ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Quad-band WiFi 7 AiMesh Extendable Gaming Router, 25Gbps, 320MHz, 4K-QAM, Dual 10G Ports, Quad 2.5G Ports, Subscription-free Network Security, VPNs, 4G LTE/5G Mobile Tethering

I would only consider buying an Asus router and I have had a few in the past, the RT-AC68U, the RT-AC86U, the RT-AX82U and the RT-AX86U. Now I have the GT-BE98. Not everything was perfect along the way, the RT-AC86U lost its Gb WAN and would only run at 100, so that hastened one of the upgrades along the way. I did try a Zen WiFi mesh system, but that was so unstable, it had to be returned. Asus routers are highly configurable and operate an outstanding mesh system, called AiMesh, which makes whole home WiFi a breeze. No review would be complete without talking about the price. This router has just about everything and you pay for that. No one is forced to buy such an expensive router, so anyone buying it is a volunteer to the price-tag, so I am not going criticise the price. After using the GT-BE98 for a couple of weeks, I would call it impressive. Physically, it is big, very big and no amount of styling is going to detract from it looking the wrong side of ugly. Yes, it does look like an upside-down cybernetic giant spider! With the size comes the power consumption. Not really a criticism, because if you are going to spend a very large amount of money on router like this, you are probably not going to be put off by the fact that it uses over 20 watts of electricity just to be idle and goes above that when under a load. Features are just vast, you get WiFi 7, which hopefully adds a bit of future-proofing, you get a 10Gb LAN port, a 10Gb WAN port, 4 x 2.5Gb LAN ports and just one 1Gb LAN port. The LAN ports are fast, very fast, to a point that I noticed a difference when web browsing on my PC coming from the RT-AX86U to the RT-BE98. The array of features in the firmware is nothing short of staggering. WiFi does not seem to have much more reach over my AX router, but it is faster and access to files on my NAS appears much faster. It should be noted that I have not tried WiFi 7 clients yet, so that will (hopefully) impress even more. When at a distance from the router and the WiFi signal is weak, it does carry more data and speedtests do show solid performance, so the signal does not travel much further, but is useful for further. I have the router setup on a wired 2.5Gb LAN connection for an AiMesh system with my RT-AX86U as a node. My previous AiMesh system was with the RT-AX86U as the router and the RT-AX82U as the node and that was perfect and stable for many years, but was starting to fall over, with buffering and other glitches appearing, where there were no hints of problem for years. It was ready for a re-set and if I was doing that, it would be with a new router. As you might expect with a recently released router, there will be issues to iron out in the firmware. Before adding any settings, there was the obligatory firmware update and I manually added the settings that had worked so well in my previous AiMesh setup. In my original review (based on Jan 2024 firmware), I listed three bugs which caused me some concern, all now appear to have been resolved in the April 2024 firmware update, so this review has been updated to remove details of the no longer relevant bugs and the rating has been raised to 5 stars.

I bought this to replace a similar model by a competitor. I have to say, while it may not be perfect, this router is much better. Firstly, it has a lot of functionality built in. I am glad to even have basic things like local DNS on my network that other routers don't have. Wireguard VPN is another feature I'm pleased to have. Hardware-wise, having two 10 GbE LAN ports is handy for having fast speeds between my desktop and my NAS, and it allowed me to ditch the separate 10 GbE switch I was using before. I can reach 9.5 Gbps throughput between those two devices (some other reviews seem to suggest speeds are limited, but not in my case). Wi-Fi-wise, I have no complaints. The router has MLO, but as a technology it doesn't seem worthwhile yet. Firstly, on the router, you use it as via the Guest Network Pro feature which I wasn't expecting, but it isn't a big deal I guess. But secondly, my Pixel 8 did not get on with it so well (after a while, the 5/6 GHz Wi-Fi stopped working on the phone until the phone was rebooted). This wasn't the router's fault though. The web interface could do with a bit of polish, but it works well enough. The app is also not bad. The two downsides I have come across are: - the Aura lighting makes a high-pitched noise for most colours. I turned it off - I have DHCP problems via Ethernet with the latest firmware version. I downgraded to an older version to fix it. Hopefully this will be resolved in time. Be aware that some features like AI Protection and parental controls require opting in to some Trend Micro thing. I'm not particularly interested in those features anyway so have left them off. I'd give the router 4.5/5 overall.

