Asus RT-AX89X – 10 Gb network ready for households

Package and specifications

We only test routers rarely, usually if they bring any significant news. The last time, for example, it was an Asus router with WiFi 6. The first home router with a 10-gigabit connection is now coming to the market from the same manufacturer, using RJ45 and SFP+. The slow 1 Gbps cable connection was the drawback of WiFi 6 routers, and this is what the new RT-AX89X eliminates. Thanks to 10 Gb connectors, the home network is thus entering a new era.

Basic information

Package and exterior

The packaging design is similar to the manufacturer’s previous routers. In its graphics you can see the router itself as well as its main features and a few specs.

On the side, all its ports and connectors are shown, which we will, of course, also investigate later.

Inside you will find the router itself, a LAN cable, a power adapter with two connectors and documentation, as usual.

It is interesting that there is a change in the power adapter compared to its predecessors. So far, you would find a 45 W power adapter with Asus routers, but the novelty got a more powerful 65 W one.

Unlike its siblings, the Asus RT-AX89X has built-in antennas that fold inwards. The design is also a bit more neat, as the distinctive red or gold elements that adorned the predecessors have disappeared.

Thus, after unfolding, the antennas point in all directions in a symmetrical arrangement. It is also worth mentioning the fact that, compared to its predecessors, the number of antennas is double, i.e. 8 instead of 4.

When looking at the antenna, you can see the joint and the knurled lower half.

Foldable antennas allow you to place the router in such an entertaining pose, where it resembles a crab.

A big portion of the lower and upper part’s surface is perforated, intended for cooling the router. For the first time, we can also see active cooling here – a fan whose speed you can regulate via the software.

Let’s move on to the port selection. Due to the fact that the router is no longer of a rectangular in shape, but oval, or rather octagonal, the ports are scattered on several sides among the individual antennas. You get three pairs, i.e. six sides with ports and the other two are for ventilation.

Specifically, we see eight 1 Gbps yellow RJ45 connectors, similar to the AX88U and AC88U. 8 RJ45 connectors is one of the advantages of these higher models of Asus routers, as common models offer only 4.

Other network ports are as follows – 1 Gbps WAN port and two 10 Gbps connectors in the form of an RJ45 and SFP+ connector. There is also a pair of USB 3.0 ports and a power button next to the power connector. You could already see a pair of USB ports with the predecessors, but the 3.0 version was only present on the RT-AX88U, while the older AC88U had one of the two USB ports only in the 2.0 standard.

Last two sides left, you will find three buttons and 7 LED indicators there.

The buttons are classic as always, namely WPS for quick pairing, and LED and WiFi for turning these functions on/off. You can quickly and easily turn off the annoying flashing of the status lights or cause a home apocalypse by turning off wireless networks.

The LED indicators show whether the router is switched on, whether WiFi is switched on in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, connected WAN and LAN, as well as 10 Gb connectors. You can easily figure out possible problems when configuring a new network, but then it is wise to turn off the LEDs so that they do not disturb you at night.

As you could see from the comparison of the AX89X with previous models, the change in shape did not significantly affect the already large dimensions. This also applies to its weight, which in this case is 1,252 grams (2.76 lb). The predecessors weighed around or just over 1 kg (2.2 lb), so the novelty gained about a fifth of the weight. In terms of equipment, the AX89X has much in common with the AX88U, such as 256 MB of Flash and 1 GB of RAM. But the chipset changed completely, from Broadcom to Qualcomm. The novelty has a faster 2.2 GHz SOC and also an improved MU-MIMO 5 GHz network, which now supports 8 × 8 connection.

The theoretical bandwidth of the AX89X is up to 6000 Mb/s, which is the same value as for the AX88U, so there is no significant improvement in wireless network. There are also WiFi 6 features such as OFDMA, or security via the newer WPA3, which you will also find on the predecessor. We will mention other functions in the web GUI overview.

We only test routers rarely, usually if they bring any significant news. The last time, for example, it was an Asus router with WiFi 6. The first home router with a 10-gigabit connection is now coming to the market from the same manufacturer, using RJ45 and SFP+. The slow 1 Gbps cable connection was the drawback of WiFi 6 routers, and this is what the new RT-AX89X eliminates. Thanks to 10 Gbps connectors, the home network is thus entering a new era.

