TP-Link’s Archer GE800 Wi-Fi 7 router has a dedicated gaming port — here’s how it works

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

TP-Link has unveiled its first gaming router with Wi-Fi 7 at CES 2024 and besides lighting-fast speeds, the Archer GE800 packs in a really handy feature to ensure your gaming PC or laptop will always have the bandwidth it needs.

Last year at CES, the company showed off its first mesh router with Wi-Fi 7 and in our TP-Link Deco BE85 review, we were really impressed by how the latest wireless standard works in a mesh configuration. In fact, the Deco BE85 along with the Archer BE800 both earned a spot on our list of the best Wi-Fi 7 routers so far.

Now though, TP-Link is ready to give the best gaming routers a big speed and performance boost by adding Wi-Fi 7. The Archer GE800 is flat in the middle with two panels on either side. In addition to housing four antennas each, these panels also have customizable RGB lighting — because this is a gaming router after all.

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In between these two panels, there are several buttons that allow you to control the router’s RGB lighting and switch between different modes depending on whether you’re gaming, transferring files, streaming content online or hopping on a video call for work.

A picture showing the ports on the back of the TP-Link Archer GE800 — (Image credit: TP-Link/Tom's Guide)

At the back of the Archer GE800, there are plenty of ports for connecting all of your devices and to top it all off, these are all multi-gig ports. You get four 2.5 gigabit per second (Gbps) Ethernet ports, two 10 Gbps ones and a USB 3.0 port for sending data on a flash drive or a hard drive across your home network.

If you look closely though, you’ll notice that the 2.5G port on the top right of the Archer GE800 is labeled as a “Gaming Port”. When I spoke with TP-Link at CES while going hands-on with the device, a company spokesperson explained that if you plug one of the best gaming laptops or gaming PCs into this port, the router will automatically prioritize their traffic. This way, you can focus on the game you’re playing instead of fighting with other devices on your home network for bandwidth.

I could see this really coming in handy for gamers in large households with lots of devices that don’t want to experience lag when someone else in their house fires up Netflix or jumps on a video call.

Although we don’t yet have pricing details for the Archer GE800, TP-Link will release its first gaming router with Wi-Fi 7 later this year.

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Anthony Spadafora is the managing editor for security and home office furniture at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches to password managers and the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. He also reviews standing desks, office chairs and other home office accessories with a penchant for building desk setups. Before joining the team, Anthony wrote for ITProPortal while living in Korea and later for TechRadar Pro after moving back to the US. Based in Houston, Texas, when he’s not writing Anthony can be found tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.