This thing will be $500-600 easy and is fugly.

This looks like Leoric's crown from Diablo III

Headcrab

They have 2 10gb ports but one is SFP.
Also, can one port be a WAN and anther local LAN?
I can get 2.5 - 5 GB internet so I could use one port for my Internet and another to connect to a 10gbe switch.

MakaveliThis thing will be $500-600 easy and is fugly.

Would have kept this to myself...
You find that your internet connection failed in the middle of the night. You go check on your router and find that all the Ethernet cables are unplugged. The next second, you see something dart out of the corner of your eye. You turn to look at it, spotting an unfamiliar router instead of a small animal that you expected. Walking closer, you recognize that it's the aesthetically displeasing AX6000 you saw on TechPowerUp earlier that day. It looks likes someone moved your Ethernet cables to this router. You think to yourself that it is whoever set up this a harmless and ineffective prank wasted a lot of money. After a few seconds of thought, you shrug it off, deciding to replace the cables back to your existing router. Who needs a router like this, right? As you lean down to remove the cables -- it springs up and latches on your face. Its antenna-like legs grip with enormous strength while the Ethernet cables swing around your neck to strangle you. As you start to suffocate, you regret that you overlook cable management, or else you might have survived by untangling them. Your consciousness starts to fade. You and it stop moving... the AX6000 awaiting the next foolish victim to leave a negative comment.

itsy bitzy spider

Right into box of shoes, because this thing is ugly af.

I have no idea why do these things have to looks like arachnids, what next Scorpions :shadedshu:

lluviaWould have kept this to myself...
You find that your internet connection failed in the middle of the night. You go check on your router and find that all the Ethernet cables are unplugged. The next second, you see something dart out of the corner of your eye. You turn to look at it, spotting an unfamiliar router instead of a small animal that you expected. Walking closer, you recognize that it's the aesthetically displeasing AX6000 you saw on TechPowerUp earlier that day. It looks likes someone moved your Ethernet cables to this router. You think to yourself that it is whoever set up this a harmless and ineffective prank wasted a lot of money. After a few seconds of thought, you shrug it off, deciding to replace the cables back to your existing router. Who needs a router like this, right? As you lean down to remove the cables -- it springs up and latches on your face. Its antenna-like legs grip with enormous strength while the Ethernet cables swing around your neck to strangle you. As you start to suffocate, you regret that you overlook cable management, or else you might have survived by untangling them. Your consciousness starts to fade. You and it stop moving... the AX6000 awaiting the next foolish victim to leave a negative comment.

Haha you used to be a d&d dm previously, didn't you?

stanleyipkissThey have 2 10gb ports but one is SFP.
Also, can one port be a WAN and anther local LAN?
I can get 2.5 - 5 GB internet so I could use one port for my Internet and another to connect to a 10gbe switch.

That SFP port will come in handy if you want to use it along with a cheap(er) 10-gig switch. At first I thought it was just a combo port split in half, but apparently it's two fully-functional ports.
10Gbase-T should be compatible with 2.5G/5Gbase-T (it's the same layer, just slower clock speed).
Regarding dual-WAN, ASUS has been always good about it. I'm 100% sure it supports this feature, as most mid-to-high-end ASUS routers, and they even list it in spec as:

RJ45 for 10Gbps BaseT for WAN/LAN x 1

Full spec here:
www.asus.com/Networking/RT-AX89X/specifications/

silentbogo10Gbase-T should be compatible with 2.5G/5Gbase-T (it's the same layer, just slower clock speed).

Actually this is not the case. 10GBASE-T pre-dates 2.5/5GBASE-T and there are products that are 10gbit but not 2.5/5-compatible like Intel X710. My point is that there also exist SFP+ 10gbit Ethernet modules that do only 10/100/1000/10g while others (like Mikrotik S+RJ10) will also support 2.5/5.
The entire point of 2.5/5 is compatibility with old cabling including Cat. 5e.

ncrsActually this is not the case. 10GBASE-T pre-dates 2.5/5GBASE-T and there are products that are 10gbit but not 2.5/5-compatible like Intel X710. My point is that there also exist SFP+ 10gbit Ethernet modules that do only 10/100/1000/10g while others (like Mikrotik S+RJ10) will also support 2.5/5.
The entire point of 2.5/5 is compatibility with old cabling including Cat. 5e.

