Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 Wi-Fi Router

I currently have a 6-7 year old Netgear Nighthawk XR500 looking to replace. I'm looking to switch over to ASUS Looking to get a Dual Band WiFi 7 router the ones I'm looking at that are in my budget are.. RT-BE82U and the RT-BE86U Don't do any gaming.....primarily steam a lot and use laptops for browsing and have RING devices. Thanks

I live in the UK, and I am an EE customer on their top package, (guaranteed 1.8gbps) at all times, but often goes over 2gbps. I ditched the EE provided router as it wasnt that great for IoT and their provided Wifi Extenders were pretty rubbish and limited to WiFi 5 only. I instead replaced it with TP-Link Deco BE9300, which has been brilliant. I get great WiFi in all areas of my home, and I get solid 2gbps when hard wired, the addition of WiFi 6 allows me to use that on supported devices and its noticeable. In terms of the infrastructure so far, its pretty good, and I'm happy with my setup. However, the Deco's above have limited features in regards to traffic management and QoS. There is a QoS option but its basically you add a device, and thats about it, and from my testing it really doesnt do anything, making me think its not actually prgrammed very well and instead is just a tick box in the app to say it "has QoS" when in reality it is literally just a tick box. I need QoS mostly for gaming, as I live in a heavy useage internet household, and I most game these days through streaming services (GeForce NOW being the primary). I plan to buy a router, to do the routing for the house, and put the Deco's into AP mode hard wired to a new router. When i search "best gaming routers" there are a few key ones to choose from but most are £700+ it seems like a lot of money, and when I look at it, its because they all come with super robust features and a strong WiFi offering (which I wont be using, as my chosen router will end up with its WiFI off, opting to use the Deco as my WiFi solution.) I literally want recommendations on cost effective routers, that wil manage all the routing DHCP etc, but comes with solid QoS for gaming and supporting the gaming side. Also ideally a minimum of 2.5gbps ports. There are some solid routers around £100 - £150 like the Netgear XR500 (i used one of these years ago) but its limited to 1gbps on the ethernet. Does anyone know of any solid options that are cost effective?

Nighthawk, I’ve got a rs700 but the 500 is good too. I wanted the best I could get so I went with a refurb 700. Love it.

Netgear nighthawk. Spend what you can afford for the coverage you need.

Not an expert but sharing my very recent experience. I had an old nighthawk Netgear router from 2018 that started to act up, so I got a newer WiFi 7 router from Netgear (RS90) and it was even worse than the old one. After hours on the phone with tech support they couldn’t do much, so I returned it and went with a TP-Link WiFi 6 mesh (Deco X55 AX3000) and it has been working great.

yeah I stopped buying gaming routers 4 years ago. I was on my 3rd nighthawk - they would no joke die consistently 2-3 months after their warranty expired. 3 of them in a row, like clockwork. I went with a mesh system and I am very pleased with it. it allows me to have solid fast wifi in my detached garage, which wasn't possible with the gaming router. and I have overall way better signal on the other stories of my house. I get close to 1 gig on wifi now. the mesh system, which includes 4 routers, was also cheaper than my nighthawk. never going back tbh