ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router Hands-on

We previously gave you a rundown of the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000, which is a gaming WiFi router for those who have heavy network demands at home. However, it comes with a hefty price so it’s not for everyone. But is there a more affordable option but also designed for gaming? Yes, there is, and it’s the ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400. Read our hands-on below.

Right out of the box, you can immediately tell that the ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 Router is for gaming. While the Rapture GT-AX6000 looks alien-like, the AX5400 looks like a starship from a galaxy far far away.

Looking at it from the front, it reminds us of the hood and front bumper of a sports car. It has sharp angles and vents on the front, sides, back, and underneath.

The top part is also engraved with a futuristic design, along with the RGB-illuminated TUF logo. Placed right on the front are the LEDs.

At the back, we have the RJ45 for Gigabits BaseT for WAN, four RJ45 for Gigabits BaseT for LAN, USB 3.2 Gen 1 x 1, WPS button, a reset button, and the power button. For the antennas, it has six in total. Once you’ve spread out the antennas, this router looks intimidating, like you no longer have an excuse to say that your WiFi is weak.

Setup is easy with the help of the ASUS Router app or the web browser. There’s a setup wizard for each platform, so all you need to do is follow it. Like in the AX6000, we were able to have everything running in about 15 minutes.

Although more affordable than the AX6000, the TUF Gaming AX5400 is still loaded with features. It has WiFi 6 for speeds of up to 5400 Mbps and 4X network efficiency with OFDMA and 160 MHz channels, a dedicated gaming port to prioritized wired gaming, easy port forwarding with Open NAT, ASUS AiMesh Support so you can connect other ASUS routers for a mesh network, and WAN and LAN aggregation so you can take advantage of 2 Gbps wired speeds.

Like the AX6000, the AX5400 supports Game Device Prioritizing. Just add your device to the list and the router will prioritize that when playing games. It also supports Mobile Game Mode via the ASUS Router App. VPN Fusion is here to let you use a VPN and an ordinary internet connection simultaneously. There’s also Adaptive QOS, so you can choose the kind of tasks in your network that needs to be prioritized, whether it’s gaming, working from home, or video streaming. AiProtection Pro, on the other hand, adds a layer of security to your network to protect devices from malware and malicious websites.

Performance-wise, the AX5400 works well and was able to take over the over 20 connections with ease. It doesn’t feel like a downgrade from the AX6000, although we noticed that it produces much slower speeds in the farthest area in the house. On the AX6000, we were getting almost 100 Mbps, on the AX5400 we were getting over 50 Mbps.

Connecting our laptop to it via LAN, we’re getting our subscribed speed of 700 Mbps. Going down to the living room and connecting via WiFi 6 5GHz, we’re getting over 500 Mbps, which is still good. We can say that it was able to utilize our bandwidth properly without interrupting the connection of other devices in the network. At the most, we had two people playing games, one streaming at 4K, and two in a Zoom call, and none of them encountered issues.

Based on our experience, the TUF Gaming AX5400 did an excellent job of delivering a good internet connection at home. Even if you’re not a gamer, you’ll benefit from its performance as it’s way better than your ISP’s stock router. When it’s time to game, the tools are just here to make the experience better.

The ASUS TUF Gaming AX5400 is sold in stores at under PHP 10K, which is way more affordable than the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 at PHP 22,550USD 384INR 32,576EUR 366CNY 2,798. So, if you want to upgrade your stock router for a gaming-centric one without breaking the bank, this one is worth considering.