I'm absolutely sure ASUS uses Aquantia chips in that headcrab, which is fully compliant with 802.3bz. No one in their right mind would put X500/X700-series monstrosity into a consumer wireless router.

silentbogoI'm absolutely sure ASUS uses Aquantia chips in that headcrab, which is fully compliant with 802.3bz. No one in their right mind would put X500/X700-series monstrosity into a consumer wireless router.

They probably do, and those chips are Marvell now ;)
My point was that saying "10GBASE-T is compatible with 2.5/5" is untrue because of previously released devices like the X710. Connecting such a card to this router via Cat. 5a cable will result in 1gbit/s instead of 2.5/5, for example.

lluviaWould have kept this to myself...
You find that your internet connection failed in the middle of the night. You go check on your router and find that all the Ethernet cables are unplugged. The next second, you see something dart out of the corner of your eye. You turn to look at it, spotting an unfamiliar router instead of a small animal that you expected. Walking closer, you recognize that it's the aesthetically displeasing AX6000 you saw on TechPowerUp earlier that day. It looks likes someone moved your Ethernet cables to this router. You think to yourself that it is whoever set up this a harmless and ineffective prank wasted a lot of money. After a few seconds of thought, you shrug it off, deciding to replace the cables back to your existing router. Who needs a router like this, right? As you lean down to remove the cables -- it springs up and latches on your face. Its antenna-like legs grip with enormous strength while the Ethernet cables swing around your neck to strangle you. As you start to suffocate, you regret that you overlook cable management, or else you might have survived by untangling them. Your consciousness starts to fade. You and it stop moving... the AX6000 awaiting the next foolish victim to leave a negative comment.

A solid 5/7

It also doubles as somewhere to store your basketball.

This looks like it will be next router but realistically is this faster than the AX1600 for 5G WIFI?

stanleyipkissThey have 2 10gb ports but one is SFP.
Also, can one port be a WAN and anther local LAN?
I can get 2.5 - 5 GB internet so I could use one port for my Internet and another to connect to a 10gbe switch.

SFP+ ;)
And yes, one should be possible to use as a WAN port.
This seems to be how Asus pitches the two ports. Doesn't quite make sense to me, but hey.

silentbogoI'm absolutely sure ASUS uses Aquantia chips in that headcrab, which is fully compliant with 802.3bz. No one in their right mind would put X500/X700-series monstrosity into a consumer wireless router.

en.techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/wiki/ASUS_RT-AX89X

ncrsThey probably do, and those chips are Marvell now ;)
My point was that saying "10GBASE-T is compatible with 2.5/5" is untrue because of previously released devices like the X710. Connecting such a card to this router via Cat. 5a cable will result in 1gbit/s instead of 2.5/5, for example.

You're aware that over short runs, even 10Gbps can run on Cat 5e, right?
But yes, 10Gbps doesn't mean Multi Gigabit support.

MakaveliThis thing will be $500-600 easy and is fugly.

Surprisingly not...
www.newegg.com/asus-rt-ax89x/p/N82E16833320438

I think ill stick to wanting Ubiquiti's Amplifi Alien.

I must admit, I went with the winged style Nighthawk one purely for aesthetics - despite it being pretty much out of view. These spider-like ones are just too ugly.

