Asus has ROG-ified its monstrous BE19000 Wi-Fi 7 router to be more Thargoid than ever before

pcgamer.com:

Routers don't grab news headlines like CPUs, graphics cards, or gaming laptops do but they're pretty much standard hardware for every household with a PC in it. Most are discrete, dull-looking boxes that simply get on and do the job they were created for. Enter stage left Asus at Computex 2024, and its ROG Rapture GT-BE19000, the gaming version of its already ludicrous Wi-Fi 7 RT-BE96U router.

While we've not tested that particular router yet, our chums at Tom's Guide have and reckon it's a brilliant router, fast and packed with features, though the $700 price tag is perhaps as outrageous as it looks.

But if you feel a spikey, black router just isn't gamer enough for you, then don't worry as Asus clearly feels the same way. It's plastered the router with a variety of aesthetic enhancements to make it feel right at home in the ROG family of hardware, especially with the name Rapture GT-BE19000.

If you don't have GT in the name of something, it's automatically slow. Allegedly.

As far as we can tell, the components inside are no different to the original RT-BE96U, but you're getting some additional cooling (err, why?), some RGB (but of course), and a slightly bizarre collection of what appear to be decals, underneath a transparent plastic shield. 

Routers targeted at the gaming market have always been a tad on the extreme side when it comes to looks, but I have to say that I've not seen one quite so lairy as this one.

And you know what? I kind of want one! With two Wi-Fi 7 capable PCs in my house, it would be nice to take full advantage of that with an appropriate router, though my current Wi-Fi 6 one pretty much hits the maximum transfer rate of my ISP connection (500 Mbps) anyway.

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The two 10Gb LAN ports would be great for hooking up all the other test PCs I have in my office or attaching a NAS to the network, although I'm not a fan of having Ethernet cables trailing