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If you’re looking for a Netgear Wi-Fi 6E router and feel the RAXE500 is not worth the cost—and you’re probably right—the Nighthawk RAXE300 8-Stream AXE7800 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6E router is welcome news.
As the name suggests, specs-wise, the RAXE300 is a lesser version of the RAXE500 with a total bandwidth of 7800Mbps compared to the 11000Mbps. In return, it costs $200 less.
In reality, in my opinion, the RAXE300 is a much better router in terms of hardware design—despite the similar look—and performance. But at the core, it has a lot in common with its older cousin.
This brief review, written mainly as a RAXE300 vs. RAXE500 matchup, will focus on the differences between the two. Before continuing, you might want to check out my in-depth review of the RAXE500. But the RAXE300 is a better alternative to the previous model to cut to the chase.
Dong’s note: I first published this post on January 3, 2022, as a news piece when Netgear first announced the router and updated it on July 12, 2022, as a review after thorough hands-on testing. The router became available for purchase on July 1 of the same year.
Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 vs. RAXE500: Half of the 6GHz goodness, but (almost) double the value
As part of the Nighthawk family, the Netgear RAXE300 and RAXE500 have a lot in common. If you have used a Netgear router or any router with a web user interface, you’ll be able to work with either without issues.
Let’s go quickly over their similarities.
Nighthawk RAXE300 vs. RAXE500: Similarities
Both are massive Wi-Fi broadcasters with a cool-looking futuristic design with two large collapsible wings that house the antennas. On the inside, they are both Wi-Fi 6E routers, among a few from Netgear that support this new standard.
Since early 2021, disappointingly, Netgear has been removing features from the web interface to coerce users into the mobile app. Still, you can do a lot with these two in building a local network. Here are some bullet points of what you’ll find in both routers
- Standard setup process: You can set up the router the way you do any other with a standard web interface by visiting its default IP, which is 192.168.1.1, from a connected computer, and the rest is self-explanatory. (Alternatively, you can also use the mobile app for this.)
- Common network settings: There’s a standard set of network settings and features, including DHCP, Dynamic DNS, port forwarding, VPN, and so on.
- Limited Wi-Fi settings: You can only set each band to work at “up to” a specific speed grade, which is somewhat redundant since there’s no reason why you don’t want to pick the highest number. And in any case, the router would still pick compatibility over Wi-Fi performance.
- Generic QoS: There’s a QoS feature that you can turn on or off. Once turned on, it works based on a database. There’s no way to know what it does and how well.
- ReadyShare-ready: You can use the router’s USB port to host a storage device. In this case, there are different ways to share the storage across the local network or the Internet. Or you can turn the router into a DLNA Media Server for local streamers.
- Minimal Multi-Gig support: The router has just a single 2.5Gbps port that can work as a LAN (default) or a WAN (*). Consequently, there’s no way to get an actual Multi-Gig connection speed out of the router. But you can use this post to host a fast NAS server for a super-fast Internet connection to divide the bandwidth between connected clients.
- Nighthawk mobile app: Apart from the web interface, you can opt for the Netgear Nighthawk mobile app, which is convenient to use but will require a login account—it can be a privacy concern.
- Add-on subscriptions: There are no built-in online protection or Parental Controls, but mobile app users can opt for Netgear Armor and other add-ons via yearly subscriptions.
(*) The router has a 1Gbps default WAN port. When the 2.5Gbps port is used as the WAN port—you can switch that via the router’s web user interface—the default WAN port will work as a LAN port.
And that brings us to the differences between these two. But first, let’s check out their hardware specs.
Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 vs. RAXE500: Hardware specifications
| Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 8-Stream AXE7800 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6E Router | Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500 12-Stream AXE11000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6E Router | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | RAXE300 | RAXE500 |
| Wi-Fi Technology | Tri-Band AXE7800 | Tri-Band AXE11000 |
| First Band | 2.4GHz 2×2 Wi-Fi 6 Up to 574Mbps (20/40MHz) | 2.4GHz 4×4 Wi-Fi 6 Up to 1148Mbps (20/40MHz) |
| Second Band | 5GHz 4×4 Wi-Fi 6 Up to 4804Mbps (20/40/80/160MHz) | |
| Third Band | 6GHz 2×2 Wi-Fi 6E Up to 2402Mbps (20/40/80/160MHz) | 6GHz 4×4 Wi-Fi 6E Up to 4804Mbps (20/40/80/160MHz) |
| Backward Compatibility | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac | |
| Wi-Fi 6E (6GHz) Support | Yes | |
| AP Mode | Yes | |
| Mesh-ready | No | |
| Number of 160MHz Channels | 7x on one 6GHz band 2x on one 5GHz band | |
| Gigabit Network Port | 4x LAN, 1x WAN/WAN | |
| Multi-Gig Network Port | 1x 2.5Gbps LAN/WAN | |
| LAN Link Aggregation | Yes (LAN3 and LAN4) | |
| WAN Link Aggregation | No | Yes (WAN + LAN1) |
| Dual-WAN | No | Yes (WAN+LAN1/2.5Gbps) |
| USB | 1x USB 3.0 (USB-C) | 2x USB 3.0 (USB-A) |
| Mobile App | Netgear Nighthawk | |
| Processing Power | 1.7GHz quad-core CPU, 256MB Flash, 512MB RAM | 1.8GHz 64-bit CPU 512MB Flash, 1GB RAM |
| Dimensions | 11.86 x 8.16 x 3.23 in (30.13 x 20.79 x 8.2 cm) | 11.7 x 8.3 x 3.07 in (29.8 x 21.1 x 7.8 cm) |
| Weight | 2.23 lb (1.01kg) | 3.2 lb (1.45 kg) |
| Firmware Version (at review) | 1.0.4.52_1 | 1.0.2.56_2.0.34 |
| Power Input | 100-120V | 100-240V |
| Power Consumption (per 24 hours) | ≈ 200 Wh | not measured |
| Release Date | January 2022 | January 2021 |
| Price (at launch) | $399.99 | $599.99 |
Nighthawk RAXE300 vs. RAXE500: The differences
The most significant difference between the RAXE300 vs. the RAXE500 is the fact the new router features 2×2 hardware specs on the latest 6GHz band and therefore has only half the capacity—2400Mbps (2.4Gbps) instead of 4800Mbps (4.8Gbps).
However, in real-world usage, we only have 2×2 clients, such as the Intel AX210 chip, so you might not see huge differences since the client can only connect at 2.4Gbps. But in real-world testing, this spec put the new router at some disadvantages—more in the performance section below.
Other than that, here are a few noticeable differences between these two:
- Fanless vs. fan: The RAXE300, with lesser hardware specs, is slightly larger yet lighter than its older cousin. That’s because it now has a more airy chassis with better ventilation. With that, Netgear manages to do away with the internal fan, which is always good.
- The new Wi-Fi on/off and WPS hardware buttons: The RAXE300 comes with two hardware buttons on its front. One is a Wi-Fi on/off switch, and the other is for WPS. Both are toggle buttons and are not a good idea since you accidentally press on them. While you need to hold the Wi-Fi button for two seconds to turn the router’s wireless bands on or off, it’s very easy to turn off Wi-Fi by accident in my trial.
- USB-C vs. USB-A: The RAXE300 comes with a single USB 3.0 port using the now-standard USB-C form. The RAX500, on the other hand, has two USB 3.0 ports using the old USB-A.
- Remote Management: Since late 2020, Netgear has been quietly removing Remote Management (and some other features), even retrospectively, from its routers to force users into the mobile app. (The RAXE500 originally came with this feature, and if you’ve been using it, you’ll still have it.) The RAXE300, on the other hand, is the first Nighthawk router I know that comes without this feature, and you can never manage it remotely via Dynamic DNS.
- Power adapter: The RAXE300—the US model I have—uses a 100-120V (instead of a 100-240V) power adapter. This means you won’t be able to plug it in everywhere in the world. While this is unusual, it’s not a huge deal since generally, you should only use Wi-Fi broadcasters made for a specific region anyway.
Netgear RAXE300 (vs. RAXE500): Detail photos
Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300: Mostly excellent performance
Unlike the RAXE500, one of the first Wi-Fi 6E routers, the RAXE300 is the 10th router of the new standard I’ve tested. That said, it no longer enjoys the “wow” factor.
Still, the route did very well in my week-long testing. Despite the lesser hardware specs, it felt like it was a better performance than its predecessor. Note, though, that I tested it with the latest firmware, which likely included improvements likely weren’t available to the RAXE500 when I reviewed it.
Fast Wi-Fi performance, excellent range, and reliability
The Nighthawk RAXE300’s Wi-Fi throughputs were among the fastest I’ve seen, especially on the 5GHz, where it has top specs.
5GHz AC: Via a 4×4 client at the close range and a 3×3 client at the long range.
The router did well on the 6GHz band, too, though, as expected, it was noticeably slower than higher-tier peers.
The Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 had an excellent range during my trial. It’s always hard to gauge this, but its coverage proved to be as good as any high-end router. If you have a home of some 2000 ft2 (186 m2), it can reach every corner when placed in the middle.
It’s important to note that this is the router’s collective range. Its 6GHz has the same range as any other Wi-Fi 6E router: short. Don’t expect to get a meaningful 6GHz connection out of it from farther than 60 feet away within a line of sight. If there’s a wall, this range will be even much shorter.