GT-BE98 - Don't Bother! I had high hopes for this router. We had bought the AXE11000 and that was pretty awful, dropping connections, wouldn't accept a drive in the USB ports without malfunctioning. So this seemed like as though it would have been a better bet, faster processor, more ram, what could possibly go wrong? At first, everything seemed ok, we have anything up to 20 devices connected at any given time, and that's including the IoT devices. I had set up an IoT guest network, which seemed to work ok initially, but the signal strength for that network was particularly poor, and so things kept dropping off and not reconnecting. I added everything onto the main 2.4Ghz network and things still kept dropping off, sometimes reconnecting and often not. I then noticed that this router did not seem to like Apple devices, of which we have at least 5 or 6. Again, the router logs were showing that the signal strength for the Apple devices was really low, sometimes as low as -100 in the same room as the router! And if that was't weird enough, we have a Mac upstairs that was dropping off and back on the network and I went and removed all traces of our network from it and then logged it back on, and the signal went from virtually nothing, to excellent in just a few clicks. By the end of the day, it was back to -100, -90 etc. Same for an iPhone 14 Pro Max, even when in the same room as the router and connected to one of the 5Ghz bands (I'll come to those later), it would be reported in the logs as a really weak signal, and that it was deauthorizing constantly, on and off, all day long. Macbook was the same. Really odd. My NAS supports link aggregation, as does the GT-BE98, so I set it up. Within a few hours, the router had globally disconnected everything, and continued doing so, every few hours, even when idle. The logs showed nothing about the link aggregation, but there were lots of error 30, and kernel errors, but relating to other devices around the time of the global disconnects. I undid the link aggregation and the global disconnects became fewer. This router, is also marketed as being able to support a hard drive from its USB ports, so I did a test. My music library, on a 2.5" SSD and the global disconnects started again. Tried a couple of other different drives, and ways of formatting the drives, but it just did not like having anything plugged into the USB ports with data on that can be accessed over the network. Why bother marketing this as a feature? The firmware. As with many Asus routers at the moment, especially 'high end' ones, like the BE98 that have been abandoned, is partuclarly buggy and completely unsupported. Even the web UI that looks like a 90s w a r e z site, glitches and sometimes partially loads, requiring you to close and reopen, but then you are met with a message saying that you are logged in twice, and this happens on Safari and Firefox. If you can get hold of Asus support from the UK, it's the same, scripted instructions to reset this and start from scratch, or turn this feature off etc. The latest firmware for the BE98 is broken in so many ways that there would not be enough room here to list them all. Just know, that if you buy one of these, there is no aftermarket firmware, Merlin do not support it, and the only other fork, Gnuton, only has an old beta version available, so you are in the hands of Asus, who don't seem to care that people have paid the best part of £700 for a router, and for that money, they expect it to not only work, but to be reliable, supported with firmware updates, and worthy of the price tag. This router is not worthy. It does not give you stronger wifi. It struggles with wired connections. The build quality is pretty poor at this price, just cheap, cast plastic parts with the usual awful ROG styling that makes it look like a huge dead spider. Reverted back to our old router and all the issues went away. On my travels to find a replacement, it seems that a lot of current Asus routers are like this, so it's time to look elsewhere. There has got to be better than this for the money. Asus need to get their finger out and get pushing out some much needed firmware updates to fix all the bugs and broken 'features'.

