Black Friday Gaming router and networking deals 2021: the best router and networking deals for any budget

Black Friday is a pretty good time to buy a router, one of the least-celebrated and most-ignored pieces of your setup, but also one of the most important. Most of us don’t buy a router until, well, our current one breaks. Do they matter to your gaming experience? To an extent, yeah—when your router isn’t up to snuff, it’s miserable to troubleshoot. A good router will just work, and keep your devices fed with a constant, fast connection to download and play games even under heavy load. If you’ve found yourself with a faulty or flawed router, or genuinely want to upgrade to get better Wi-Fi coverage in your house, now’s a good time to save money on a new one.

One of the most tangible upgrades you can make this year is to Wi-Fi 6, which will funnel a fast internet connection from your ISP to your devices that support it. Wi-Fi 6 increases speeds, giving you a good amount of overhead if your router needs to serve several devices at once. If you’ve held off on upgrading to a Wi-Fi 6 router, want a new, faster router that can handle several devices playing online games, or need a USB wi-fi adapter for your PC, this is the time to look. 

We’ll be on the lookout for routers and other networking solutions for wired connections over the Black Friday deals period. Wi-fi is great and convenient, but having a wired connection to your router is the best option if you have a desktop PC. Devices like powerline adapters and extenders help widen the reach of your internet while maintaining the best connection possible.

Routers fluctuate in price frequently. Last year we saw ASUS, Netgear, and TP-Link routers get their prices cut by as much as half in November. This year the prices haven’t gotten that low yet, but sales are just starting to ramp up. Many routers are available at or just under their normal, discounted prices, but it’s likely we’ll see a few of them drop in price as we get closer to Black Friday.

We’ll be searching around for routers that offer consistently high wireless speeds, several gigabit ethernet ports, a strong CPU for managing several devices, and wide wi-fi coverage. Routers that offer good QoS management to prioritize gaming or streaming are nice too, but these settings don’t matter as much as raw performance.

For other devices like wi-fi extenders and USB wi-fi adapters, they need to be able to take a signal from your router or modem and maintain a constant throughput to your devices. When they work right, networking devices and routers should require zero fuss. 

When will Black Friday router and networking deals start to appear?

We’re already seeing a few deals pop up on Amazon and Best Buy. Amazon in particular has the best deal right now, a $199 TP-Link C5400X.

Where will have the best Black Friday router and networking deals?

Amazon – Black Friday deals on routers and networking devices
Walmart – Deals on routers and networking devices
B&H Photo – Router and networking deals
Best Buy – Routers and networking devices
Target – Deals on routers and extenders
Staples – Routers and other networking accessory deals
Newegg – Black Friday deals on routers and networking devices

What should I look out for in a Black Friday router and networking deal?

Black Friday can be notorious for offering deals that lure you into something you didn’t quite want simply because of the savings. To find the best router and networking deals, you want to start with an idea for what you need to fix or improve your current setup. That way, when you see a deal, you can snatch it up quickly and know it’ll serve a purpose.

For routers, you want to check if it’s Wi-Fi 6 or not. Wi-Fi 6 is the latest wi-fi standard and will generally increase speeds across many newer devices that can make use of it. If you have a fast internet connection, you don’t want that to be diminished with a router running on older technology. While Wi-Fi 5 is still fine for most people, there will likely be a lot of Wi-Fi 6 routers on sale to look out for, and this might be the first chance to grab one at a good price.

If you tend to use a wired connection for your PC and other devices, it’s good to check if the router has plenty of Gigabit ethernet ports. You don’t want to have to fight over who gets the ethernet cable if you’re in a place where several people would want to use it. Most routers include a lot of ports, but it’s still worth double-checking if you buy a mesh router kit, as those tend to be light on ports. Another important consideration with mesh routers is dual-band vs. tri-band: Tri-band mesh routers are more expensive, but they can use the extra band to create a “dedicated backhaul” to communicate between router nodes without sacrificing speed. This can mean much better performance if you aren’t able to plug each mesh node into ethernet.

When it comes to connection speeds, you have to be careful. Router manufacturers will combine the theoretical connection speeds of each of the bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) on a router to come up with a large number. If you dig into the technical specs, you should find the speeds broken down for each band. Keep in mind though that these speeds don’t necessarily represent real-world conditions, but they’re a good ballpark estimate for how fast it’ll be when you get it home.

Check out our Wi-Fi 6 explainer for a breakdown of some other important router features called MU-MIMO and OFDMA, and how they factor into performance.

For Wi-Fi adapters and extenders, you want these to be able to carry and pick up a signal from a good range and maintain fast speeds doing it. They also should have easy-to-use software for setting them up and maintenance.

Black Friday Router deals

Black Friday Powerline adapter deals

Black Friday Extender deals

Tyler has covered games, games culture, and hardware for over a decade before joining PC Gamer as Associate Editor. He’s done in-depth reporting on communities and games as well as criticism for sites like Polygon, Wired, and Waypoint. He’s interested in the weird and the fascinating when it comes to games, spending time probing for stories and talking to the people involved. Tyler loves sinking into games like Final Fantasy 14, Overwatch, and Dark Souls to see what makes them tick and pluck out the parts worth talking about. His goal is to talk about games the way they are: broken, beautiful, and bizarre.