ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AC2900 Wireless Router Review

We tested the performance of ASUS ROG RAPTURE GT-AC2900 in two ways. First, we wanted to assess the raw throughput across the two WiFi standards it supports – 802.11ac and 802.11n. We also tested the speed of the USB 3.0 port via 802.11ac.

For the first test we used the open-source iPerf 3.1.3 software, and for the second test we used a 3.7GB file collection. Three Windows systems were used. One was an Armari AMD Threadripper workstation running Windows 10, then a MSI WS63 7RK (for 802.11ac) and finally an HP Folio 13 (802.11n only).

For all the wireless tests, the workstation was connected to one of the GT-AC2900's Gigabit Ethernet ports, and the notebooks via WiFi connections (apart from the wired test, which also used Gigabit Ethernet). The notebooks were then placed in four different locations – within 1m of the router, approximately 5m away with a wall in between, 10m away and on a lower floor (with multiple walls and a floor in between), and then 15m away on a lower floor. We tested all four distances with the two WiFi standards, but only the 1m distance with the file copy.

With each WiFi standard and distance, we took 60 readings of throughput at one second intervals and calculated the average (iPerf does this automatically). For these tests, we are also comparing the GT-AC2900’s performance with the NETGEAR Nighthawk XR700, NETGEAR Nighthawk XR500, Linksys WRT 3200 ACM, NETGEAR Nighthawk X10 R9000, Synology RT2600ac, and NETGEAR Nighthawk AX12 (802.11ac only).

802.11ac 5GHz

At a close 1m range, the GT-AC2900's 802.11ac speed of 555 Mbits/sec is excellent, second only to the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX12.

Moving out to 5m it's not quite so outstanding, but still good. The 802.11ac speed of 289 Mbits/sec is third in this collection, behind the NETGEAR Nighthawk XR700 and considerably behind the AX12.

At 10m, the GT-AC2900's 802.11ac speed is still impressive with 121 Mbits/sec, this time second only to the NETGEAR Nighthawk X10 R9000.

However, performance drops off almost completely at 15m with a 802.11ac client, only reaching 0.495 Mbits/sec, which will be virtually unusable.

802.11n 2.4GHz

Performance is not so impressive with 802.11n. At a close 1m range you get a mere 43.5 Mbits/sec, only faster than the Linksys WRT 3200 ACM. This disappointment continues to 5m, with the throughput of 39.5 Mbits/sec the second slowest after the Linksys WRT 3200 ACM.

The GT-AC2900 is a bit more competitive at 10m, with the speed of 26.9 Mbits/sec more amongst the pack, albeit still numerically second slowest. At 15m range, the speed of 4.72 Mbits/sec is better than with 802.11ac, but NETGEAR's Nighthawk XR500, XR700 and AX12 are all still way ahead.

USB 3.0 File Copy

For this test, we hooked up a 32GB SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Memory key to the GT-AC2900's USB 3.0 port and configured it via the USB Application interface as network storage. We then copied the 3.7GB Windows 10 installer ISO (unpacked into individual files) to the MSI notebook via 802.11ac at a 1m range.

This was actually the GT-AC2900's best result, beating everything else hands down, showing that the router's USB port is fast and its Windows sharing provides optimum throughput.

Overall, these performance results are a mixed bag. At short range and with an 802.11ac client, the GT-AC2900 is very impressive indeed. But at over 10m or with 802.11n, it's not so commendable.

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