ASUS RT-AX55 is an entry level of wireless router with combined dual-band speed up to 1800Mbps of 802.11ax “WIFI 6 standard”, by which, in general, faster than the old 802.11ac generation wireless standards. As an entry level router in an AC generation router, the RT-AX55 include some premium features such as Smart Connect, AiProtection Classic and AiMesh. The RT-AX55 router bundle with M1 ISP 24-month 1Gbps plan (Worth $239) Sign up here and 500Mbps plan top-up $5 per month.

Highlighted Features

• VPN Server and VPN Client.
• Parental Control
• SmartQoS
• Ai Mesh
• Ai Protection Classic

Specification

Model	RT-AX55
CPU	Broadcom BCM6755 – 1.5Ghz Quad cores ARM-A7
SPI chipset	Macronix MX30LF1G18AC-TI – 128Mb
RAM	Nanya NT5CC256M16ER-EK – 256Mb DDR3 1866mhz
Ethernet	1 WAN / 4 GbE BCM6755
2.4Ghz	2T 2R up to 574Mbps [Support MU-MIMO] 5dbi
5Ghz	2T 2R up to 1201Mbps [Support MU-MIMO] 5dbi
Operation mode	Router / Access point / Ai Mesh

The RT-AX55 look classic design compare to previous budget router that we have review RT-AC2600.

ASUS RT-AX55 router is slower in term of wireless bandwidth, because of 2T2R antenna configuration compare to RT-AX2600 4T4R and RT-AX55 lack of  USB port support for Ai Cloud technology. However, the new AX standard make use of “OFDMA” orthogonal frequency-division multiple access to achieve better performance when multiple devices are connected, so there’s less to be gained by spreading the load across.

	2.4Ghz	5Ghz	USB Support	AX support
RT-AX55	574Mbps	1201Mbps	No	Yes
RT-AC2600	800Mbps	1733Mbps	Yes	No

On the back you have four vertical antennas together, four Gigabit Ethernet ports along with a Gigabit WAN port, WPS, power and reset buttons.

The wireless standards are supported, including OFDA, MU-MIMO, beamforming, and the latest security standard of WPA3-personal, but lack of support 160Mhz channel. The router is also fully backward compatible to 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) and 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) devices.

Main Menu UI

Once the initial setup is complete, we can get into router Menu for more advance configuration. The router’s features are easily navigated via the left-hand panel.

We installed latest version to ensures that all the latest security updates are applied, along with bug fixes. For our testing, the RT-AX55 was running firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.42350.

Security

The Asus RT-AX55 includes a  number of security features, but it’s runs Ai Protection Classic so you will see lesser feature compare to Ai Protection Pro. Network Protection with Trend Micro can provide anti malware on a network level, for no additional charge. Also, malicious sites are blocked at the router to keep the entire network secure, but lack of Two-Way IPS protection.
[We have been placing this router as our main use to test the Ai Protection for 4 days and see the result below]

Performance/ Benchmark Testing

We tested the Router directly using Speedtest on WAN to Internet directly.

When it comes to wireless bandwidth, the Asus RT-AX55 performed quite well. We test routers in three location a “Living room” location, “Computer room” and also at a “Bedroom” location. The bandwidth test uses Speedtest, Netflix, cloudflare and internal file transfer to benchmark the performance, with a Wi-Fi 6 client. For the latter, we have a laptop ASUS Zenbook UX435EGL with an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz wireless adapter on latest driver, set to use the widest 80 MHz channel width on the 5 GHz frequency.

House layout & testing details

We will test three difference location using ASUS Zenbook UX435EGL and out internet service provider is M1 – 1Gbps. Please take note that our testing is using “Smartconnect” technology on 5Ghz bandwidth.

• Location “A” Living room
• Location “B” Computer room
• Location “C” Master room

Cloudflare speedtest

Cloudflare Speedtest
Location	Download	Upload	Latency	Jitter
Living Room	611Mbps	594Mbps	5.45ms	2.89ms
Computer Room	431Mbps	340Mbps	34.2ms	17.6ms
Master Room	255Mpbs	174Mbps	6.51ms	3.21ms

 

Netflix speedtest

Netflix Speedtest
Location	Download	Upload
Living Room	510Mbps	420Mbps
Computer Room	380Mbps	290Mbps
Master Room	280Mpbs	94Mbps

Ookla speedtest – M1 Server

Ookla Speedtest
Location	Download	Upload	Ping
Living Room	600.53.Mbps	723.63Mbps	3ms
Computer Room	422.19Mbps	327.52Mbps	3ms
Master Room	41.22Mpbs	36.52Mbps	3ms

Internal Transfer speed to ASUSTOR AS6204T – 3Gb file

Internal Transfer speed
Location	Download	Upload	Time to Complete
Living Room	656.97Mbps	285.56Mbps	37 seconds
Computer Room	431.43Mbps	207.80Mbps	56 seconds
Master Room	277.64Mpbs	106.68Mbps	86 seconds