10 Gbps network and how to?

In the last test of the RT-AX88U, we wrote more about WiFi 6 and what benefits it brings. All this also applies to the review novelty RT-AX89X, so I recommend studying these features. Therefore, we will no longer focus on WiFi 6 and repeat what we said in the last test, quite the opposite. We will focus on the hot news in the field of home networks and that is a 10 Gbps connection.

This is a logical next step in the network speed hierarchy, which has long been used in a corporate/server environment. There you can meet even 100 or 400 Gbps Ethernet, which is the music of the future for households. So back to today’s 10 Gbps Ethernet topic. What is its advantage and why is it a substantial update compared to the current state of home networks?

Introduction to the issue

First of all, it should be mentioned that most households with current hardware are in the vast majority limited to 1 Gbps Ethernet, i.e. to 1000 Mb transmissions via a cable network. If we went back a few more years, you could also only have 100 Mb network elements at home. Currently, however, 1 Gbps can be considered a standard and therefore we will be based on it.

Another important finding. In this topic, we will not focus on the speed of Internet connection, that is, the speed of your Internet Service Provider (ISP). By that I mean if you have fiber-optic, ADSL, etc. at home. Of course, the speed of your internet connection is also related to the speed of your home network, but not directly. The only case in which they come into conflict is that your ISP would offer higher speeds than your network elements can handle, which would also limit the speed of your internet connection. To clarify this, let me give a practical example. For example, you may have a 250 Mb fiber-optic Internet connection, but your router only has 100 Mb WAN and LAN ports. This will limit your Internet connection at home to a maximum speed of 100 Mbps. If your router or switch supports 1 Gb connection, you will be able to use the full 250 Mbit provided by your operator. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the speed of the home network and the Internet connection.

Why is 10 Gbps a big step forward?

As the name implies, 10 Gbps Ethernet offers ten times higher speed than 1 Gbps Ethernet still used today. This is practically the same jump as we saw when switching from 100 Mb to 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps). In practice, this means that the theoretical maximum transfer rates will increase from 125 MBps (megabytes per second) to 1250 MBps/1.25 GBps (gigabytes per second). Of course, whether you transfer 100 MB or 1 GB per second is a big difference. Again a practical example, you’ll be able to transfer a 40 GB movie in a 1 Gbps network in 5 minutes and 20 seconds, in a 10 Gbps network in 32 seconds. I believe that this way you will be able to better imagine the speed difference. It is also important to mention that the presented calculations are purely theoretical and will not represent a real scenario, where many other variables enter the equation and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt.

10 Gbps network: How to and what to look out for?

First of all, I would like to point out again that the issues discussed have nothing to do with the speed of the Internet connection, so buying new hardware will not allow you to download a new game or movie 10 times faster than before. We are talking about LAN speed, i.e. between devices in your home.

A home network consists of several elements and every single one of them must be able to support 10 Gbps in order to be able to take advantage of the mentioned speed increase. So let’s start with the very lowest-level element, which is cabling. You may be wondering why we’re discussing cables, because Ethernet as Ethernet, right? The opposite is true. Again, look up what cables you use at home, because in the vast majority of cases it will be CAT5E or in the case of older ones even CAT5. In the first case, the cables can transmit 1 Gbps, in the latter only 100 Mb/s. You will need CAT6, CAT6A or CAT7 cables to make use of the 10 Gbps connection. The differences between the individual versions are, for example, in the maximum length while maintaining the maximum speed and so on. In any case, for a 10 Gbps network you will need newer Ethernet cables than the commonly used and supplied CAT5(E).

Like cables, all other elements of the home network must support a 10 Gbps connection. First of all, it will be a router, such as the reviewed RT-AX89X, but it can also be a switch, NAS (Network-attached storage) or the end device, such as a computer/laptop. The only network elements that do not have to support 10 Gbps, and probably won’t for a long time, are converters/modems from your ISP, that, for example, convert the fiber-optic cable to Ethernet in your home network. ISPs are most probably not going to start providing a 10 Gbps home Internet connection in the near future, and I assume that all modems that are currently supplied with the Internet connection are limited to 1 Gbps LAN connectors. So this network element remains the only one unchanged and at the moment you have no way to replace it. It would not bring any advantage either (unless you had access to some corporate network with a speed higher than 1 Gbps).

