If you’re a gamer who wants some “tuff-sounding” gear, you’re in the right place. Today, we’re offering you our ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review and we’ll be discussing the TUF Gaming AX5400 router.
This is the latest WiFi6 gaming machine from ASUS. It’s designed to give you a fast and stable wireless/wired connection in device-dense areas. This offering from ASUS is a router that benefits all your devices: from smartphones, laptops, to gaming consoles. And that’s all the way to the IoT devices in your home.
Sounds like an interesting product to have? If that’s the case, get more information about it here in our ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review.
ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router Packaging
Before we look deeper into the product, our ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review will discuss its packaging and contents.
The TUF Gaming AX5400 router arrived in a premium-looking cardboard case that sports a black-blue colour. It actually looks like every other packaging used for other ASUS routers around.
An image of the router is displayed in the box’s front, while ASUS and WiFi6 are on each top corner. The lower-right portion shows the logo of TUF Gaming. To its left, you’ll find the name of the unit, along with its highlighted features.
The box’s rear and sides feature a ton of details about the router’s hardware configuration. It also includes the product’s most vital features.
Once you open the package, you’ll find a troubleshooting notice regarding the WiFi6 standard. Then, you’ll see the router itself which is nicely and securely packaged.
Other than the TUF Gaming AX5400 router, you’ll also find an RJ45 cable, power adapter, and quick start guide. There’s also a troubleshooting guide plus some warranty information.
ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router Review – Design and Functionality
While checking the router for our ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review, we saw that it exhibits the TUF aesthetics. Meaning, it appears like a rugged, durable little spaceship that can fit nicely in the corner of your room.
It fits the gaming theme with broad ventilation holes and six external antennas. Plus, ASUS included an RGB light on the TUF logo. This can be set/adjusted via the settings page or the ASUS Router app.
This router isn’t the most attractive one around. However, you’d be hard-pressed to find one under the same price range that doesn’t look like a cheap plastic product.
More importantly, its XD-6 Mesh System is quite easy on the eyes. That’s because it blends nicely into its surroundings with its inoffensively sleek design.
When it comes to its ventilation grids, they’re V-shaped on the front. Plus, they cover the LED lights that display the router’s functioning status.
It means that the LED lights aren’t intrusive, and in most instances, you’ll barely notice these. That’s unless you look right at them.
There are a total of four Ethernet ports found on the back portion of the router. Two of these support link aggregation. It means you can enjoy two 1Gbps internet connections for one specific device such as the NAS.
On the rear, you’ll find the power jack, power button, USB 3.2 Gen1 port, WPS button, and reset jack.
Underneath it, you’ll see an aluminium heat sink that’s made to enhance cooling. At the base of the router, you’ll find four rubber feet to keep the product in place.
There’s also information about the router and how to link to it. Plus, there are also more ventilation grids present. It would be much better if ASUS included holes for mounting it on the walls or in other places. But it is something we can do without.
Key Features of the ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router
This is where we focus on the key features of this router in our ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review.
4X Capacity, 2X Faster
WiFi6 offers quicker and more convenient wireless speeds with the OFDMA, MU-MIMO, and BSS colouring technologies. Plus, it boosts network efficiency, so all devices can have their own share of WiFi bandwidth.
It’s ideal for busy networks with tons of various WiFi devices. These include laptops, smart home devices, and even smartphones.
True Multi-Gigabit Wired Speeds
For real multi-gigabit performance, you’ll need both LAN and WAN connections that support such speeds. This router features both of these aggregations. It allows you to enjoy 2Gbps of wired speed from your modem, all the way to your PC and NAS.
Flexible + Scalable Wireless Mesh Networking
For increased coverage and functions, you can just add an AiMesh-compatible router. And that’s any time you need to.
AiMesh links a number of compatible ASUS routers to establish an entire home mesh WiFi network. The scalable and flexible technology allows you to combine different AiMesh-compatible routers. Plus, it lets you add new ones anytime to enhance coverage.
All the devices in the AiMesh network let you enjoy access to all features present on the main router. These included AIProtection commercial-grade security, gaming features, and more.
Stable and Durable
The TUF Gaming AX5400 router is designed to offer total WiFi performance. Its double heat sink design and vent location improve cooling for enhanced stability. The metal port protectors and fixed antennas boost physical durability too.
One Router, Three Modes, All Game Types
If you want more performance for your mobile games, the TUF Gaming AX5400 router offers gamers with various game types.
There’s an integrated mobile game available on the ASUS Router app. Once you enable it, the router will give priority to the phone for enhanced gaming stability and decreased ping time.
It will also automatically analyse the connection on the application.
For PCs, we recommend the AdaptiveQoS function. And while there are numerous profiles to select from, the Gaming profile is the ideal choice for gamers. Once enabled, the QoS engine will prioritise gaming connections to guarantee stability and consistency.
