ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Wi-Fi 7 Router

[Saltgrass]

It seems the release of the Wi-Fi 7 Router, GT-BE98 will be "soon".

Considering, it took 2 years for the user to gain use of the 6 GHz radio after the AXE11000 was released, anyone have any guesses as to how long it will be before user access to Wi-Fi 7 compatibility will actually happen?

As far as I can tell, there are no Wi-Fi 7 network adapters yet available for sale. Can they modify current devices to use a 320 MHz bandwidth, I don't know. I probably won't be an early adopter of this technology.

Thanks for reading.

[Murph_9000]

Saltgrass wrote:
It seems the release of the Wi-Fi 7 Router, GT-BE98 will be "soon".

Considering, it took 2 years for the user to gain use of the 6 GHz radio after the AXE11000 was released, anyone have any guesses as to how long it will be before user access to Wi-Fi 7 compatibility will actually happen?

As far as I can tell, there are no Wi-Fi 7 network adapters yet available for sale. Can they modify current devices to use a 320 MHz bandwidth, I don't know. I probably won't be an early adopter of this technology.

Thanks for reading.

I have my doubts about updating existing client WiFi interfaces to add support for WiFi 7. It's not just doubling the radio bandwidth from 160 to 320 MHz, the carrier modulation jumps from 1024 QAM to 4096 QAM, and I just don't expect that Intel & Realtek will have designed their WiFi 6 interfaces with that much spare performance. What you might be able to do, however, is replace the M.2 WiFi card in your system. Many (most?) of them, both desktops & laptops, have the WiFi interface on a M.2 card, which could potentially be swapped out for a WiFi 7 card. I don't think it's likely to be an officially supported thing, swapping out the WiFi card for a newer one, just might be technically possible (if you find a card that physically fits). E.g. my Crosshair VIII Extreme has a hidden Intel AX210NGW M.2 card behind the IO shield (you can usually get the model number in the regulatory information bit of your user manual, as they have to list the radio approvals information).

It's the same for every generation jump with WiFi, takes a while before both the access points and clients get updated. My WiFi scanner app rarely sees any WiFi 6 signals; I think I currently have the only WiFi 6 network in my immediate area, most are evenly split between WiFi 4 and WiFi 5.

[Saltgrass]

There is a possibility the delay in acquiring the 6 GHz availability was due to the later release of Win 11. When the AXE11000 was released, there was no talk of a Windows 11 being required to use it.

Currently, I have an Intel AX411 Wi-fi card on my system. It has some additional capabilities but, as you mention, will not be upgradeable for the newer Technology. I don't really have a need for increase Wi-Fi speeds since my ISP is only 500 Mbps. If they or another company, were to pop up with an affordable 5 Gbps or 10 Gbps, I would be in. The reference to the QAM may be just related to the ISP since I seem to remember that 4096 number being mentioned before. The Wi-Fi card specifications do not give a reference for such a standard.

I would hope, when multiple devices are needed for compatibility, that the release of those devices by different manufacturers, would be timed so as to make its use possible. They are still maintaining the same radio configuration as on the AXE16000, a 2.4 GHz, 2-5 GHz and a 6 Ghz.

It will be something to watch, I just hope I get a chance to play with the new technology. 😉

Thanks for the response.

[Murph_9000]

Saltgrass wrote:
The reference to the QAM may be just related to the ISP since I seem to remember that 4096 number being mentioned before. The Wi-Fi card specifications do not give a reference for such a standard.

No, QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) is a fundamental part of the 802.11 standards. Its use for computer data encoding actually pre-dates WiFi by a very long time, appearing in widespread use in V.22bis for dialup modems (2400 bps over a 600 baud carrier) in 1984 (for example). It's how the the carrier waves are modulated to encode the bits onto them. 802.11n (WiFi 4) is up to 64-QAM, 802.11ac (WiFi 5) is up to 256-QAM, 802.11ax (WiFi 6) is up to 1024-QAM, and 802.11be (WiFi 7) is up to 4096-QAM.

[jzchen]

I feel it will be a lot sooner than speculated. *Why? *Because I do sense that the chip shortage has come to an end. *Also, the frequency ranges used are already in use, (if my understanding is correct, if not please correct me).

That said I guess it’s on a need/want basis. *If the current WiFi 6E is giving you what you want, then why spend money on something you’ll have to kind of beta/gamma test…

My only WiFi 6E devices are the AXE16000 and AXE11000, which sometimes backhaul on it.

I will probably hold off as well though, but more because I may want a cheaper path to 10G Ethernet backhaul…*

[jzchen]

Wow, the nostalgia. *USRobotics comes to mind! (Regarding V22.bis)

[Saltgrass]

This unit is now listed on the products page without any tech specifications or sales date.

Since it took so long for the 6 GHz radio to become usable on the AXE11000, I may wait to purchase this router. I saw a link which predicted Intel would be releasing, to the public, a Wi-Fi card compatible with Wi-Fi 7 sometime in 2023 or 2024. It may be another long wait for this also.

[jzchen]

It’s been on non-US site, but I’m not sure which country. *TP-Link Deco BE95, 33000 vs ASUS 25000, had been available for pre-order on Amazon. Hmmm…

[labo]

Any pre-order link? Some one said its getting releases on May 19th

[Saltgrass]

May 19th could be correct but I haven't seen anything.  I checked today as I did not find any site that has started selling it.  

I would expect a Pre-order situation prior to actual sales but I haven't noticed that either.

Thanks for the info.