Asus unveiled the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro at COMPUTEX Taipei, billing it as the world’s first router built on the Wi-Fi 8 standard — a specification that industry bodies have not yet finalized.
The router won a Best Choice Award at the trade show, one of the consumer electronics industry’s regional recognition programs for new hardware.
The Standard Behind It
Wi-Fi 8, formally designated IEEE 802.11bn, remains under development. Asus said the GT-BN98 Pro can deliver up to twice the throughput and twice the IoT coverage of previous-generation models, with particular gains at medium-to-long ranges where signal strength typically degrades.
IoT, or the Internet of Things, refers to low-powered connected devices such as smart speakers, thermostats, and security cameras. Asus said Wi-Fi 8’s improved device-to-router communication helps those gadgets hold a more stable connection.
Gaming Features
The router carries Asus’s Republic of Gamers branding and includes a feature the company calls “AI Game Boost,” a three-tier traffic prioritization system that routes gaming data from the local device to the game server. Asus said the feature can cut latency — the delay between a player’s input and a server’s response — by up to 34 percent, based on its own testing.
A dedicated 10G gaming port automatically prioritizes gaming traffic without manual configuration, according to Asus.
Hardware Specifications
The GT-BN98 Pro ships with dual 10-gigabit Ethernet ports with link aggregation support, which allows two physical connections to function as a single higher-bandwidth link. It also carries four 2.5GbE ports, one 1GbE port, one 5Gbps USB port, and one USB 2.0 port.
Asus redesigned the chassis with a thicker aluminum top plate, an upgraded nanocarbon coating, and a new airflow system. The company said the thermal design improves heat dissipation by up to 35 percent compared to the older ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000.
Software
The GT-BN98 Pro includes AiProtection security tools, VLAN controls — which allow a single network to be segmented into isolated sub-networks — guest networks for IoT and children’s devices, VPN support, and real-time wireless interference monitoring.
Asus has not disclosed pricing or full wireless specifications for the router.