If you’re an XBOX or PS5 console player, the OpenNAT feature is ideal for you. This specific feature can prevent port-forward issues (which result in strict NAT). Plus, it can ensure that your console is getting the right connection for hosting games.
Get Enhanced Privacy Anywhere
Instant Guard offers you single-click secure internet access through the TUF Gaming AX5400 router from anywhere in the world. That’s thanks to the encrypted data tunnelling VPN technology.
With the router, you can bring your home network wherever you go. And, you can say goodbye to those web-based 3rd party VPNs.
Simultaneous Gaming and VPN
VPN Fusion allows you to run a VPN and standard internet connection simultaneously. So even if other users require the use of a VPN, you can still take advantage of maximum gaming speeds.
Commercial-Grade Security for Your Home
While working on this ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review, we also saw that it offers commercial-grade security.
Home network security is vital when you have a number of linked devices. Even more so when there are devices that don’t have anti-virus capabilities like IoT devices.
TUF Gaming AX5400 router comes with a lifetime free AiProtection Pro. This includes the latest WPA3 security protocol, as well as advanced Parental Controls.
Each device is secure with the TUF Gaming AX5400. So, you can keep watch on everything happening to your network through its mobile application.
Specifications
The hardware inside the TUF Gaming AX5400 router is powerful. It features a triple-core Broadcom BCM-6750 system on a chip processor that runs at 1.5GHz.
Since it’s a dual-band wireless router, it supports WiFi6. And the 5GHz connections function because of the Broadcom BCM-43684 chip.
The 2.4GHz wireless connections work via the 2×2 MU-MIMO, while the 5GHz is on the 160MHz channel bandwidth. That’s using the 4×4 MU-MIMO.
This ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review saw that the product features 256MB storage for the firmware. Plus, it also has 512MB of RAM. It’s adequate for handling a small business or home network that’s linked with lots of devices.
The total theoretical bandwidth is divided. These are 574Mbps – 2.4GHz band, and 4804Mbps – 5GHz band when utilising the WiFi6 standard.
Hands-on with the ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router
Setting up the ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router
Just like your typical modern-day routers, the TUF Gaming AX5400 router can be configured in two ways. One via the mobile app, and the other via the web browser.
Since we wanted to have more control over the entire process, we opted for the web browser route. The initial setup involved finding the kind of internet connection being utilised, and offering the needed connection details. It also included selecting a password and name for the WiFi, and deciding whether to enable WiFi6.
When switching on the WiFi6, ASUS notified us that some wireless network cards could have connectivity issues with this standard. So, it’s ideal to update network drivers on all computers, laptops, and other devices before enabling it.
A nice touch is that ASUS checks for any firmware update before finishing the quick setup wizard. Plus, it encouraged us to upgrade before we started using the router. We also installed the latest firmware since it fixed present bugs during the initial release.
Another good thing is that we were able to set the firmware to self auto-update during late nights. It’s a good time for updates since no one barely uses the internet at night.
With that, we can always be sure to be up-to-date without much effort, and that’s good.
For our ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router review, we linked our devices to the network. Then, we accessed the firmware for better fine-tuning once the quick setup has completed.
The router’s administration interface is easy to use. It’s well-organised into smart sections, and is available in a total of 25 languages.
We were able to control everything: from its RGB lighting to the Open NAT, to the IPv6, and more. The list of features is impressively long, plus casual & advanced users should be satisfied with the level of detail received.
Its help documentation was easy to access. There was a question mark that appeared when moving the mouse cursor over settings we couldn’t understand. From there, we clicked on the question mark to see details explaining the settings.
We’ve tested the router extensively for some weeks, and it didn’t disappoint us in any way. Its WiFi signal and coverage is a huge improvement over the earlier WiFi5 routers.
We also loved its Game Booster feature which greatly enhanced gaming consistency while decreasing ping latency.
The router’s WiFi signal strength and performance was great even from a long distance.
In addition, the TUF Gaming AX5400 router did well on the 2.4GHz WiFi performance on our gaming laptop. There, it offered good WiFi speed.
But of course, we didn’t expect much from the 2.4GHz since it’s an obsolete technology. So, we only utilise it on smart home devices.
Overall, the ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router performed well and we don’t have any complaints on it. There weren’t any issues or problems during our tests, and everything went smoothly which we greatly appreciate.
ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router Review Summary
The ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router is a high-performing product that has robust gaming features. It even has an excellent support policy that will see security updates for three years at the least.
It’s a pretty good deal. So if you’re searching for an efficient upgrade from your stock router, this ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router is ideal.
This router is one of the most cost-efficient WiFi 6 routers available. Plus, the extra features that ASUS managed to cram into it makes the router even more attractive.
This should meet most of every gamers’ needs without having to adjust the stock settings. And with its future-proofing, you won’t have to worry about buying new routers in the next few years.
Overall, we were satisfied with the ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 router and we highly recommend it. To get your hands on this product, check out the store locator for official resellers.
