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It seems as though artificial intelligence is invading every facet of the tech space, and no product is safe. Witness the latest Wi-Fi 7 gaming router from Asus, which goes so far as to put AI in its name: the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai. We first heard about the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai over a year ago at CES 2025, but it’s just now making its way to the retail market at the same time that Asus is talking up its Wi-Fi 8 ambitions.
What sets the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai apart from other consumer routers is its onboard Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which has its own firmware that can be updated separately. Alongside the traditional CPU, the router also features a separate Microcontroller Unit (MCU). Asus can use any combination of these chips to improve performance, reduce power consumption, and power a suite of AI-infused features.
Design of the Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai
The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai is an imposing beast of a wireless router. Its footprint is huge, dwarfing that of competitive gaming routers. It measures 13.8 x 13.8 x 8.69 inches (including the height of its antennas when fully upright).
A lot is going on with the design, with white dominating the main body and the eight antennas. There’s a bit of contrasting black with vertical segments on each antenna, and a black inlay on top of the router, which sits beneath a clear plastic window. Further adding some pizazz to the design are a large vented area for cooling, a massive RGB ROG logo, and a row of status LEDs to keep you abreast of what’s going on with the router at a glance. Just below the status LEDs are a WPS button and an additional button to turn off the LEDs.
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The physical ports are scattered among two of the four vertical sides of the body. On the smaller side, there’s the power port, an on/off button, and two USB-A ports. The longer side has all the network ports, and there are a lot of them. You’ll find:
- 1 x 10 GbE for WAN/LAN
- 1 x 2.5 GbE for WAN/LAN
- 1 x 10 GbE for LAN
- 3 x 2.5 GbE for LAN
- 1 x 1 GbE for LAN
Whereas most routers offer one WAN port and four LAN ports, Asus goes above and beyond with the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai.
Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai Specifications
|
MSRP |
Wi-Fi Standard |
# of Bands |
2.4 GHz Speeds |
5 GHz Speeds |
6 GHz Speeds |
Coverage |
Ports |
|
|
Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai |
$899.99 |
Wi-Fi 7 |
3 |
1,376 Mbps |
5,764 Mbps |
11,529 Mbps |
3,500 sq ft |
1x 10G WAN/LAN, 1 x 2.5G WAN/LAN, 1x 10G LAN 3x 2.5G LAN, 1x 1G LAN, 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 |
|
Asus ROG Strix GS-BE18000 |
$449.99 |
Wi-Fi 7 |
3 |
688 Mbps |
5,764 Mbps |
11,529 Mbps |
3,300 sq ft |
1 x 2.5G WAN, 7 x 2.5G LAN 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 |
|
Asus RT-BE96U |
$549.99 |
Wi-Fi 7 |
3 |
1,376 Mbps |
5,764 Mbps |
11,529 |
5,400 sq ft |
1x 10G WAN, 1 x 1G WAN, 3x 1G LAN, 1x 10G LAN, 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 |
|
TP-Link Archer GE800 |
$599.99 |
Wi-Fi 7 |
2 |
1,376 Mbps |
5,760 Mbps |
11,520 |
3,600 sq ft |
2x 10G WAN/LAN, 4x 2.5G LAN, 1x SFP+, 1x USB 3.0 |
Setting up the Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai
The initial setup of the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai is made simply using the Asus Router smartphone app. After installing the app on your smartphone, you can scan the QR code on the bottom of the router to kick off the process. The setup program will prompt you to connect to the default/factory SSID, then start the configuration process. If you already have an Asus account and a previous Asus router that had its settings backed up to the cloud, you can transfer those settings to your new router and save quite a few steps.
If you don’t have a previous save file, you’ll go through the typical configuration options, such as setting an admin password, naming your SSIDs, creating a password for each SSID, and checking for firmware updates. A firmware update was available for our review unit, so I applied it right away before I began performance testing.
The setup process took less than 10 minutes (including the time it took to perform the firmware update).
After the initial setup was complete, I used the Router app to enable Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) on the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai, which increases power levels on the 6 GHz band. By switching from the default Low Power Indoor profile to the Standard Power Profile (depending on regional restrictions), AFC increases the range of the 6 GHz band, allowing you to, in theory, enjoy higher performance at distances comparable to those of the 5 GHz band. I enabled AFC on the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai for all 6 GHz tests.
ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai Software
Although the Asus Router app is easy to use and feature-packed, I opted to use the standard Web GUI for further interactions with the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai. This is the first router we’ve tested using ASUSWRT 6.0 (version 3.0.0.6.102_40425). The default page for the router is the Dashboard, and you’ll notice the white theme, which is a departure from the black we’re used to for other ROG networking products. The Dashboard provides a lot of information at a glance, including internet connection details, the number of connected devices per wireless band, occupied Ethernet ports, the traffic monitor, and CPU/RAM utilization. You also have quick access to RGB controls, allowing you to change the color and pattern of the effects.
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As is typically the case with Asus routers, there is an extreme breadth of configuration options, including setting up an AiMesh network with an additional wireless router/access point, adaptive QoS (you can choose AI Balance, which is on by default, Gaming, Streaming, Work from Home, or Office). You can enable a VPN directly from the router, rather than relying on software installed on each client device. Supported services include PPTP, IPSec, OpenVPN, and WireGuard (you’ll need to log in with your own accounts). There’s also an extensive set of parental controls that can be enabled per device.
