The Burning Question: Dual-Band v/s Tri-Band Gaming Router

We have received many questions about what is dual-band and tri-band gaming routers. Especially since the Netgear comes up with RAX200 and RAX200 WiFi router. Now the question is the line 'With which to go for if the money is not an issue?' So, in this post, we will explain to you the differences between the dual-band and tri-band gaming router. But if you are in a hurry, go with a tri-band router. Investing in tri-band Nighthawk gaming router is as good as flushing some cash down the drain. OK, let us begin with dual-band.

Dual-Band WiFi Router: Why do we have it?

Let's go back to Wi-Fi 4, dual-band is the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. Things were quite simple but with the enhancement in technology, dual-WiFi came into existence. Initially, WiFi started with 2.4GHz frequency band, which was, and still ubiquitous. Generally, 2.4GHz bandwidth suffers heavily from interference. Soon after the introduction of dual-band, it found unreliable for WiFi in urban regions. That's why the 5GHz came into the role. This frequency band is dedicated to the use of a wireless network and has much high wireless speed as compared to 2.4GHz dual-band gaming router. For a short period, 5GHz was present in 802.11a WiFi standard and treated as a single-band solution as the counterpart of 2.4GHz bandwidth. But due to its short network coverage, then not-so-fast speed, many sticks to 2.4GHz WiFi gaming router only. Thus, we always had dual-band: The co-existence of 2.4GHz and 5GHz. A dual-band gaming router offers both backward compatibility and performance.

Tri-Band Gaming Router: The Game is All About Bandwidth

To understand the concept behind the Tri-band gaming router, we need to know how a router's bandwidth acts. Take the Nighthawk X6, for example; It is a dual-band AC3200. AC is short for the 802.11ac standard, and 3200 is the rounded combined bandwidth of the router's 3.2Gbps speed on 5Ghz and 1.2Gbps on 2.4GHz bandwidth. Since a client can only connect to one bandwidth at a time, the theoretical connection you can get out of the Nighthawk X6 at 3.2Gbps. But that's only when there is only one device or a client is connected. If two clients are actively connected at the same time, each gets half of that particular bandwidth. The bandwidth will keep on dividing equally as per the increase in the activities connected devices. Generally, a router can host up to 253 devices or we can say, clients. So, to enhance the bandwidth, a chip was introduced to add an extra 5GHz band. A tri-band gaming router now has double 5GHz bandwidth, compared with a dual-band WiFi gaming router.