Netgear Nighthawk RS700S review: A high-performance router for next-gen gaming – Is Wi-Fi 7 worth it yet?
The Netgear Nighthawk RS700S is a high-end Wi-Fi 7 router designed for gamers, streamers, and high-bandwidth households. It’s designed to remove any existing connectivity issues you have and blast them out of sight.
With cutting-edge wireless technology, a sleek design, and well-thought out, robust features, it aims to deliver exceptional performance for modern gaming setups. But does it justify its punchy, premium price? We got one out of the box to have a look.
Design and build qualityThe RS700S follows Netgear’s signature aggressive styling, with a futuristic yet minimalist approach. The vertical, tower-like chassis improves both heat dissipation and antenna placement, ensuring optimal signal coverage.
The build quality is nice and solid, and the device maintains a relatively small footprint compared to other gaming routers in its class.I like the fact everything is enclosed in the single box, much the same as the Orbi 970 mesh system we recently reviewed. I have never really been one for looking at 12 aerials all jabbing out in different directions. This is something that can live on a shelf in my lounge, so it needs to not look ridiculous.
Equipped with Wi-Fi 7 support, the RS700S offers speeds up to 19Gbps, leveraging 320MHz channels for significantly increased throughput. It supports the latest wireless standards, including Multi-Link Operation (MLO) and 4K QAM, reducing latency and improving stability in congested networks. The inclusion of a 10Gbps WAN/LAN port and four 1Gbps Ethernet ports makes it an excellent choice if you have ethernet snaking around your house.
My PC upstairs is wired and that needs a new upgrade so in my future I see Cat 7 being hidden under the carpet on the stairs, but I will need to wait for my wife to go out before that happens.
Performance and experienceLet’s face it, this is what you are really interested in when it comes to splashing this much money on your home network. Will it drop your latency for gaming and rid you once and for all of the buffering wheel of doom? Spoiler alert. Yes, yes it will. And then some.
The Wi-Fi and streaming capabilities managed to do a great job, even at the end of my garden and speeds on modern mobile devices when in the same room as the RS700 were mind-blowingly exceptional. There was no noticeable lag on games such as EA FC25 or Call of Duty – everything just worked, and that’s all I ever want.
The router also includes QoS (Quality of Service) prioritization tailored for gaming, ensuring that latency-sensitive applications receive priority over other network traffic. Its integration with Netgear’s Nighthawk app allows for easy management, although, again similar to the Orbi Mesh system, to get really down and dirty in the settings you will need to access them via a browser, as the app’s functionality doesn’t let you get completely under the hood, which is a shame.
Specifications Wireless standard Wi-Fi 7 Max speeds 1.4Gbps (2.4GHz), 5.8Gbps (5GHz), 11.5Gbps (6GHz) Ethernet ports 1x 10Gbps, 4x 1Gbps WAN 10Gbps Processor Quad-core 2.6GHz RAM 2GB USB 1x USB 3.0 Type-A Dimensions 281x124x142mm Weight 1.64kg Price £699 Software and securityNetgear’s software suite provides robust security features, including WPA3 encryption, VPN support, and Netgear Armor (a subscription-based cybersecurity service powered by Bitdefender). The parental controls are comprehensive, allowing users to set device-specific restrictions and monitoring.
In this day and age, this is a huge deal. Most people will still ignore it, but you really shouldn’t and should take a little time to get your head around how this all works, for everybody in the house’s sake. There are a lot of bad people out there and you need to keep them away from your network.
The Netgear Nighthawk RS700S is a powerhouse piece of kit for serious gamers and high-demand users looking for future-proof networking. Its Wi-Fi 7 capabilities, multi-gig wired connections, and gaming-optimized features make it one of the best choices in its category. However, the premium price and subscription-based security services may not appeal to everyone out there.
If you’re looking for top-tier wireless performance with gaming in mind, the RS700S is an excellent investment and you should see it as such. To get the true Wi-Fi 7 house of your dreams will likely take some time. You won’t have all the components just yet, but as you add more and more capable devices into your home over time, the RS700S will really start to come into its own going forward.
Getting on board the Wi-Fi 7 bandwagon right now is bloody expensive and Netgear’s products live in the top end of that. You could kit your house out with a more than capable Wi-Fi 6 system for much, much less, of course you could. But you could also buy an RTX 3090 for your PC, but being gamers, we don’t do that.
If you want the best in class for gaming routers, here it is.
Pros:- Futureproof Wi-Fi 7 technology
- Ideal for maximizing gaming connections
- 10Gbps WAN/LAN and multiple 2.5Gbps ports
- Strong security and customization options
- High price point
- Some features locked behind subscription services
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