Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition Review

I have to admit, I am a fan of the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition. The project that saw Asus ROG do a range of gaming peripherals with the iconic Evangelion 01 colour scheme is one of the more strange collaborations I have seen. With motherboards, graphics cards, monitors, and PC accessories all in the range, fans of the anime can finally have a new way to indulge in their fandom. Even with the ridiculous nature of the range, Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition is a solid router that delivers in the ways it needs too, and looks good doing so.

The Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 Evo Edition is a horizontal wireless router with four adjustable antennas, four 1GBs ports, dual 2.5G Ethernet ports, with 1 USB 3.2 Gen and 1 USB 2.0 ports along the back of the unit. It has vibrant green LED lights adorning the antennas and the ROG eye will also glow based on the router status. Much like all the ROG range of routers, it has an imposing feel but will look great next to a gaming PC or other hardware.

What makes this model special is the Evangelion colour scheme, which is interesting and potentially exciting if you are a fan of the anime. Honestly, I don’t know why you would be looking to get the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition over the standard, unless you were a fan. From the look on the surface to the router’s menus, this is a device made to appeal to a very select fandom. I personally enjoy what ASUS has done with the GT-AX6000, it feels unique and has enough Eva flair to instantly recognize, especially with the Evangelion Test Type 01Test Type 01 words on the top.

Beyond the Evangelion style, the ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 is a well speced router that has all the ports you would hope for from a gaming device in 2022. The 2.5 Gigabit LAN and WAN ports are a great thing to see, especially as more devices are pushing well past 1GBs. The placement of all the ports on the back worked well, making sure you can have everything hooked up and hidden away, never taking away from the look of the ROG Rapture GT-AX6000, Evengelion inspired or otherwise.

Under the hood, the ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 is well-positioned to manage a range of networking tasks, including comeptative gaming. It has a powerful 2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 256MB of Flash memory. There are physical buttons on the back for power, Wi‑Fi password, and Reset. An LED control panel is located at the top right corner of the device. It runs on the ASUSWrt operating system which is found across the entire Asus router line up, with Eva edition featuring a theme inspired by the anime.

The ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 features an impressive range of wireless specs that should meet most peoples needs. The router is a dual-band 802.11ax router with a single 2.4 GHz band that Supports up to 1148Mbps and a single 5 GHz frequency that supports up to 4804 Mbps. The ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 Eva Edition should meet most gamers needs, but it was disappointing seeing it limited to dual-band, especially when the competition are pushing tri or even quad-band offerings that do make this one feel lacking in comparison.

With its 802.11ac Wave 2 MU-MIMO technology, the ASUS RT-AC68U AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit Router offers up to 3x faster speeds than previous models. It also features beamforming for better coverage and reception, includes adaptive QoS to prioritize traffic. and can be configured as a part of an Airtime Mesh Wi-Fi system. All in all, Asus included most of what you could want from a router at this range, even bringing Wi-Fi 6 to the table, something I am happy to see, especially with more devices coming out that support the new standard.

The unboxing and setup of the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition was painless and intuitive. Once you have everything installed, with the modem and devices plugged into their respective ports, you simply need to open the setup page and go through the steps. The interface will walk you through each step of the process, with it giving prompts for the network names, your passwords, and even will update things to keep everything running smoothly. From the unboxing to running took a total of 10 minutes, although more time can be spent if you want to fine tune some of the more advanced settings.

Once everything is installed, you have a range of options that can be explored, including network traffic monitoring and game prioritization. If your like me and you want the best experience possible while online, this is where you will want to dive into, with Asus including a range of options to get the best experience possible. For most users, the Game Boost for game packet prioritisation is what would most often need to be turned on. Even with today’s Wi-Fi speeds, I still recommend a dedicated LAN connection for gaming, but the game boost is a great way to push past network congestion to get the best speeds possible.

“The Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition is one of the fastest and most robust Wi-Fi 6 gaming routers we have tested this year.”

The Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition also has a range of security features and parental controls that can further customize your network to meet your needs. Not all these settings will be used by everyone, or need to for that matter, but ASUS have laid everything out in a way that is easy to understand, while still giving enough customization for the power users to sink their teeth into.

In our network tests the LAN performance was very impressive, it held its own against some more expensive offerings from Linksys, Netgear and TP-Link, delivering data quickly even with a congested network. On the wireless side, the router, we saw speeds of 940Mbps on the 5Ghz band, delivering great speeds anywhere in the office testing environment. When we went past the ideal range, speeds did decrease, dropping to around 800Mbps, although still good for wireless at the extent of the routers’ coverage area.

Mobile gamers are in for a treat with the consistent speeds and range the ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 is a beast when it comes to online gaming. I tried Fortnight on the ROG Phone 6, and I never saw any slowdown due to network performance. Jumping to a laptop, the same consistent speeds were seen across all games we run through our tests. The CPU at the core of the router keeps things running smoothly, even when the network is congested.

All in all, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition is one of the fastest and most robust Wi-Fi 6 gaming routers we have tested this year. There is a reason ASUS are some of the higher end when it comes to gaming routers. The software works well, the router delivers enough signal to blanket most houses and the additional features simply add to an overall great package. For fan of Evangelion who love to game online, I can’t think of a better combination then with the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 EVA Edition, it just works and looks good doing so.

* This article was originally published here