Your game night deserves a better network
Stop letting lag spikes, crowded networks, and dead zones steal the time you actually get to play.
Free shipping · 30-day returns · Works with PC, PlayStation, Xbox & handheld
AS SEEN IN: Tech Radar · PCMag · CNET · WIRED · NY Times
You're having connectivity issues while gaming.
ISP hardware is built for basic coverage not for demanding households with dozens of active devices.
Lag spikes mid-game
Connection feels fine until someone starts streaming or downloading. Then gameplay falls apart.
Weak signal where you play
Your WiFi works great near the router, but you game in a different corner of the house.
Too many devices competing
TVs, phones, tablets, and smart speakers all share bandwidth with your game.
Still using your ISP router
ISP hardware is built for basic coverage — not for demanding households with dozens of active devices.
02 — WHY IT HAPPENSNot all lag is
your router's fault.
A better router won't fix an overloaded game server. But it can eliminate the most common cause of avoidable lag — the congestion happening inside your own home.
1. Game servers
Overloaded servers cause lag regardless of your connection. No router can fix that.
Not your router
2. Your ISP
Peak-hour congestion happens upstream of your home, entirely outside your control.
Not your router
3. Internet routing
Packets travel across many hops to reach the server. That physical distance adds latency.
Not your router
03 — HOW TO FIX ITA well-designed router
handles the demand.
Your network doesn't exist in a vacuum. Everything in your home uses it at once.
RIGHT NOW, IN YOUR HOME:
- Somebody's watching Netflix
- Somebody's on a Zoom call
- Someone's downloading a 100GB game update
- Smart speakers, cameras, thermostats — all connected
- You're trying to play
PROCESSING POWER
Handles full-house demand without slowing down
Every device active at once — the router keeps up instead of becoming the bottleneck.
TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
Keeps game traffic stable while others stream
Smart prioritization means your game isn't competing equally with background streaming.
DEVICE CAPACITY
Built for dozens of connected devices
Modern homes average 20+ devices. Your router needs to handle all of them without degrading.
WHOLE-HOME COVERAGE
Strong signal where you actually play
No dead zones forcing you to game in one room. Coverage that follows where you are.
The right product
for your home.
One for setups close to the router. One for whole-home coverage. Both built for real network demands.
Nighthawk
High performance. More configurability. Solid out of the box.
PERFECT FOR
✓ Apartments and smaller homes
✓ Gaming PCs and Ethernet-first setups
✓ Console gaming close to the router
✓ Upgrading from your ISP router
Orbi
Set it and forget it. Whole-home mesh. Fast dedicated backhaul*.
PERFECT FOR
✓ Medium to large homes, multiple floors
✓ Gaming in rooms far from the router
✓ Shared households with high device counts
✓ Handheld gaming anywhere in the home
ⓘ Both families include multi-gig WAN and LAN ports — so even in a wired-first setup, you're covered for gigabit+ speeds.
Skip the gimmicks.
Buy what works.
The best gaming router isn't a gaming router.
It's a reliable network.
What gamers
actually notice.
"My Xbox Series X gaming console Playstation 5 gaming console and gaming PC all perform unbelievably well both wired and wireless. Wired speeds are that of my ISP subscribed speeds (1GB down / 100MB up). Wireless speeds are phenomenal as well! I won't be going back to my Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000."
BiggShooter.
"As a father of 4 boys who are into gaming — each with their own console, laptop, and other smart devices throughout the home — we definitely should be pushing the boundaries of what our router [can handle], yet our Nighthawk is able to handle it all with ease."
J.V.
"Switched from Google pods to Orbi — immediately noticed a significant performance change. PS5 went from 150 Mbps to over 700 Mbps."
James.
"I recently upgraded my modem and router and now I’m getting faster speeds on WiFi upstairs and across the house than I was when I was right next to my old equipment. I used to have to run a 50ft cable from my old modem to my PS5 to be able to play online games and I would still have issues now and then. Now I’m running off the WiFi from the new router and am no longer having any lag issues. My house is about 2500sqft and this router more than covers the whole house with fast speed, even when I’m in the back yard."
Bryan Gertz.
Questions before
you buy.
A router can't reduce server-side ping. What it can do is eliminate home network congestion which causes the lag spikes, rubber-banding, and packet loss you feel when the household gets busy. That's a real and fixable problem.
Yes! WiFi can be more than good enough for gaming, especially for casual and even many online multiplayer experiences. While a wired Ethernet connection is still considered the gold standard for the lowest possible latency and most stable performance, modern WiFi has come a long way. NETGEAR products are engineered to deliver the speed, low latency, and reliability that gamers need. With advanced technologies designed to reduce interference and maintain strong, consistent connections, you can enjoy smooth gameplay over WiFi in most situations. For highly competitive gaming where every millisecond counts, a wired connection may still offer an edge, but for most players, a high-quality WiFi setup provides an excellent experience.
Nighthawk is a high-performance single router, which is ideal for apartments, smaller homes, or setups where the gaming happens in one main room and an Ethernet run is realistic. Orbi is a mesh system, which is ideal for larger homes, multi-floor or more complex layouts, or households where gaming happens in multiple rooms via WiFi. Regardless of what you choose, either product will be a noticeable improvement from your ISP or outdated hardware. The configurator above will recommend the right fit based on your specific setup.
In nearly every case, yes. ISP routers are built for basic functionality, not to handle dozens of connected devices, low-latency gaming traffic, and modern WiFi standards at the same time. NETGEAR products are purpose-built for high device count households where gaming is one of many things happening at once.
Yes! The router or mesh system prioritizes your game traffic over background traffic like streaming and downloads, so other people in the house can watch 4K, hop on video calls, or run cloud backups without dragging your latency up. This is usually the biggest difference customers notice over an ISP router.
Yes, all three and more. NETGEAR routers automatically detect gaming traffic from consoles and PCs and prioritize it through QoS. The high-speed Ethernet ports work with PS5, Xbox, and any PC, and the WiFi is built for low-latency wireless gaming when wired isn't an option.
Cloud gaming streams the entire game session over your network, not just controls and chat data, so it's more sensitive to congestion and jitter than local console or PC play. A router that manages traffic well keeps that stream stable, especially when the rest of the household is active at the same time.
* It is only available on 970 models. 770 and 870 models have enhanced backhaul. All other Orbi models do not have upgraded backhaul systems.