It has four streams across the board in all three bands 2.4Ghz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands. RAX120: Hardware specificationsĪpart from the 6GHz band, the new Nighthawk RAXE500 is essentially the RAX200. See also Wi-Fi 6/E Upgrade: Here's How You Can Add It To Your PC Today Netgear RAXE500 vs. It works with all existing 5GHz and 2.4GHz, just like Netgear’s other high-end dual-band router, the RAX120.Īnd in my testing, it worked very well with them, if not better than ever before, among Netgear broadcasters. Mostly, it turned on for a short while during boot, then remained off.)īut the gist is that while known as a Wi-Fi 6E router, the Nighthawk RAXE500 is a Wi-Fi 6 router at its core.
However, this fan rarely ran in my weeks-long testing. By the way, the Nighthawk RAXE500 also comes with an internal fan, which is never a good thing - moving parts will eventually break. (The two Netgear routers share the same futuristic and awesome-looking design. It’s just like the Asus GT-AXE11000 to the GT-AX11000, if not precisely the same case. The Nighthawk RAXE500 is very much the Nighthawk RAX200 with a 6GHz band in the place of its second 5GHz one. More on this in the performance section below.
I plan to update it with that when there’s an official laptop that supports the 6GHz band.īut the Samsung S21 Ultra - I used two units for the testing - did help show off the power of Wi-Fi 6E, or the lack thereof in certain areas. So this review will not include the official 6GHz performance number.
But Windows 10 won’t officially support Wi-Fi 6E until later this year.
Sure, there’s the Intel AX210 chip that you can install on your computer. Unfortunately, there’s no such client yet. (And to be honest, I’d question the validity of any other ways folks use to “test” the Wi-Fi speeds. That’s because the way I test Wi-Fi requires a “real” (Windows) computer. For this review, I was able to sort of test the 6GHz band using the Samsung S21 Ultra, which is the first and, so far, only official Wi-Fi 6E-enabled device.īut even then, the Nighthawk AXE11000 still didn’t have much more to shine in my testing than did the Asus GT-AXE11000 a few months ago. Since Wi-Fi 6E is so new, being a later comer has some advantages. Interestingly, this new 6GHz band is probably not where it’s worth the money. And that’s partly because of the support for Wi-Fi 6E with its all-new 6GHz band. In fact, it’s the most expensive home router on the market. Netgear RAXE500: You pay for what you get Excellent range, a bit fluctuation on reliability.Excellent speeds on 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands.Wi-Fi 6E: (Easily) fast but short-range.Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500: Great, but incomplete, performance.Familiar web interface, mobile app, network settings, and features.Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500: Detail photos.Netgear RAXE500: You pay for what you get.The Netgear RAXE500 Nighthawk AXE11000 Router is a massive yet awesome-looking router. On April 30, this final update included all performance evaluations, including that of the 6GHz band.
Get it!ĭong’s note: I first published this post on January 11, 2021, when the Nighthawk RAXE500 was announced and upgraded on April 15 to a full preliminary review. But if you’re a Netgear fan, you can’t go wrong with the Nighthawk RAXE500. Whether that’s worth the $600 price tag is debatable. You’ll enjoy it even when you don’t have any Wi-Fi 6E client, and you likely don’t.
Indeed, it proved to be a more refined experience when working with 5GHz and 2.4Ghz clients in my trial - though not without some hiccups like any router of a totally new standard. And as such, it’s an excellent Wi-Fi machine. (I recommend you check out my take on the latter before continuing.)ĭue to the early stage of Wi-Fi 6E, like the case of the Asus GT-AXE11000, the Nighthawk RAXE500, for the most part, is a “dual-band” router for now. In fact, you can look at this review as a RAXE500 vs. That includes being the de facto “cutting-edge” version of an older similar flag-ship tri-band model - the RAX200 in the Netgear’s case. As the second Wi-Fi 6E broadcaster on the market, the much anticipated Netgear RAXE500 Nighthawk 12-Stream AXE11000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6E Router is the presumed rival of the Asus GT-AXE11000 that came earlier this year.Īpart from the additional 6GHz band, the two have many other things in common.