The state of my personal local area network before these tests was as follows. A cable from the modem is run to the router and from there it runs to the NAS, computers, etc. All cables are already CAT6A/CAT7 cables, so the first condition – the cabling – is met. The second condition is the central element of the network – the router. The reviewed RT-AX89X offers two 10 Gbps ports, namely the classic RJ45 and the second SFP+ port, less known to ordinary people, which is used mainly in corporate networks, servers, etc. It has only rarely appeared in home networks so far, and I have also met it for the first time now. In the next step, we need to ensure that other devices in the network have the opportunity to use this 10 Gb connection. So the most important thing will be that your computer or laptop can be connected to the router.

10 Gbps connection for PC and laptop

Connecting a computer to the router with a cable is probably not necessary to describe, you will find an RJ45 connector on every common motherboard. The problem again arises in what speeds it supports. Most motherboards will support 1 Gbps and some newer 2.5 or 5 Gbps. There are only a few high-end motherboards on the market with support for 10 Gbps LAN connectors already built into the main I/O on the back. For example, we tested the ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate, or the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme on the X570 platform. 10 Gbps LAN is still extremely rare on motherboards, so it can be assumed that most users do not have such a board. The absence of 10 Gbps LAN on laptops is probably 100%, I’m not aware of any laptop on the market that would offer such a connector. So what is the solution if you don’t have one of the few motherboards with a 10 Gbps LAN port?

The solution is relatively simple, which means using PCIe expansion cards or a Thunderbolt dock for laptops.

Thanks to the cooperation with an American company Sonnet Technologies, we can show you such accessories and also test them in practice. Personally, I have two motherboards with 10 Gbps LAN ports, but we will perform the tests on PCIe cards, which is the relevant solution for most of you. The manufacturer sent us two PCIe cards for the tests, labelled as Solo10G and SoloG SFP+, and also a Thunderbolt 3 dock with SFP+ connector with the designation Solo10G SFP+ (Thunderbolt 3 Edition). You can see them in their full beauty in the pictures below. We used all three products in the tests and we will also show them in the test rig. I have great experience with products from Sonnet, they work, you could say in plug and play mode, i.e. without the need for any user intervention, and the products always meet what the manufacturer claims on the website. I have also been using their TB3 and eGPU docking stations for a long time, with which I also have only very good experience. The manufacturer is relatively unknown in our country and therefore we want to give them space at least in this way so that you can get to know them.

We plan to test other products with 10 Gbps LAN support this year, mainly various NASes and switches.

Appendix – types of connectors

So far, we’ve talked exclusively about using the RJ45 connector, which you all know well. However, the router also offers an SFP+ connector, which brings additional connection options. You can either plug a cable with metal parts into the SFP+ port, which is referred to as a DAC (Direct-Attach Copper). They are offered in various lengths, I bought 1, 2 and 3 m cables from various manufacturers for the tests. The picture shows the DAC cable in the middle, the RJ45 is on the left.

The second new option is the use of optical cables, which, however, require SFP+ transceivers. These are plugged into the SFP+ port at both ends of the connection and then the optical cable into the transceivers. The SFP+ transceivers can also support classic RJ45 connectors, but you need a special transceiver, which was again provided by the manufacturer Sonnet.

I have to point out one thing about the SFP+ transceivers. That is the compatibility. The issue of the SFP+ connectors is still new to me, too, but from my own experience and even after communication with manufacturers I can say that although you can physically connect a specific transceiver to a router, computer or switch, it does not automatically mean that it will really work. It seems that the compatibility of SFP+ ports and individual transceivers is quite a lottery, and the only optimal solution is probably to use all products from one manufacturer. This was not possible in our case, as Asus does not produce 10 Gbps SFP+ transceivers. I was unable to run the Sonnet optical transceivers on the router, about what I’ve informed Asus and am waiting for an answer. Thus, the tests were performed using a DAC cable that worked without problems.

We only test routers rarely, usually if they bring any significant news. The last time, for example, it was an Asus router with WiFi 6. The first home router with a 10-gigabit connection is now coming to the market from the same manufacturer, using RJ45 and SFP+. The slow 1 Gbps cable connection was the drawback of WiFi 6 routers, and this is what the new RT-AX89X eliminates. Thanks to 10 Gb connectors, the home network is thus entering a new era.