Headcrab edition? Make it happen!

silentbogoThat SFP port will come in handy if you want to use it along with a cheap(er) 10-gig switch. At first I thought it was just a combo port split in half, but apparently it's two fully-functional ports.
10Gbase-T should be compatible with 2.5G/5Gbase-T (it's the same layer, just slower clock speed).
Regarding dual-WAN, ASUS has been always good about it. I'm 100% sure it supports this feature, as most mid-to-high-end ASUS routers, and they even list it in spec as:

RJ45 for 10Gbps BaseT for WAN/LAN x 1

Full spec here:
www.asus.com/Networking/RT-AX89X/specifications/

SFP+ isn't cheaper at all anymore than 10GBase-T (maybe for third hand enterprise hardware off of eBay, but your average consumer isn't going to do that, and if we want faster networking to become ubiquitous, 10GBase-T is the only way thatll happen because it's familiar) , and I really wish that the market would push 10GBase-T to consumers and drop this stupid SFP+ thing. You can now buy 10GBase-T NICs and switches just as cheaply as SFP+ now, so there's not really an advantage to SFP+ while there is numerous disadvantages. You can't run DACs through your walls, and SMF and MMF (fiber) is a much bigger Pain in the butt to run through your walls than CAT6a/7/8, and don't even get me started on how expensive transceiver modules are for fiber/SFP+. Perhaps the best thing about 10GBase-T and CAT6a/7/8 is that it's completely compatible with 5/2.5/1gig WITHOUT having to buy expensive transceivers.... Maybe I'm just partial to 10GBase-T because that's what I have, but there's absolutely no way you're going to convince me that for the vast majority of consumers, SFP+ is better than 10GBase-T... Consumers know what an ethernet cable is... You can buy a CAT6a cable anywhere.... You won't find a DAC or a spool of MMF at staples.

Is that the best design they can think of? It looks hideous to put anywhere visible. It just looks like a dead spider.

Chloe PriceThis looks like Leoric's crown from Diablo III

100% this

AnarchoPrimitivSFP+ isn't cheaper at all anymore than 10GBase-T (maybe for third hand enterprise hardware off of eBay, but your average consumer isn't going to do that

How did you come up with that assumption? I can name at least 5 SMB switches under $200 new that have an SFP+ uplink(s), and only ASUS XG-U2008 on the copper side (which is also impossiburu to find anywhere outside US).
I've been eyeballing Mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+IN for a part of my home network (basically interconnect for my server, NAS and workstation) for some time now. It's $149 MSRP, but it's been on a market for awhile and you can get it for ~$120-125 normally. Something like CSS326-24G-2S+RM is in the same ballpark, if you need more ports.
And since you've mentioned used parts, I'm gonna steer you in another direction: the reason SFP+ is there, is exactly for those cases, where it's either an enthusiast with a home lab or an SMB with existing hardware can get more options, like simply replugging their uplink from 1G copper to 10G SFP at the expense of buying a cable, or giving you more readily-available options if you want to buy a new/used/refurb switch.

TheLostSwedeYou're aware that over short runs, even 10Gbps can run on Cat 5e, right?

Having had recent experience in this I'll say it's very short runs :) I even found a 2m Cat 5e that failed to support 10Gbit.

silentbogoI've been eyeballing Mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+IN for a part of my home network (basically interconnect for my server, NAS and workstation) for some time now.

I've bought this switch recently with both S-RJ01 and S+RJ10 SFP+ modules. This has a few caveats that you should consider before buying this switch. While the switch is all metal and fanless, it gets pretty hot even on idle (45-50*C) and S+RJ10 gets really hot (~75*C). While this is still within tolerances I've placed the switch next to the exhaust fan of my server so it's not as bad now. It just needs some airflow. Also it's only possible to use up to 2 S+RJ10 in the switch at the same time. You can use SFP+ direct attach for 10GBit even after hitting this limit though. The gigabit Ethernet RJ45 is fully capable of all functions and not only a console/management port which is a nice bonus.
I'm very impressed with the software side of the switch. In SwOS mode it's capable of doing everything I want from it, but it also can be switched to the full RouterOS which is the best router OS I've seen in networking gear including "professional" offerings.