Als ASUS-Fan schon seit jeher bin ich beim Schreiben dieser Rezession vielleicht etwas "befangen" aber dieser Router ist schon wirklich ganz großes Kino. Ich hatte bisher zwei Google-WiFi Netzkomponenten, auf zwei Stockwerke verteilt, im Einsatz und war schon recht zufrieden mit der Konnektivität dieser beiden weißen "Pucks". In letzter Zeit hatte ich leider, was die Mesh-Funktionalität anging, relativ häufig Verbindungsabbrüche und es lag definitiv nicht an meinem Modem bzw. meiner AVM Fritz-Box und auch nicht an meinem Internet-Provider. Aus diesem Grund legte ich mir kürzlich diesen GT-BE98 Router zu mit dem ich schon seit längerer Zeit liebäugelte... Dieses Gerät bietet alles was man von einem Router erwartet und noch vieles mehr. Die unzähligen Einstellungsmöglichkeiten sind wirklich super und man kann wirklich alles auf sein Bedürfnisse anpassen (z.B. QoS, Priorisierung von Geräten, fixe IP-Zuteilung für statische Geräte, Optimierungsmöglichkeiten, Netzwerkanalysen, Auswertungen zur Auslastung, ...). Im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen Anbietern kann man diesen Router auch im Intranet über eine eigene Konfigurationsseite administrieren und nicht nur ausschließlich über eine Handy-App. Beide Tools sind ziemlich intuitiv und man findet alles relativ schnell. Zu den Highlights zählen natürlich WiFi-6 und WiFi-7 (sofern von Geräten schon unterstützt). Die Reichweite schon eines Routers ist grandios. In meiner Konfiguration benötige ich jetzt nicht einmal mehr einen weiteren Repeater. Falls ich mit einem dieser Geräte nicht ausgekommen wäre, hätte ich mir mit Sicherheit einen zweiten GT-BE98 gekauft, um ihn dann in mein ASUS AI-Mesh einzubinden. Das Gerät ist extrem stylish und sieht nicht nur sehr futuristisch sondern auch sehr cool aus. An der Oberseite das typische ASUS-Branding mit der unverkennbaren ROG AURA-RGB Beleuchtung. Ansonsten ziemlich quadratisch mit 8 Antennen und natürlich viel Plastik... I am loving it... ;-) Der GT-BE98 ist mit Sicherheit einer der besten, performantesten und vor allem zukunftssichersten Router, den man aktuell bekommen kann. Egal ob für Spielenthusiasten oder für Leute im Homeoffice eine klare Kaufempfehlung an alle.

Premetto che vengo da un GT-AXE 16000 che già mi aveva mezzo convinto si è no. Ovviamente un ottimo modello e molto simile ma con una bella differenza software; grazie alle novità del MLO del wi fi 7 e in generale della ottima vera gestione del traffico di rete. Purtroppo per me in questo piccolo paese dimenticato da Dio la FTTH e ancora un sogno lontano ( italia ;) . Ad ogni modo con una FTTC a lunghezza di quasi 200m le prestazioni wi fi e di rete che il BE-98 offre, NON HA PARAGONI. La mia rete nonostante i limiti della FTTC telecomando rispetto a prima ora veramente da i risultati quasi sempre istantanei come dovrebbe essere la rete ideale. Quasi addio ai buffering che sono cmnq ridotti di almeno la metà rispetto al GT-AXE 16k la cosa importante è che finalmente questo modello BE98 gestisce la rete come promette, pensando che è ancora a inizio vita e da stabilizzare con aggiornamenti futuri, la qualità e davvero alta e cambia davvero le carte in gioco. Su questo modello posso permettermi di lasciar lavorare quasi in automatico dalle impostazioni il router è lui gestisce davvero dando priorità col QOS cosa che a mio avviso nel GT-AXE era buggata e non gestiva al meglio la rete. Il BE98 vale veramente i soldi spesi, bi cambia davvero l esperienza di rete, io finalmente vedo una stabilità e una qualità che desideravo dai miei dispositivi di nuova generazione poi la genialità della rete ioT non menzionata e il top stessa rete ma la divide così stupidate come alexa echo dot ecc li si mettono lì e non rompono le scatole che stanno sempre attivi in background anche da spenti e non ci si può fare nnt come monitor PC ecc. È SUPER CONSIGLIATO !! E GIA IL MEGLIO SU PIAZZA E DEVE ANVORA MILGIORARE E DARE ma già allo stato attuale finalmente posso dire di aver pagato per qualcosa che ne è valsa la pena! Spedizione fulminea poi ovviamente di amazon e nessun danno per fortuna che non è più scontato ultimamente. Scusate le foto ma non servono sinceramente. Chicca la scatola dell imballaggio asus e assurda, da esposizione direi bellissima e tosta. GRAZIE !

Easy to set up, great as the primary router in a wired AIMesh network. Good app interface with controls for a separate guest network.

Bättre täckning, stabilt internet. Lätt att installera men tänk igenom alla produkter som använder internet. Nödvändigt att ominstallera alla.

Router is enorm goed, alleen kan die niet opgehangen worden zoals onze vorige router & deze is wel enorm groot! Lastig om mooi op te hangen als dat mogelijk was geweest