Software – General settings and initialization

When initializing, you need to go through the initial settings, where you choose wireless network passwords, set up an administrator account, and you can also immediately activate the 160 MHz WiFi 6 band.

Like other Asus routers, the AX89X offers a sophisticated web interface. Since I have been using Asus routers for some time now, the element layout and all the necessary information are easy for me to find. For beginners, however, so much information at once can be overwhelming, so you can see the screenshots below.

Perhaps the only change from previous tests is now making a separate category for AiMesh, which is used to connect multiple routers into one network, which is my favorite feature of Asus routers. Thanks to AiMesh, my whole apartment is covered with a full 5 GHz network signal and a cable connection in the office and living room. After switching to the reviewed router and connecting the current AX88U, there will be, in addition, the complete WiFi 6 network and not only halfway as before – the node still has only WiFi 5 – AC88U.

We only test routers rarely, usually if they bring any significant news. The last time, for example, it was an Asus router with WiFi 6. The first home router with a 10-gigabit connection is now coming to the market from the same manufacturer, using RJ45 and SFP+. The slow 1 Gbps cable connection was the drawback of WiFi 6 routers, and this is what the new RT-AX89X eliminates. Thanks to 10 Gbps connectors, the home network is thus entering a new era.

Software – Advanced settings

In the advanced settings you can adjust wireless as well as wired networks. It is worth mentioning the 160 MHz channel and OFDMA settings.

When configuring the WAN, you can change which of the ports will serve as the WAN and also enable dual WAN if you want a redundant connection, or possibly faster.

The main important changes in the administration are the ones in the operating mode, the possibility of FW update, saving and resetting the settings, or controlling the fan with which the AX89X is equipped.

We only test routers rarely, usually if they bring any significant news. The last time, for example, it was an Asus router with WiFi 6. The first home router with a 10-gigabit connection is now coming to the market from the same manufacturer, using RJ45 and SFP+. The slow 1 Gbps cable connection was the drawback of WiFi 6 routers, and this is what the new RT-AX89X eliminates. Thanks to 10 Gb connectors, the home network is thus entering a new era.

Methodology

The aim of the tests is to show the real transfer speeds between the router and the client in a panel building environment, not under laboratory conditions. This means that there are many other WiFi networks in the area, and during the 10-meter distance test, the signal must pass to the third room, with the individual rooms separated by reinforced concrete walls but open doors.

Upload and download tests are performed using the TamoSoft Throughput Test application, where we select the results of TCP upload and TCP download. The router is connected to our test bench for graphics cards using several types of connections – 1 and 10 Gbps RJ45 or SFP+ DAC cable serves as a server. The client is a laptop Asus ZenBook 14 with the Intel WiFi AX201 card, which supports WiFi 6, i.e. the 802.11ax standard. The transfer takes exactly 1 minute. All tests are performed twice and the results are the average of both measurements.

The USB transfer tests are again performed on the test bench and the laptop, with the help of an external drive SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, which is connected to the router via USB and serves as a network storage. Subsequently, a large video file of almost 32 GB is written to and read from this storage.

We only test routers rarely, usually if they bring any significant news. The last time, for example, it was an Asus router with WiFi 6. The first home router with a 10-gigabit connection is now coming to the market from the same manufacturer, using RJ45 and SFP+. The slow 1 Gbps cable connection was the drawback of WiFi 6 routers, and this is what the new RT-AX89X eliminates. Thanks to 10 Gb connectors, the home network is thus entering a new era.

A few words for introduction

The test configuration tried to get the most out of each router, and the newer pair AX88U and AX89X therefore had the 160 MHz band activated in the settings, which is not available with the AC88U. Activation of the 160 MHz band is available in the settings, or right in the initial configuration of the router on the first start-up.

In addition to the router settings, let’s take a closer look at the test devices.

Let’s start with the easier one. It’s an Asus laptop, specifically the new ZenBook 14, which, in addition to its dimensions, is practically identical to the 13-inch version we’ve tested. We use the laptop for all WiFi tests and it was also used for cable connection tests using the Thunderbolt 3 dock from Sonnet. We primarily connected the SFP+ DAC cable to the dock, but we also tested the RJ45 transceiver.

But the main element of the test rig is the testbench with Intel Core i7-10700K, ROG Maximus XII Hero and the RTX 3080 TUF, which served as a server for WiFi and wired connection tests. Tests of cable transfers to a USB storage connected to the router were also performed here.

