Asus RT-AC88U is a little bit more expensive than Asus RT-AC87U. Indeed, the two are both dual-band routers, and they share quite some resemblances to each other in one way and another. However, Asus RT-AC88U is marketed as an Asus ROG router, promising a superior gaming performance. Meanwhile, Asus RT-AC 87U is a ‘regular’ Asus router. So, what is with the price increment? Why are they being priced differently from each other? Is the AC88U really better than the AC87U? Let’s see their comparisons! (See also: Asus RT-AC5300 vs. Asus RT-AC88U)
Bandwidth
Each of the two router models coincidentally has four adjustable external antennas. They have a similar coverage area, which is equal to a very large house. They also support the beamforming technology already. The feature allows a router to focus its wireless signal projection towards every connected device, enhancing the stability and reliability of the connection as well as lessening jitters and unintentional disconnects.
However, Asus RT-AC88U comes with significantly larger amounts of bandwidth than Asus RT-AC87U. While the AC87U comes with 600 Mbps and 1734 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless signal channels, respectively, the AC88U boasts 1000 Mbps plus 2167 Mbps of bandwidth. As you can see, Asus RT-AC88U offers higher maximum speeds for both frequencies, and, as the effect, can actually serve more devices with less loss in performance.
Game Accelerator
The next significant difference between the two models is that Asus RT-AC88U comes with a built-in game accelerator, which is a feature that Asus RT-AC87U lacks. The AC88U has built-in access to WTFast Gamers Private Network, a group of route-optimized servers that can provide you extremely stable and low ping times for the ultimate lag-free gaming experience.
Connection Ports
Another difference is, Asus RT-AC88U comes with a lot more Ethernet ports than Asus RT-AC87U. This is a strong advantage if you have several devices that need to – or can be – connected to the network via the Ethernet ports. Asus RT-AC88U comes with one WAN and eight LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports, along with one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 jacks. At the contrast, Asus RT-AC87U may seem a little bit basic, coming with the usual one WAN and four LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports, though it indeed also features one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 jacks. Both routers support dual link aggregation, which means that you can connect a device to the network using two Ethernet ports at once in order to increase the data transfer rate and reliability.
Asus RT-AC87U vs. Asus RT-AC88U
Asus RT-AC88U is indeed a lot more powerful than Asus RT-AC87U. You should pick Asus RT-AC88U if you want to get the ultimate gaming experience, or if you have numerous devices in your network.
