In fact, for home users, the OS can be a bit overwhelming though not to the degree of the Ubiquiti UDR. (Hint: opt for the DS Router mobile app instead! -- more below.) The RT6600ax also has Tri-band WiFi (2.4 + 5 + 5 Ghz) with six separate antennas that supports 802.11 a/n/ac/ax, as well as 802.11k/v/r roaming. The device supports a wide range of standard wireless encryption protocols as well. CPU As far as theoretical total throughput goes, the RT6600ax is a tri-band AX6600 router, rated for speeds of up to 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, 4.8Gbps on its first 5GHz band, and 1.2Gbps on its other 5GHz band, for a potential total of 6.6Gbps. It supports the 5.9GHz band, giving it some extra channels. It does not support Wi-Fi 6e, although the 5.9GHz band gives you many of the same advantages if you have hardware that supports its 160MHz channels. Positioned next to the 6600ax (the top 4 Wi-Fi tests), I was able to get double the throughput I could get from the same device when it was next to our older 2600ac (bottom Wi-Fi test). My speed did drop off fairly rapidly with distance. For more detailed tests, the lab at our sister publication, PC Magazine, The Synology RT6600ax IS a very, very good router. So many users will never graduate from their ISP router and never understand the benefits of a premium solution, gauging the Synology RT6600ax as something of an indulgence. However, as WiFi 6 continue to rise in popularity, more client hardware arrives with 802.11ax support and adapters to upgrade towards AX wifi over PCIe and USB appear, the RT6600ax is something that family/business users are going to want to consider to monitor and customize their own networks. That said, although the hardware the RT6600ax arrives with is a big jump up compared with the RT2600ac and MR2200ac, the software is a tad less ambitious and given that SRM 1.2 will likely upgrade towards 1.3 on those legacy devices, the Synology RT6600a is less appealing as an immediate upgrade over the RT2600ac right now. Ultimately, if you were a first-time adopter of the Synology 6600ax router, you cannot fault the software and hardware right now and it more than justifies the price tag for its software alone. Add to that the increased bandwidth potential of 5.9Ghz and greater 160Mhz support and you are getting a tremendously future proof product. That said, if you are already an owner of the RT2600ac or an existing MR2200ax mesh router owner, you might find that recent improvements in virtual networks and SSID creation are not enough to justify the upgrade (unless you are already well into your WiFi 6 environment upgrade). The RT6600ax is EASILY the most powerful and capable router that Synology has ever produced and with great software to boot. Even if it is slightly overshadowed by WiFi 6E, it still stands tremendous SRM 1.3 is an incremental upgrade to the existing version 1.2 and is first available to the RT6600ax -- Synology told me that the RT2600ac and MR2200ac would also get this version later in 2022.

One reason I've waited to publish this review is that mesh routing wasn't fully supported until recently. With SRM 1.3.1, you can use your RT2600ac and MT2200ac devices as Wi-Fi connection points. The interface is very similar to that of the older model, and lets you add Wi-Fi access points either wired or over Wi-Fi. I got confused at first because the help file says to reset the access points before you add them, but it also says they need to be upgraded to the latest OS version. Given my assumption that a reset would reset the OS, I went around in circles a bit until Synology support helped me out by saying I could upgrade and then reset without losing the new OS. Synology makes it easy to create a mesh Wi-Fi network using its routers. My current MR2200ac devices worked well, with good performance. Surprisingly, my old RT2200ac didn't perform well as a mesh access point. Sadly, I had to return the RT6600ax only because it wouldn’t talk directly with Frontier’s ONT for whatever reason that Synology couldn’t figure out in 20 days, and it wasn’t worth keeping it if I had to have another router in between the ONT and 6600. Again being 100 % free of bullshit I would have assumed, you understand where my question comes from: Another thing as well with the synology is having to generate a report just to see day by day bw usage while the asus is just more simple. Up close it managed a blistering 791.5Mbps, which is in the top five scores we’ve seen. Two rooms away, it managed 375Mbps which is the fastest standalone (non-mesh) score we’ve seen from a non-pimped-out gaming router. Meanwhile, down in the garden, it scored an amazing 216.7Mbps, which rivals top triple-node mesh systems!Safe Access worked very well in my trial. It proved to be one of the most comprehensive features of its type, and it's free. Most of you know Synology for its NAS products, which are among the best along with QNAP's offerings, but Synology also has some competent WiFi router products. I have already reviewed the RT1900ac and RT2600ac in my MR2200ac mesh router review. So far, Synology hasn't had a WiFi 6 or 802.11ax compatible wireless router, but this changes with the RT6600ax capable of notably higher performance than the aged, but still fully capable RT2600ac. The purpose of this review is not to compare 802.11ac and the newest 802.11ax, so I won't go into much detail about WiFi 6. The only thing you need to know is that it is notable faster than 802.11ac, especially in crowded environments. It is also more power-efficient, which is important for devices using batteries (e.g., smartphones). You may remember I recently also had this RT6600ax in the mix – I’m the one who could not get the RT6600ax to work directly with two different model Frontier-supplied ONTs for gigabit fiber – and that I only got Frontier’s gigabit fiber working directly from the ONT to the RT2600ac with a workaround of hooking up my old Spectrum cable internet to the port first).

