ease
Speed
Design
We were looking for another router as we were a bit of a mess with our previous one. We have 2 teenage daughters at home and nowadays there are many devices that work on WiFi, so it had to be a router that can handle something. That's why we chose this Asus. The installation is child's play, the connection is very good and the transfer is super fast. It is not exactly the cheapest but the device is well worth the money !!
David Camerlinckx
9 August 2014
Automatically translated from Dutch
The Asus Asus RT-AC68U is the best of 4 802.11ac routers I thoroughly tested.
I recently had the opportunity to test four of the currently best 802.11ac routers in my home:
The Asus Asus RT-AC68U came out on top in my thorough testing, both in terms of performance, functionality, configurability, and functionality. In second place came the Netgear router, which is close to the Asus in performance, but which is less configurable in certain areas (e.g. “tuning” of the speed of the wireless connections, user-friendliness and speed of the web interface for configuration). The D-Link and Linksys are also very good routers, but still fall short in performance in difficult conditions (at greater distances from the router, when connecting to obstacles) and their configuration options are much more limited in several areas.
In my testing of these four routers, I mainly focused on:
I have not done any tests in other areas, because they are not important in my use case. I did not test the connection of an external hard drive to the router via USB, nor other functions such as eg AiCloud, DDNS, Parent Controls, VPN, Repeater Mode, Bridge Mode, Media Bridge.
The Asus Asus RT-AC68U achieved the highest wireless speeds of these 4 routers, both on the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The Asus also scored the best for maximum range in terms of distance, both in a situation without signal-degrading obstacles, as well as in situations with obstacles (one or more walls or ceilings) between the router and the client device. The Asus also performs excellently as a LAN router, and
I measured the performance at 8 different locations in our home and garden, at different times of the day, and with 3 different devices (Asus Windows 8 laptop, Sony Xperia Tablet Z Android tablet, HTC One Android smartphone).
On the Windows laptop I used the “Amped Wi-Fi Analytics” software to measure the percentage signal strength and “WiFi link speed” in Mbps. On the Android devices I used the WiFi Analyzer app for this. I measured the speed of download and upload to the internet with the “Ookla Speedtest” website and app. The internet connection was a Telenet Whoppa with 160 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream.
The maximum achievable speeds of this router are 1300 Mbps on the 5 GHz band and 600 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band. In practice, the speed you achieve naturally depends on the test conditions. The further the client is from the router, the slower. The more obstacles there are, the slower. The Ethernet chip in the client also plays a role. To achieve the highest speeds, the Ethernet chip must be recent and modern, thus supporting features such as the 802.11ac standard, “beamforming” and TurboQAM. For example my HTC One Android smartphone these are present.
I was able to achieve the maximum speeds of the Telenet Internet connection on each of the client devices, ie downloads up to 160 Mbps and uploads up to 10 Mbps. So it is the internet connection that forms the upper limit here, because the router itself can handle much higher speeds, which you see, for example, with data transfers on the local network in the house.
The other tested routers can also handle these speeds, in optimal conditions. However, the Asus achieves the highest speed of the 4 routers in non-optimal conditions: further away from the router, and/or with multiple obstacles between router and client device.
The Asus AC-RT68U is very easy to configure, and very friendly to use. Of the 4 routers I tested, I found these to offer the best balance between simplicity and configuration options.
A “Quick Internet Setup” will help with the initial configuration. This helps less experienced users to get the router up and running smoothly and quickly. After a few minutes I had a working connection to Telenet Internet and to my various client devices.
Further configuration and optimization is then done via a clear and fast web interface.
The Asus offers the most advanced and fine-grained possibilities to optimize the speed of the wireless connection. For example, it is possible to set the channel bandwidth on the 2.4 GHz band to “40 MHz only”, and on the 5 GHz band to “80 MHz only”, which the other routers do not allow. You can further “tune” the connection via the “Wireless - Professional” settings. With the test tools mentioned above, one can assess the impact of each institution.
The router is also the most handy in terms of hardware: all ports are easily accessible at the back. The USB ports are also there, unlike some of the other routers where they are in the front or on the side, which gives a “messy” look in terms of cables.
An example of thoughtful user-friendliness are the indicator lights: they are located on the front, very clearly visible due to the vertical position of the router; and for bedroom use there is a button to turn off all the LED lights so they don't disturb. Another example is that each of the connected client devices can be assigned its own name and icon. That is not possible with some other routers, there you only see a cryptic description of the connected devices.
In short, the Asus AC-RT68U is a reliable, high-performance, professional and user-friendly router. Best of the four in my testing at home.
Paul Van Cotthem
9 August 2014
Automatically translated from Dutch
Range dramatically improved compared to previous router (D-Link DIR655) If your receiver allows it, you can also achieve very high WiFi speeds with this router. Initially, this router restarted about once a day, but with the latest firmware that problem has also been resolved. It now runs very stable.
Herbert
23 May 2014
Automatically translated from Dutch
Product number | 436631 | |
Manufacturer code | 90IG00C3-MM3G10 | |
Brand | ASUS | |
Warranty | 3 years | |
Processing of your defect | Via Coolblue | |
Old product returned for free |
Type router | WiFi router | |
WiFi speed class | Basic | |
Usage situation | Study at home | |
Living situation | Small apartment, Student room | |
Number of stations | 1 | |
Can be expanded with extra stations | ||
Built-in modem |
Frequency bands | Simultaneous dual-band | |
WiFi speed | AC1900 | |
2.4GHz band speed | 600 Mbit/s | |
5GHz band speed | 1300 Mbit/s | |
Number of WiFi antennas | 3 | |
Jumbo frame support |
Ethernet speed | Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps) | |
Network connector | ||
Number of Ethernet ports | 4 | |
PoE support | ||
USB port | ||
Type of USB port | Standard USB-A | |
Number of USB ports | 2 |
Automatically switches to 3G/4G | ||
SIM card slot |
Quality of Service (QoS) | ||
MU-MIMMO | ||
Seamless roaming | ||
Beamforming | ||
Port forwarding | ||
LACP Link aggregation |
Parental controls | ||
WLAN security | 802.1X, WEP, WPA, WPA-PSK, WPA2, WPA2-PSK | |
Firewall | ||
Firewall type | DoS, SPI Firewall | |
Guest network | ||
VPN server | ||
VPN client | ||
VPN passthrough |
Mounting possible | ||
Width | 22 cm | |
Height | 16 cm | |
Depth | 8,33 cm | |
Weight | 1200 g | |
Color | Black | |
Material | Plastic |
Power supply type | Power grid |
