ASUS TUF Gaming BE3600 Review: WiFi 7 Without 6GHz

I just got the ASUS TUF Gaming BE3600, a gaming-focused WiFi 7 router and I paid close to 300 dollars for it, so was it worth the money? Well, let’s first address the mammoth in the room. ASUS does call the BE3600 a WiFi 7 router, but there is no support for the 6GHz radio and, just like some Xiaomi routers, such as the BE7000, they did implement MLO.

Technically, it’s enough to be able to call the TUF Gaming BE3600 a WiFi 7 device, but I am fairly sure that it will confuse a lot of people which will get the router expecting the 6GHz radio. If you do have compatible client devices, I would just keep the existing router and get something like the U7 Pro if the 6GHz is that important.

Anyway, the MLO is supported, and it that can help improve the bandwidth and the throughput, but it does require compatible client devices. The TUF Gaming BE3600 also supports 4K-QAM modulation, AiMesh and a single 2.5GbE port for whatever reason. There are also the usual gaming features and the Smart Home Master which I haven’t tested before, so it would be interesting to see what it can do. Let’s not forget it’s “Wings-like agility”, that’s also important.

Design and Build Quality

In terms of design, the ASUS TUF Gaming BE3600 apparently took inspiration from drones which is a bit odd from my point of view, but at least explains the two ears or wings which don’t really serve any purpose outside the pure aesthetic value. The device is fairly compact and it has four non-removable antennas. It is still possible to replace them since the joints seem to be identical to other routers.

On the bottom of the TUF BE3600, we can see the four silicone feet and two holes that allow the option to wall-mount the router. Now let’s talk about the ports. We get four LAN ports from which the first can function as a Gaming port, while the fourth can be used for a secondary WAN connection. All four are Gigabit only.

The WAN port is 2.5GbE and for the price tag, there should have been at least one other 2.5GbE port. Anyway, farther to the right, there’s a USB 3.0 port, a DC-In port followed by a Power button, the WPS button and the recessed Reset button.

That being said, let’s just dive into the wireless performance using the Test Lab:

Wireless Performance and Test Lab

It’s worth mentioning that there is a single 2.5GbE port which I will be using for the connection to the server PC and the LAN port 1 for the WAN connection. For the tests, I relied on the same laptop equipped with an Intel AX200 adapter, as well as the one that used the Intel 8265 WiFi 5 card. What I did change was that I did not use the Pixel 2 XL this time, but instead I included a PC that relies on a WiFi 7 adapter. If you do want me to return and continue to use the Pixel 2 XL as well, do let me know in the comments.

As for the throughput, we can see that the TUF Gaming BE3600 did really well with both the WiFi 6 and especially the WiFi 7 clients, reaching very close to 2Gbps with the latter. And that’s upstream, but even downstream, it’s a very good overall performance. We get usable throughput even at 45 feet and closer to 70 feet. Obviously, feet, meters, miles matter little if the signal attenuation doesn’t match the one in my house, so I included this metric in the Test Lab to highlight what you can expect based on the signal attenuation measured at each client level.

If I were to compare the ASUS TUF Gaming BE3600 with other wireless routers, it seems to sit immediately below the RT-AXE7800 when the channel bandwidth is set to 160MHz.

Using the 80MHz width, it’s actually the second device in my list, only below the TUF-AX4200. Not bad.

Let’s talk a bit about the throughput on the 2.4GHz radio band. Since I removed the Pixel 2 XL, we get info only from the AX200 WiFi 6 client and the Intel 8265 WiFi 5 device. I set the network to use the 40MHz channel bandwidth and the throughput is very good on both client devices. And, when compared to the other wireless routers that I tested so far, the TUF Gaming BE3600 falls somewhere in between the GT-AX6000 and the Zyxel USG Lite 60AX.

For the multi-client tests, I used the same devices as before and you can see their specs here as well as the signal attenuation which shows that one device is always farther than the four other ones.

The tools remain the suite from net-hydra developed by Mr Jim Salter. I will most likely include a better testing methodology in the future, but for now it suffices since there is a long time until I can afford a proper lab with the tools I want. Anyway, I simulated different combos of streaming, browsing, downloading and VoIP traffic.

With 1080p streaming, the latency was generally reasonable. One WiFi 6 client device stayed near and below 60ms all the time while the WiFi 7 client device and the second WiFi 6 managed to be decent, even if for less than 90% of the time. Moving to 4K streaming made the difference clearer, the WiFi 6 and WiFi 7 clients still held up well, while both WiFi 5 devices stood above 100ms most of the time..

Adding intense browsing alongside the streams increase the pressure further. Browsing itself was mostly manageable, but the streaming clients were all over the place. The download traffic was more mixed. A single uncapped download alongside streaming and browsing produced better results tham expected, but the latency was still high enough that I would call it far from ideal. Adding a second downloading client obviously made things worse, but everything settled down once I switched to repeated 1MB downloads alongside browsing and VoIP.

