As a WiFi6 "popularization pioneer", ASUS TIF-AX3000 has won a good reputation among users for its good workmanship and performance. Now, we have ushered in its upgraded product ASUS TUF GAMING esports small whirlwind, the new product uses a higher frequency CPU and a faster 2.5G WAN port, so what kind of performance will it bring to everyone?
Specifications
Processor: Broadcom quad-core CPU
Memory capacity: 512MB
Wireless protocol: 802.11b/g/n/ac/ax
Interface type: 4× 1GbE LAN, 2.5GbE WAN, USB-A
Encryption type: WPA, WPA2, WPA3-Personal/Enterprise
Wireless bandwidth: 20/40/80/160 MHz
Wireless rate: 2402 Mbps (2×2 MIMO 160 MHz)
Number of antennas: 4
Personalized supercar appearance, interface configuration great upgrade
In terms of appearance, the TUF GAMING e-sports small whirlwind still inherits the design style of the previous generation of e-sports agents, and the fuselage lines are tough and prominent, and the angles are clear. The housing is made of frosted heat-resistant material, and the antenna is a very TUV-inspired cutout design with orange accents. The biggest change in appearance is the replacement of the classic Wings of Victory logo with a new logo with clean lines and a reinforced metallic texture. There is also a small detail that the bright yellow embellishment at the antenna cutout has changed to a dark pearlescent gold color scheme, and the overall sense of technology is stronger.
Powered by Broadcom's 1.7GHz quad-core flagship processor (previous generation was 1.5GHz)
The fuselage design based on the supercar shape also brings a high degree of recognition to the router, and the front of the fuselage can see a square heat dissipation grille and a "front lip" structure similar to a racing car, and there is a V-shaped heat dissipation opening at the top of the fuselage. It is worth mentioning that the open grille of the fuselage has a certain depth or baffle design, so that the dust will not fall directly on the fine grille and inside the router, which is convenient for cleaning and enhances the heat dissipation efficiency. A large area of heat dissipation ports is arranged at the bottom of the main unit, as well as four non-slip foot pads and two wall mount holes, which can meet the installation needs of both flat and wall mounts.
At present, some routers on the market will be simplified or even directly replaced by RGB light bars, although this design enhances the appearance of the sense of technology, but want to check the status of the router is very dependent on APP or management page, to a certain extent to the user to use inconvenience. TuF GAMING Gaming Small Whirlwind retains a full port independent indicator light, which is white under normal conditions, and changes from white to orange or red when the network connection is abnormal, and the user can perform simple troubleshooting according to the prompts.
4 antenna design, support rotation adjustment direction
Although the appearance has not changed much, the TOF GAMING Esports Minor Whirlwind has upgraded the configuration of the network interface. The rate of the four Gigabit LAN ports is constant, but LAN1 and LAN2 support link aggregation, which can be set to a wired 2 Gbps link. The Gigabit WAN port has been upgraded to a 2.5G WAN port, with a WiFi6 wireless network of up to 2402 Mbps, which can not only truly run full of Gigabit broadband, but also meet the network needs of the future 2000M broadband after entering the home. In addition, the router is also configured with a 5 Gbps USB-A port, which can be used for external storage, network cards and other devices.
The network ports are covered in metal shields
Simple configuration, rich functions and high playability
TUF GAMING gaming small whirlwind also supports APP and web terminal two ways to set, if you are the first time to connect the ASUS router, then Xiaobian is more recommended to use the mobile APP of the router for rapid configuration. The way to configure the router using the APP method is very simple, first connect the power supply of the router, and the WAN port is connected to the optical cat or the superior router through the network cable. Then download the "ASUS Router" APP on the phone, then scan the QR code on the back of the router to connect to the initial WiFi, and then establish a WiFi network and manager account according to the wizard prompts in the APP to complete the setup.
In the APP, you can see the current operating state of the router and complete most of the basic function settings
If you want to adjust the router more carefully, you have to go to the web management interface. The TUF GAMING e-sports small whirlwind web management interface also uses black and gold colors, and even the background is a military camouflage with a full sense of e-sports, and the function is basically the same as other products. In terms of features, it is equipped with AiProtection Intelligent Network Guard, parental computer control program and online game acceleration function. Among them, the AiProtection Intelligent Network Guard function is a commercial-grade network security suite that can provide players with network security assessment, malicious network interception, vulnerability protection, infected device prevention and interception, etc., which is very suitable for players with high requirements for network security.
AiProtection Smart Network Guard comes with practical security assessment capabilities
As an esports router, TUF GAMING Esports Whirlwind is also equipped with Aimesh 2.0, which is currently equipped with all of Asus's all-selling routes. Aimesh2.0 compatibility is very good, support multiple CPU platforms and up to 9 devices networked at the same time. This router can be used as the main router of AiMesh or as a node of AiMesh, in addition to wireless encryption provides WPA3 support, the overall security is higher.