As you’d expect from a newer WiFi router with WiFi 6 and two more antennas, the Synology RT6600ax enjoys an almost comprehensive win over the XR700. Latency differences are negligible, but there were only two instances of speed decreases in the speed tests for the RT6600ax, with a bunch of results offering beyond-100% speed boosts. Mesh Wi-Ficonfiguration​: Additional Wi-Fi points automatically broadcast all SSIDs associated with their respective network.At first glance, the RT6600ax is a simple, straightforward router that gets the job done without drawing much attention to itself. It has pretty much all the options you could want from a consumer/small office wireless router, and its claimed performance is quite convincing. The RT6600ax router also performs beautifully in a gaming environment. We can liken it to TP-Link’s high-end routers.

The splitting of the 5GHz spectrum ensures that the two narrower bands (5GHz-1 and 5GHz-2) do not overlap each other. So, here's the deal with traditional Tri-band (2.4GHz+ 5GHz+ 5GHz): As you can see in the table above, the RT6600ax is the first Synology router with Multi-Gig, but it's quite modest on this front. I’ve reached the point where that although I’m very disappointed, getting the fiber gigabit to work directly with my RT2600ac is at least satisfactory for now, as that’s what I was trying to do in the first place. My wife and I both work remotely at home, and I have 30 Wi-Fi devices I count on, so it was really, really difficult to do troubleshooting or to arrange things to let them remote in – mostly because I’m not letting anyone remote in before factory resetting the router and keeping everything disconnected other than a single PC. I was able to connect the 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 test client to the router's 5GHz-1 band via a 160MHz connection (at 2.4Gbps). As mentioned above, this negotiated speed would also have been the best possible had I been able to use the 5.9GHz portion. The Synology RT6600ax is a Tri-band 4x4 Wi-Fi 6 router with a top speed on the 5GHz-1 band of up to 4804Mbps. The other two bands, the 5GHz-2 and 2.4GHz, cap at 1200Mbps and 600Mbps, respectively. NameThe top of the system features seven LEDs that denote the internet/WAN connection, the status of the Wi-Fi connection, one for each of the four LAN/RJ45 ports and a final one to denote system status. All fairly standard stuff. Up front are seven status LED lights for activity and diagnostics, followed by subtle Synology branding. The right-side plays host to WPS and Wi-Fi mode toggle buttons. On the rear, you'll find three 1Gb LAN ports, a single 2.5Gb WAN/LAN port, a single 1Gb WAN port, a single USB-A 3.2 port, DC input, and reset and power buttons. Want to know how the new router performs as a member of a mesh system? Find out more in the post on Synology Mesh.

These include the RT6600ax itself, setup instructions, an RJ45 ethernet cable and details on the included 2 years warranty. All fairly standard stuff and in spite of this being a 5x (1 WAN 4 LAN) router, I can appreciate for reasons of wastage that Synology wouldn’t provide more. Additionally and somewhat predictably, the RT6600x arrives with an external 42W PSU, but it’s quite the chunky number (with a changeable regional plug clip). Synology announced the release of its new RT6600ax router on December 2, 2021. Five months after the press release, in May of 2022, the new router landed in most countries. Quite simply, these are among the very best performance and range scores we’ve ever seen from a router. Buying three and using them as a mesh will boost performance further – and often still save you money compared to other premium routers and mesh systems. However, we do worry that if you actually are using the WRX560 for SMB or mesh purposes, that single 5GHz band could get crowded rather easily.SRM is still top-notch and easily still one of the best (if not THE best) router software in the market in 2022