The router passed my 3-day stress test with no issue. We experienced no disconnection from it.
In terms of Internet speed via Wi-Fi, I generally could get around 1.2Gbps from the router when it hosted a 10Gbps Fiber-optic line using its 2.5Gbps port.
So overall, considering the cost, the RAXE300 was impressive in Wi-Fi performance compared to the more expensive RAXE500. It’s a much better deal on this front.
USB 2.0-like NAS performance (when hosting a portable SSD)
The new router proved to be clearly behind the older model in its network-attached storage performance when hosting a storage device via its USB-C port.
I tried it with several external drives (from this best portable SSDs list) and generally didn’t experience USB 3.0 speeds. It stuck at the max sustained rates of USB 2.0.
And that was the case whether I used a 1Gbps or 2.5Gbs wired connection for the testing. Sometimes, the router did peak at USB 3.0-like speeds, but its performance fluctuated so much during my standard test, which involves a large copy job, that in the end, the number ended up terrible.
Hopefully, a new firmware update will improve this but, for now, while using the RAXE300 for light network storage needs is OK, a real NAS server is in order if you want more.
Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300's Rating
Pros
Wi-Fi 6E-ready with excellent performance
Flexible 2.5Gbps LAN/WAN port, USB-C
Robust web interface, helpful (optional) mobile app
Cool fanless, wall-mountable design
Cons
Middling 6GHz specs, no standard Remote Management via Dynamic DNS
No 10Gbps port, only one 2.5Gbps port; not-well-thought-out Wi-Fi on/off button
Limited Wi-Fi settings and online protection/Parental Controls require a mobile app and subscription
Mediocre NAS performance when hosting a portable SSD; 100-120V power adapter
Conclusion
The Nighthawk RAXE300 is a sensible tri-band Wi-Fi 6E router from Netgear.
Considering the neutered firmware that no longer has Remote Management, I’d unlikely ever use it for myself. But overall, this new router is a much better deal compared to the RAXE500, which costs 50 percent more.
That said, if you want to remain within Netgear’s ecosystem, it’s safe to get the Nighthawk RAXE300 today. For possibly even better deals that might fit your needs better, check out other Wi-Fi 6E options.
Hello and good evening, I am so happy I ran across this page. I love reading all of the reviews and helpful tips. I have a nighthawk raxe300 like the one in this review. I have been mainly happy with it but have noticed strange speed test results from it when using the speed test app by ookla on my new galaxy s23 ultra phone. When using wither 5ghz or 6ghz, the test seems to surge and slow, like it will go up to 930 Meg, but then suddenly drop to 500 Meg a few seconds in, then it’ll go back to 930 again which is top speed on my gig connection. Now, here is the weird part, when using the speed test on this site or any browser based speed test sites I consistently get my full speed of 930meg. Has anyone else seen this before? It happens no matter what server I choose, I can choose the exact same server on a browser based test and get full speed, while the app will surge and slow like I explained. Thank you, was wondering if it had something to do with how the app tests the speed vs browser. I also have no qos enabled and have ofdma and beamforming enabled.
It’s the ads on the apps, Michael. My customized test doesn’t include ad delivery from the server itself. (The ads on the page are loaded before the test.)
Hello again Dong. I have had this router for a few months now. Had it with my cable 1 gig service at first and just used the cable modem in bridge mode with the router connected to that modem and it worked perfectly. I had a question, I just had fiber internet installed last week and so far have been unable to get the Netgear to connect and receive consistent internet from the ONT. The installer for the fiber service installed their own modem and told me that I could still use the netgear with the service but I would have to set vlan tagging to tag 201. I was thinking no problem and got into the nighthawk to add this vlan tag. I added the vlan tag but noticed when adding the tag the netgear did not allow me to select the WAN ports for vlan tagging, only the LAN ports. I cannot get this router to connect to my fiber ONT as it looks like the netgear doesn’t support vlan wan tagging that I need.
Am I just way off here and missing something? Or does it appear this router will not work with plugging it directly into the ont? The area I am in does not use PPoE for fiber so I am not needing my login info from the isp, just need to get the vlan tagging figured out. Is there any type of third party firmware that is compatible with this router that would enable this to work? I am just at a loss right now trying to figure this out, I could plug the router into the fiber router I was given, but the provided one doesn’t have very good bridge support and I would rather eliminate the isp provided router. Let me know if you have any tips, this router was great and it would be a shame not to be able to use it with fiber.
That router should work, Michael, but I can’t say for sure since I don’t use the service you use. In any case, most, if not all of Asus routers, especially those support Merlin, will likely work.