Asus is really playing up the “AI” aspect of the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai, but it needs to justify using the onboard NPU. To that end, the NPU powers Asus’ free AiProtection suite to protect all of your network devices. The primary vectors for protection include malicious site/infected device blocking and isolation, automatic ad blocking for your web browsers, tracker blocking, and a two-way intrusion protection system (IPS) for guarding against DDoS attacks.
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Going even further, the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai can automatically detect gaming devices that connect to the network, prioritize their traffic, and give top billing to ROG motherboards, desktops, and laptops. You can also leverage the Game Boost feature with Adaptive QoS and use GTNet to optimize your network route when gaming online.
There’s even a dedicated section in the WebGUI for the NPU labeled AI Board. You can control container platforms using Portainer.io, which runs on the NPU. Asus also lets you optionally install the open-source Home Assistant for controlling all your smart home devices locally (instead of relying on cloud partners), and the Frigate network video recorder, which uses real-time AI object detection. The AdGuard Home Docker app, which can also be installed from the AI Board interface, gives you even more granular control for your ad-blocking rules.
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Asus also has a Router Assistant that lets you ask questions about the router and its features. I asked, “What is MLO?” and it replied with the correct definition. You can also ask things like “How many devices are connected to the network?” All of your queries to the Router Assistant are processed locally.
The NPU firmware is separate from the router’s firmware and can be updated from the AI Board section in the WebGUI. Unlike our router, there were no available firmware updates for the NPU.
Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai Performance
We tested the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai with our venerable Wi-Fi client testing rig, featuring an MSI Pro B650M-A Wi-Fi motherboard, AMD Ryzen 5 7600 processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, an MSI Herald-BE Wi-Fi 7 adapter, and Windows 11 Home. Our Windows 11 Home server has a 10 GbE network card connected to one of the 10 GbE ports on the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai.
Our iPerf3 throughput tests are conducted at six feet and 25 feet, with and without network traffic. In the congested traffic tests, we add six wireless clients streaming 4K YouTube videos across multiple wireless bands.
Generally speaking, the router’s close-range performance on the 6 GHz and 5 GHz bands was excellent. Even more impressive is that with AFC enabled, the performance drop-off at long range and with congested traffic on the 6 GHz band was minimal.
Testing iPerf3 on the 6 GHz band at short range (6 feet), the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai cracked the 3 Gbps mark, putting it on even footing with the previous Asus flagship: the RT-BE96U.
Performance was well above what we saw recently with the ROG Strix GS-BE18000, which barely crested the 2 Gbps mark and was comfortably ahead of the TP-Link Archer GE800. Even at 25 feet, the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai still topped 2.1 Gbps, putting it ahead of the other assembled Asus routers, but well off the pace of the Archer GE800.
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The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai also performed well on the 5 GHz test, nearly equaling the ROG Strix GS-BE18000 at 6 feet, but coming out comfortably ahead at 25 feet (714 Mbps versus 497 Mbps). However, the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai was no match for the Archer GE800, which hit 1.8 Gbps at 6 feet and 1.3 Gbps at 25 feet.
The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai performed in line with the ROG Strix GS-BE18000 at 6 feet, and vastly outperformed its sibling at 25 feet. However, both the RT-BE96U and the Archer GE800 delivered 50 Mbps+ higher performance at close range, and up to twice the performance at 25 feet.
With congested traffic, the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai generally performed on par or better than the other two Asus routers at close range, and surpassed them at long range across all bands. The Archer GE800 remained the stronger performer across the board (except in the 6 GHz band at close range).
I also tested the 2.5 GbE and 10 GbE LAN ports to see how wired traffic fares. Using iPerf3, speeds were consistently at 2.37 Gbps and 9.49 Mbps, respectively.
Bottom Line
The Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai is an interesting entry to the Wi-Fi 7 gaming router segment. The router definitely has impressive hardware specs, including multiple 10 GbE and 2.5 GbE ports. You’ll also find two USB-A ports and plenty of RGB lighting to spruce up your desk or bookshelf.
The biggest addition, however, is the AI functionality afforded by the NPU. You get dedicated hardware to support its onboard AI-powered software features (game acceleration, ad blocking, device protection, etc.). However, Asus’ routers without dedicated AI hardware also have the features; they just rely on the main CPU. The use of the NPU should technically free up hardware resources, ensuring your router’s CPU is unencumbered by AI requests. The NPU also powers the onboard Docker and Edge AI support. If you need greater expandability and control over your network without relying on cloud-based solutions, and don’t find the already versatile ASUSWRT 6.0 interface powerful enough, there’s not much else available on the consumer market to match the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai.
Overall performance was excellent, although it couldn’t quite touch the TP-Link Archer GE800 on the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands. But where the Archer GE800 might have the advantage with 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz traffic, Asus runs the tables on software. You get Asus’ full AiProtection suite, parental controls, and ad blocking at no additional cost—TP-Link forces you to pay monthly or yearly for that privilege.
Even so, the $899 price tag of the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai is hard to ignore as a significant barrier to entry. Unless the Docker support and onboard Router Assistant are must-haves for you, it’s hard to stomach the $500 price difference between the two (the Archer GE800 currently has a street price of $399). We understand that being on the bleeding edge can sometimes lead to a higher price of entry, but that $500 is better spent on one of the best gaming monitors or on securing some DDR5 in today’s climate.
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