Wi-Fi 6 vs Wi-Fi 7: what the numbers actually mean

Router model names are built from the standard, then the combined theoretical throughput of every band added together. AX6000 is a Wi-Fi 6 router whose bands total roughly 6000 Mbps; BE3600 is a Wi-Fi 7 router totalling roughly 3600 Mbps. The larger number is not the faster router for one device — no single client ever receives the sum of all bands.

Wi-Fi 7 adds three things worth caring about. Channels can be twice as wide (320 MHz), which raises peak throughput where the spectrum is clear. Multi-Link Operation lets a client use two bands at once rather than picking one, which cuts latency and makes a connection far more tolerant of interference. And 4096-QAM squeezes more data into the same signal, though only at short range with a strong signal.

In a dense HDB block or a shared office floor, the 320 MHz channels are frequently unusable because there is no clear spectrum to put them in. Multi-Link Operation is the feature that still helps, because interference is the actual problem in those environments rather than raw bandwidth.

The wired side matters more than most buyers expect. A 2.5 GbE WAN port is what lets a router pass a connection faster than 1 Gbps at all, and 2.5 GbE LAN ports are what let a NAS or a workstation exceed gigabit internally. A Wi-Fi 7 router with only gigabit ports will cap a fast connection at the wire, whatever the wireless is capable of.

Tri-band means a second 5 GHz radio or, on Wi-Fi 7, a 6 GHz one. Its practical use is dedicating a band to backhaul in a mesh set, so the link between nodes does not compete with the clients using them. For a single-router flat it is usually the least important of the three factors here.