Best Wireless Routers for Gaming in 2017

I have no idea why I choose to write about gaming routers. Do you actually have to consider anything when buying a router especially if it's for gaming? Yes indeed.Buying an overkill router is not a good idea. High end routers will always be expensive.Future proof router? forget it. That won't exist at least in the case of hardware products. Luckily, router market is still static.Technology changes rapidly so are the routers.New features are being added to the routers like additional security, attached storage, and fancy antennas. Not all need these features. It depends on the purpose and budget. Lets cut this baffling and lets go the guide.

Any gamer with low ping wins 90% of their battle with others. do you agree? What about the 10%? they are the masters of the manipulators yelling i lost due to lag ( and nobody cares). Its true, I've been brutally beaten many time in games i play. Is it low ping? bad gear?, bad skills? or the bad router? It was the bad router with connection issues for me. Ordinary router isn't capable for gaming, especially in online competitive MMORPG.

Since the router is the most import piece of equipment that connect you to outside world and backbone of your network, you don't want to cheap out on it either.If you are going to stream large 4k videos or twitching. Once you start throwing serious stuff into your router, it'll be under heavy load causing performance issue. Also, you should be aware the fact that the throughput ( actual data transfer speed)  will be 50% of the link rate (theoretical) at best manufacturers promising. That's a serious bottleneck. Heavy gamers prefer wired network for gaming. But that isn't convenient for many including me.Like PC, routers comes with various features. But for gaming purpose, the most important is the quality of service or in short 'QOS'.

QOS?

The QoS enables you to prioritize traffic through the router gives you total control over traffic. This way you can divert your bandwidth to utilize the service you wanted. You can control the bandwidth others using over the same network. It ensures you get the bandwidth you wanted and smooth gameplay with very low input lag else you could see the ping goes to yellow and red, and to disconnection.

Which version?

You'll see 802.11  (it's the Wi-Fi standard), followed by a, b, g, n or ac designating its version. 'ac' is the newest.Most devices currently use n version. 'b' and 'g' are outdated.These are all forward and backward compatible. You should get a router with 'ac' for fast speed. Its the standard today. ac is 3 times powerful than 'n' version. And 'n' is probably isn't the best option considering the offering of ac.That being said all routers with the same spec isn't same or perform equally.

Now let's go wireless routers. Let's start with. To make this guide short i purposely omitted numbers. Number are great hard to to crunch  though.


The top best Wireless routers - Premium Heavy duty Gaming

These are the best wireless routers for power users regardless of price and device. These are the beasts out there. Call it next-gen routers if you want.

NETGEAR Nighthawk X10 – AD7200 802.11ac/ad Quad-Stream MU-MIMO WiFi Router

Netgear AC5300 Nighthawk X8 Tri-Band WiFi Router (R8500-100NAS)

ASUS RT-AC5300 Wireless AC5300 Tri-Band Gigabit Router

The Best wireless routers - Budget Heavy duty gaming

If you ask me what's the current best router for pro and average gamer, I would recommend this one. This doesn't have the speed of premium routers but nicely do the jobs.


NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band Gigabit WiFi Router (R8000)

The Best Wireless routers - Strict Budget heavy duty gaming

On strict budget? no problems pal. Its the best one you could buy.

NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S - AC2600 4x4 MU-MIMO Smart WiFi Gigabit Gaming Router (R7800-100NAS) 

That's it, folks! if you are still wondering why there is  no numbers or graphs. Well, it's purposefully avoided to make this guide short and easy to read. Also, don't forget to buy the right wireless client adapter.I'll add more details and updates if necessary. Have fun gaming!