Throughput performance and signal coverage test: 2.5G WAN port network speed takeoff, wireless signal is fast and strong
Wired network card: 2× Intel I211 Gigabit wired network card, Realtek 2.5GbE wired network card
Wireless card: Killer AX1650I WiFi6 wireless card
Mobile: Xiaomi Mi 10
Router firmware: 3.0.0.4.386_48271
Schematic diagram of the test equipment
The reason why the previous generation of ASUS TIF-AX3000 has a high degree of attention is mainly because of the "Assassin Mode" router that can leapfrog the AX5400 level performance. From the perspective of the maximum theoretical wireless rate, the upgraded TIF GAMING Gaming Esports Whirlwind only supports 2x2 MU-MIMO, so the speed of its 5GHz network is only half of that of the TUF-AX3000 (4804Mbps), so it seems that the replacement product is downgraded compared to the previous model? In fact, it is not always the case, TUF GAMING gaming small whirlwind is configured with a 2.5G WAN port, with a LAN port that supports link aggregation can theoretically access 2000Mbps broadband, while the general AX3000 router can only support gigabit broadband at most. Let's explore the strength of this router through performance testing.
The new firmware enables OFDMA+MU-MIMO by default
In the conventional LAN to LAN test, the router's downstream transmission speed is 930Mbps, and the uplink behavior is 1004Mbps, which fully reaches the transmission speed of gigabit LAN, and the average delay and delay jitter performance is also very good. Then we use the wireless network card to connect to the router, 5GHz to LAN test, at this time the downstream transmission speed is 914Mbps, the upstream 982Mbps, the delay is 2.2ms, whether wired or wireless connection when the transmission speed, latency performance is very good.
Next, we will aggregate LAN1 and LAN2 links, and then test the throughput performance of THEIR WAN port to LAN port. Judging from the test of 2GbE LAN to WAN, the downstream transmission speed is as high as 1853Mbps, while the upstream speed is still gigabit level. Then we swapped the speed server from the WAN port to the LAN port, and found that the downstream speed of the WAN to 2GbE LAN became gigabit, while the upstream transmission speed was 1954Mbps. Therefore, we speculate that when the router's LAN1 and LAN2 are linked to aggregation, the downstream bandwidth to the WAN port can be superimposed to 2000Mbps, and the upstream bandwidth cannot be superimposed, but considering that the upstream bandwidth of most home broadband is only one-tenth of the downstream, even if the home broadband access to 2000M is actually completely sufficient.
Next is the signal coverage test of the router, the test environment is a two-bedroom, one-living room and one bathroom about 70 square meters of housing, according to the habits of the daily range of activities, we will test the signal strength of 5GHz in six positions in the room. During the test, we tuned the region to Australia, where the signal is stronger, the network environment at home is 500M telecom broadband, and the test device is Xiaomi Mi 10 mobile phone.
We first ran a broadband test in the living room, 500M broadband can easily run full, the network speed is also very stable. Judging from the test results, the indoor coverage of the TUF GAMING gaming gaming small whirlwind 5GHz band is quite good, and the maximum connection rate of the mobile phone can be reached in the living room, bedroom A and bedroom B, and the connection rate of more than 576Mbps can be guaranteed in the kitchen A and kitchen B with a relatively poor signal. At the same time, we also noticed that the latency is very low, comparable to a wired connection without a wall, and with OFDMA technology, multi-device simultaneous viewing of high-definition videos, large file downloads and mobile games can get a good experience.
Triple game acceleration for a smooth gaming experience with low latency
We've seen the strength of the TOF GAMING Esports Whirlwind from the previous performance tests, so let's take a look at what optimizations it has made for esports games. It supports triple game acceleration, and in addition to gaming device priority and smart port forwarding, it also supports multi-platform game acceleration such as PC, mobile phone, and game console. In addition, this router provides multi-stage heat dissipation for the internal chip, and the heat sink has a "nano carbon coating" on it, which can bring more stable network performance.
The first is the "game acceleration" function, which is actually the software version of the previous TIF-AX3000 "Gaming Port" interface, players can add the device that often plays the game as a "game device", so that when the game device is connected to the router, it will automatically take the network connection data of the game application as the priority, optimize the e-sports and online game performance of the device in a targeted manner, and greatly reduce the delay. The second is the Open NAT function, which allows players to easily create online game port forwarding rules and optimize the routing packet from the game console to the router, especially for console games that only support P2P connectivity, open NAT can greatly improve the success rate of online.
Since the first two functions are mainly aimed at the transmission optimization of terminal devices to routers, it is impossible to really solve the delay problem when directly connecting external services, so TUF GAMING Gaming Gaming Xiaoxuan also built in the NetEase UU accelerator. As one of the first manufacturers to integrate network accelerator software into the router, the ease of use of the NetEase UU accelerator integrated in asus firmware has been excellent, and the popular Switch and next-generation consoleS5, Xbox Series X|S can be switched with one click and easily accelerated. Here we have accelerated the PC version of PUBG, the game latency has been reduced from 121ms in the naked connection to 59ms, the network packet loss problem has also been greatly improved, and the game experience is more enjoyable.
Summary: A strong "esports whirlwind"
The TUF GAMING Gaming Small Whirlwind Router inherits the design of the TUF-AX3000 and replaces it with a new logo and color scheme with a full sense of gaming. The configuration adopts a quad-core CPU of Broadcom flagship with 1.7GHz main frequency, supports 2×2 160MHz high-speed AiMesh 2.0 networking, and cooperates with a full blood WiFi6 wireless signal that is fast and wide. For geek players, diverse port configurations and numerous third-party firmware supports bring greater playability and scalability. In actual use, the performance of the router is stable, and the triple game acceleration function is easy to use, which can bring players a long-term and stable game experience. At present, the new product pre-sale of the router to the hand price of 699 yuan, in addition to supporting 3 years warranty, the purchase of 2 or more Asus routes are enjoyed free on-site installation and debugging and other services, need to upgrade the WiFi6 router of the small partner may wish to understand.