ASUS Malaysia Launches ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Quad-Band Wi-Fi 7 Router
ASUS Malaysia Launches ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Quad-Band Wi-Fi 7 Router
ASUS Malaysia today is launching its latest and fastest gaming router in the form of ROG Rapture GT-BE98. This quad-band Wi-Fi 7 router comes with various quality-of-life improvements over previous Wi-Fi standards, such as wider channel bandwidth and multi-link operation (MLO).
The company says the GT-BE98 supports up to 16 simultaneous Wi-Fi streams, and in the case where the router isn’t saturated – the new, wider 320MHz channel bandwidth allows for higher throughput over Wi-Fi connections. As part of the Wi-Fi 7 standard, it supports a feature called ‘puncturing’, which enables the connection to utilize non-continuous channels to improve channel utilization and better stability.
Aside from that, the router also supports 4K-QAM for higher data transmission density (equals more bandwidth, simply put), which is a 20% improvement over 1024-QAM used in the Wi-Fi 6/6E standard. That’s quite the jargon, so here’s an analogy: the channel bandwidth is how wide the highway is (meaning less congestion), and QAM represents how many items your car can carry in a single trip.
One of the most prominent advancements of Wi-Fi 7 is multi-link operation, or MLO. Since the GT-BE98 can provide up to four distinct bands (2.4GHz + 5GHz 1 + 5GHz 2 + 6GHz), devices with Wi-Fi 7 can utilize all four bands simultaneously. The benefits are two-fold: one, you get faster speeds (and lower latency) via bandwidth aggregation, and two, you’re less likely to experience dropouts – think of MLO as having your devices connected to four separate internet cables. In that sense, breaking all four of them is extremely difficult.
To improve reliability and combat the heat generated by its components, such as the onboard quad-core 2.6GHz processor and 2GB RAM, ASUS says the router features an exposed passive heatsink that improves cooling efficiency by 18% (compared to its predecessor, the GT-AXE16000). In the tests, the company says the router reaches high 60 degrees on the heatsink surface under the worst-case scenario, with no cooling and airflow present while stressed continuously for 24 hours.
Like other ROG routers, it also supports VPN Fusion which enables bypassing traffic, lifetime AiProtection Pro security solution provided by Trend Micro, AiMesh, mobile game mode, and triple-level game acceleration. The ROG Rapture GT-BE98 is now available nationwide, with an MSRP of RM3,988.
Pokdepinion: When I saw the router up close, I was surprised at its rather huge size.