Overall, the TUF BE3600 handles lighter mixed workloads reasonably well, but responsiveness deteriorated quickly once several clients begin competing with heavier streaming and download traffic. Again, the full client-by-client latency distributions are available in the Test Explorer.

Dual WAN Performance

At this point, I usually test the LACP aggregation using a TrueNAS that I built, but the BE3600 does not support it, so I moved straight to the dual WAN. To set it, go to the WAN section and choose Dual WAN. Then enable this function and choose which port will be the Primary WAN and which will be the secondary one. Know that it is possible to use USB dongles as well.

I used the Fail Over mode with failback enabled as well and pinged two hosts at the same time. Then, I disconnected the main WAN connection.

It took quite a bit until the link switched to the secondary WAN, about as long as when I tested the AXE7800. Then, I reconnected the main link and disconnected the secondary WAN cable. It took a lot less to move to the primary WAN, so there is a sort of preference system in place.

The Heat Management

In terms of heat management, ASUS rarely misses, so it made sure that the passive cooling is well done. There are opening all around the case including at the top, rear and bottom sides. And, as you can see from the photos I took using a thermal camera, there are some warm spots which is normal considering the heat transfer away from the chipsets, but there doesn’t seem any risk of any future thermal throttling.

ASUS TUF Gaming BE3600 Quick Teardown

I already opened the TUF Gaming BE3600 router in a dedicated video, so know that it’s fairly easy to do so, but there are a couple of aspects that you need to keep in mind. First, there is a warranty seal which can void the warranty outside the US, so be careful with that.

Then, know that the plastic latches can break when detaching the top part, so be as gentle as possible, especially not to leave any marks because again, you’re most likely going to void the warranty. Anyway, the PCB is fairly small, those two ears don’t really have a purpose as I mentioned before and there is a single chipset for both the 2.4 and the 5GHz radios.

The Power Consumption

I also wanted to check the power consumption of the router and to do so, I relied on a smart relay from EVVR and you can see from their dedicated app, about what to expect from the BE3600. Know that this value was recorded while the router was functioning normally, not in a higher load than usual.

The Web-based Interface

OK, now let’s talk about the web-based interface. The layout is the same as with other TUF routers, there’s that black and yellow color palette and the settings are again divided into General and Advanced. I noticed that the Guest Network is the same as what ASUS called the Guest Network Pro on other routers.

So we get the option to create networks dedicated to a specific type of application, such as VPN, MLO, IoT and even a Kid-suitable network. I guess the Pro is missing because there is no VLAN to accompany it. The AiProtection remain more or less the same, covering a wide spectrum of prevention and detection systems. All remains powered by Trend Micro and that does include the Parental Controls which require Web and Apps Filters to control what’s being served from the web in your network.

Some gaming features are present here as expected. There’s the Game Boost suite which includes device prioritization, the Mobile Game Mode which is again a form of device prioritization and lastly, we get the Open NAT. We do get a dedicated section for it that includes Game Profiles for specific games, where the router adjusts the prioritization system to favor a better gaming performance.

We get a decent QoS system as well, where we can choose the type of application that will be pushed at the top of the priority list, as well as a fairly comprehensive Traffic Analyzer. The Advanced settings remain just as comprehensive as on other ASUS routers, but we do get the MLO function under Wireless and that’s besides the incredibly in-depth Professional section.

I did mention that the LACP support is gone, but we do get dual WAN which should not be confused with WAN aggregation. And I also saw support for Amazon Alexa which I hope nobody uses.

The Mobile App

There is, of course a mobile app as well. And it’s the same layout as we’re accustomed with, it didn’t receive the ExpertWiFi treatment yet. On the Home page, we get to see some status info which does include data about the AiMesh and you also get a quick link to the Mobile Game Mode. Under Devices, we can make some quick changes to the router and we can also configure the QoS on separate clients.

The Family section remains comprehensive enough and under Settings, we get access to the rest of the features. I did not mention the VPN support yet, so know that you can use PPTP, OpenVPN, IPSec and WireGuard, as well as the VPN Fusion and the IPSec-core Instant Guard.

The Conclusion

So, would you get the ASUS TUF Gaming BE3600? If it costs anywhere near or above 300 dollars, then absolutely not. It functions well as a WiFi 6 router, the throughput is good, the latency fairly decent up to a certain point and we do get lots of features. But as a WiFi 7 router, if you have the latest hardware, then you’re set. The problem remains the cost of the router because I have tested the Xiaomi BE7000 a few months back and has a similar approach to what ASUS did with the BE3600. And that router costs less than half, so I’d say wait a bit because I have a feeling that the price will drop very soon to where it should have been from the beginning.

ASUS TUF BE3600

7.1

Wireless performance

8.0/10

Wired connectivity

8.0/10

Features / Wi-Fi 7

6.5/10

Performance under load

6.0/10

Pros

• Very compact
• Decent single-client wireless performance
• Support for MLO
• Pricey at launch

Cons

• No 6GHz
• Latency rises a lot under heavy mixed-client workloads
• Wi-Fi 7 claim can be seen as misleading