I installed a RAXE300 one month ago. I have 1Gig Down/Up Frontier Fiber. My Speedtest.net results using the app on a wired Windows 11 desktop were always 940 Mbps down and up with my prior Netgear R7800 router. With the RAXE300, however, I am seeing inconsistent upload speeds; 20% to 40% of my tests to the Frontier Speedtest.net site 150 miles away are below 500 Mbps, with many of the results around 135 Mbps. Like you, I don’t see this problem when using browser based tests.
I have the one-year free Netgear Armor running on the RAXE300. I am going to disable Armor and see if it is responsible.
More on testing in this post, Pierce.
Thanks for the link, excellent advice.
In this case, Netgear Armor is responsible for the inconsistent upload speeds using the Speedtest.net app I have experienced on the RAXE300. After disabling Armor on the RAXE300, all of my Speedtest.net app results for the last 24 hours have consistently been 940 Mbps up and down to a Frontier server 150 miles away.
Both the browser and the Speedtest.net app are using four TCP/IP connections with a large TCP window size. There must be a difference in the way Armor deals with web traffic vs other TCP connections?
In retrospect, I am not surprised that there is a performance limitation in Armor uplink performance given that symmetric Gigabit and higher links are only recently becoming commonplace.
Dong, with every router company providing some type of network security addition, it would be useful for you to include a test to see if this firmware affects router performance.
You can’t have someting scrutinizing the traffic wihtout slowing it down, Pierce. Think TSA. It’s pointless to “test” that since you can’t consistently have the same traffic.
Hey Dong,
Just wondering if you know what chip is in the RAXE300 and the RAXE500? Also do they use Broadcom or Qualcomm chips.
Thanks!
The RAXE500 uses a Broadcom chip. I’m not sure about the RAXE300, but considering its general specs, it likely also runs on a Broadcom chip.
I’m really in doubt if I should buy this one or RAX200 (right now there’s a promo about the later). What’s your take about it? Thanks
Keep doubting, Ezequiel. I’d recommend the Asus RT-AXE7800.
Sadly any Asus are way out of my budget and my choices are somewhat limited in Canada. So back to those two what would it be your take ?
Read the review, Ezequiel. It’s my take on the question.
Hi Dong,
wanted to clarify something. you saod ylu cant get multi gig from this router. If you use the 2.5g port Wan, and connect to a multigig switch via aggregation, do you now have a multi gig network? Apologies, I am not the brightest…
No, Garrick. More on Link Aggregation in this post, but generally that’s the difference between bandwidth and speed.
Thanks for this review, which found via Google. I subscribe to your website but this article is not in your RSS feed.
Welcome aboard!
That’s because it was posted a while ago. I believe the feed only contains recent posts.
Your feed goes way back on the Show All setting. I can see your initial RAXE 300 coverage from January. Happy to send you a screenshot though you should be able to see the omission yourself in any reader app.
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t use and feed reader app and don’t know how that works. Maybe it skips the updated date of a post and uses the original date as the trigger.
Hello Dong,
Nice write up. I have a dilemma. I only have an 800 ft apartment. Like a square area with 2 bedrooms on one side and kitchen and living room on the other side with no obstructing walls between them. My router (Netgear RAX70) is in the middle of my living room. I have no problems with wifi, except for the backyard outside my kitchen window.
I plan to run a cat 6a cable from my router to the kitchen window so I can get back yard coverage. I’ve already tested moving the router to the kitchen Window and it gives me great coverage in the back yard. The inwall run will be around 35-40 ft of cat 6a cable.
From reading your post I’ve come to 2 ideas.
1) By this Router (Netgear RAX 300), put it in the central living room location and move my RAX 70 to the kitchen window as an wifi acess point using wired backhaul. Do I need to turn off the RAX 300 wifi so they don’t overlap? I read from one of your post that I should be able use the same sid for both router (RAX 300) and wifi access point (RAX 70). It would behave like a mesh system?
2) Get 2 mesh router&wifi access point and use the wire backhaul. Do I need to turn off the main routers wifi?
Regards,
Peter
1. Not necessarily, you can just make each of them use a different channel — more in the AP part of this post on mesh systems.
2. No, since it’s a system, that should be taken care of automatically. As mentioned in another part of the post linked above.
Only because I do this as part of my job…. Technically, you should not be able to use the 6 GHz band of Wi-Fi outdoors… The FCC recently approved the use of Standard Power, or Phase 2 devices that can be used outdoors, but it enforces a lot of interference recognition and mitigation from the AP. A Low Power Indoor AP (regular consumer 6E AP) does not have the same constraints… Technically, the AP would have no way of knowing if you are outdoors, but just so you know….
I’m I the only one tired of high end routers only having 4 ports on the back? With all the Dongles & Hubs modern routers should have at least 8 ports
You’re not alone, Duell. There are a few of them that have more ports, though, like the Asus RT-AX88U or TP-Link AX11000.