In order to test both 10 Gbps connectors of the router, we used the already mentioned PCIe cards from Sonnet. One adds 10 Gb RJ45 and the other SFP+ port. It is a simple and practical solution for everyone whose motherboard does not have a built-in 10 Gbps LAN port, which is the case with the used ROG Maximus XII Hero.

So much for the introduction, let’s go to the tests themselves.

In the immediate vicinity

The novelty brings significant progress in WiFi speed tests compared to previous models. With a 1 Gbps connection to a computer, it is around 800–900 Mb/s, and with a 10 Gbps link, we are already transferring more than 1000 Mb/s via WiFi. In this case, the bottleneck is likely the laptop, and WiFi transfers have even higher potential.

Zo vzdialenosti desať metrov

The advantage of eight antennas is shown in transfers over longer distances, where thanks to a stronger signal, the AX89X achieves many times better results than the other two routers.

Wired transfers

In tests of wired transfers between two devices, we see that the speeds with 1 Gbps server and client are more or less the same. You can only see the difference if we connect the client to the AX89X via a 10 Gbps connector, which jumps to 900 Mb/s. Once you use both 10 Gbps connectors – RJ45 and SFP+ to connect the client and server in any order, you get values somewhere between 4–5 Gbps in both directions, which is a really big jump compared to the other two routers.

Upload and download via USB port

We’ve also tested the speed of the USB connection. The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD served as external storage, which we connected in all cases via the fastest available port, i.e. USB 3.0. You can see that when connected to WiFi, the AX89X and AX88U are fighting for the first place, while the AC88U is significantly behind. With a cable connection, the AX89X and AX88U are completely balanced in terms of 1 Gbps LAN connection. As soon as we switch to one of the 10 Gbps connectors, the upload speed increases by almost 30% and the download almost threefold. The only exception is the connection to the laptop via the Thunderbolt 3 port, where slightly lower numbers are achieved, which is again more related to the speed of the SSD in the laptop than the connection itself. Either way, cable connections offer significantly higher speeds than WiFi, as expected.

We only test routers rarely, usually if they bring any significant news. The last time, for example, it was an Asus router with WiFi 6. The first home router with a 10-gigabit connection is now coming to the market from the same manufacturer, using RJ45 and SFP+. The slow 1 Gb cable connection was the drawback of WiFi 6 routers, and this is what the new RT-AX89X eliminates. Thanks to 10 Gb connectors, the home network is thus entering a new era.

Conclusion

Asus RT-AX89X brings a big news to the category of home routers. It is a 10 Gbps cable connection via two RJ45 and SFP+ connectors. This is really a groundbreaking upgrade, which has long been expected, and I have already criticized the predecessor a bit for the absence of 10 Gbps ports. After all, with the arrival of WiFi 6, you were able to achieve higher speeds with wireless connection than with wired. You will appreciate the benefits of a 10 Gb network when transferring large amounts of data over a home network, such as to a NAS and back. So far, you have been limited to only around 100 MB/s, which is definitely not ideal nowadays.

Thus, the AX89X solves the biggest shortcoming of its predecessor and, in addition, more or less builds on the successful 88-series models that I have been using for some time. Again, you’ll find 8 LAN ports, two USB connectors, a clear and rich web interface with lots of features and my favorite AiMesh for connecting multiple routers to a single network with automatic roaming of the devices.

I have been waiting for the AX89X for a really long time and I plan to use it as the main router of my network. So I will move the current AX88X to Node AiMesh network mode. We also plan to look at other 10 Gbps devices such as NASes and switches, so we will address this topic in future articles. The AX89X will therefore definitely appear in more articles as well.

I can blame the router for only two things after a short test. The first is the problematic compatibility of SFP+ transceivers, which, however, seems to be a relatively common problem, and I myself am wondering whether this problem will also occur when testing other devices with this connector. The second one is the price, which is always high for these higher-end models of the manufacturer, but the AX89X is significantly more expensive than the AC88U and AX88U. With a price tag of 500 euros and more, it is definitely not a router for every home and will therefore be reserved really for fans of new technologies or for professionals, for whom a fast 10 Gbps home network will save time.

• Contents
• Package and specifications
• 10 Gbps network – pitfalls and solutions
• Software – General settings
• Software – Advanced settings
• Test methodology
• Test results
• Conclusion