Best 3rd party routers for Sky Ultrafast 900

[khan712]

Hi all, I'm looking for a 3rd party router to replace the white Sky Max hub included with Ultrafast 900 and have seen that I should look at some ASUS routers for compatability, but I'm unsure on which one. Ideally looking to spend within the 200 region, though I will consider up to 400 so please provide a few recommendations. Thank you.

[TimmyBGood]

@khan712 

It helps if you indicate what you are hoping to achieve.

Wireless coverage is more likely to be enhanced by a cheaper multi node mesh system rather than a single expensive router, for example.

[jamesn123]

@khan712 

Would also be useful to know what kind of devices you will be connecting as there is no point buying a WiFi 6, 6e or 7 router if you dont have any compatible devices.

[khan712]

@TimmyBGood At the moment, if one person is uploading on YouTube or downloading something on a games app store for example then it completely nukes the internet for everyone else, which shouldn't be the case on 900 FTTP. Sometimes it'll just randomly go down even, which makes me suspect that the Sky Max hub has a crap processor that throttles under load compared to what I could purchase. I'd be looking to purchase a 3rd party router and then further support it with 3rd party extenders, rather than using Sky Max and Sky extenders which has been a bit poor so far

[khan712]

@jamesn123 Gaming PC, Macbooks, PS5, Xbox Series X, iPhones and iPads, TVs and various other devices

[cookiemonsteruk]

@khan712 

Certainly the ps5 is wifi 6 and with the other gaming devices you'd be looking at the asus rt ax82u, asus rt ax86u, asus rt ax88u also the asus tuf and asus rog routers should also work directly connected to the ont but you may need to verify with asus uk as to whether they support client identifier (option 61)

[jamesn123]

@khan712 

I would go WiFi 6 then maybe even WiFi 6e.

[khan712]

@cookiemonsteruk Phoning ASUS was a great suggestion so thanks for that! Was going to say yolo and go for theASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 but sadly this doesn't support option 61, so now waiting for a call back from ASUS sales specialist to go through other options

[cookiemonsteruk]

@khan712 

The GT-BE98_PRO can be flashed with asus-merlin firmware (beta) that opens up client identifier but you can raise that during the callback.

[khan712]

@cookiemonsteruk So going based off stable Merlin firmware availability, the GT-AXE16000 would be the next best thing. What would be the benefit of going for something like this vs for example the RT-AX88U that you previously mentioned?

[cookiemonsteruk]

@khan712 

Here's a blow by blow comparison

https://versus.com/en/asus-rog-rapture-gt-axe16000-vs-asus-rog-rapture-gt-be98

[cookiemonsteruk]

@khan712 

P.S. couldn't find a comparison for the rt ax88u . The main one would be gt axe16000 is quad band whilst rt ax88u is wifi 6 dual band