Tom's Hardware Verdict
It’s hard to argue with the Archer BE9700’s strong 6 GHz performance at around $220.
Pros
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Street price of around $220
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Class-leading 6 GHz performance
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10 Gbps WAN/LAN port and four 2.5 Gbps LAN ports
Cons
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5 GHz and 2.5 GHz performance is mid-pack at best
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If you have yet to hop on the Wi-Fi 7 bandwagon, now is a great time to start surveying the wealth of options currently available. The first round of Wi-Fi 7 routers was primarily reserved for premium flagship mesh products, with prices that could easily exceed the $1,000 threshold. Since that time, we've seen much cheaper options hit the market, including $100 dual-band offering from TP-Link, which ranks among the best Wi-Fi routers on the market.
TP-Link is once again emphasizing the value angle with its new Archer BE9700, a true tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router that offers compelling performance and a wealth of features. Best of all, it carries an affordable price tag of just $219.
Design of the TP-Link Archer BE9700
If you’re thinking that the design of the Archer BE9700 looks familiar, you’re not alone. Its design closely resembles the dual-band Archer BE3600 that I reviewed late last year. However, instead of just four movable antennas, the Archer BE9700 has six. The router is constructed entirely of plastic, which is primarily finished in flat black. However, the outer edges of the router are gloss black. It's a low-profile design, but it'll be hard to ignore the six large antennas sprouting from the back — mesh routers with their internal antenna designs tend to better blend into their environment.
The top of the router features a relatively small TP-Link logo finished in white, along with a row of status LEDs (Power, Wi-Fi, LAN, Internet, etc.). The top is also dotted with ventilation holes to keep the router cool during 24-7-365 operation. If you flip the router over, you'll notice even more ventilation holes and cutouts to mount the BE9700 on a wall.
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However, the real action takes place at the back of the router, where you’ll find a plethora of ports. Unlike the Archer BE3600, which featured four 1 Gbps LAN ports, the Archer BE9700 upgrades all those ports to 2.5 Gbps speeds. Additionally, the WAN port receives a boost from 2.5 Gbps to 10 Gbps. Other items of note out back include a Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button, a pinhole reset button, and an on/off button. Finally, there’s one USB 3.0 port located on the side of the BE9700. I would prefer for the USB port to be at the rear of the unit, but it’s already pretty crowded there.
TP-Link Archer BE9700 Wi-Fi 7 Router Specifications
Wi-Fi Standard |
Wi-Fi 7 |
Wi-Fi Bands |
2.4-GHz: 4x4 (Tx/Rx) up to 1,032 Mbps |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | 5-GHz: 2x2 (Tx/Rx) up to 2,882 Mbps 6-GHz: 2x2 (Tx/Rx) up to 5,765 Mbps |
CPU |
Not disclosed |
Memory |
Not disclosed |
Ports |
1 x 10 Gbps for WAN, 4 x 2.5 Gbps for LAN, 1 x USB 3.0 |
Setting up the TP-Link Archer BE9700
Although it’s easy to configure the BE9700 using TP-Link’s excellent Deco app, I decided to use the traditional desktop browser method for setup. The process was simple enough, as I connected to the 6 GHz SSID using the password on the bottom of the device. Once connected to the router, I typed http://tplinkwifi.net into the browser address bar to get started.
I needed to enter my time zone and select which WAN port I wanted to use for the internet. Since my internet connection tops out at around 700 Mbps, I opted to connect to the 2.5 Gbps WAN port. I clicked through settings for connection type (Auto Detect, Dynamic IP), and was presented with the wireless Smart Connect feature, which was enabled by default.
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With Smart Connect, the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands are combined under a single SSID, in this case, TP-Link_7DAD. The 6 GHz gets its own SSID, TP-Link_7DAD_6G. However, I chose to simplify wireless testing by disabling Smart Connect and assigning each band a unique SSID: TP-Link_7DAD (2.4 GHz), TP-Link_7DAD_5G (5 GHz), and TP-Link_7DAD_6G (6 GHz).
The setup program then performed an internet speed connection test and allowed me to enable Auto Update for firmware and set a schedule for those updates. The last step was to log in with (or create) a TP-Link ID, but I skipped this step. The whole process took around five minutes from start to finish.
TP-Link Archer BE9700 Software
The desktop browser interface on the BE9700 is largely identical to the one on the BE3600 that I reviewed last year. As a result, you'll find the same five navigation tabs at the top of the page: Network Map, Internet, Wireless, HomeShield, and Advanced.
Network Map gives you a quick rundown of internet connection status, connected clients, and router uptime (among other things). Internet allows you to choose whether you want to designate the 10 Gbps or 2.5 Gbps WAN port for your ISP, specify your connection type, and configure a MAC address for your router.
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Wireless is where you can turn Smart Connect on or off, as well as change the SSID and password for each of the three network bands. You can also enable Multi-Link Operation (MLO), IoT, and guest networks from this tab. HomeShield scans your network for vulnerabilities and offers a limited set of parental controls, and you can also set up a VPN server. You can also enable EasyMesh support to use the BE9700 as a wireless node in a mesh network with other supported routers
Finally, another notable feature is support for Time Machine backups using the USB 3.0 port. Once the Time Machine feature is enabled, you can connect a USB hard drive to the USB 3.0 port, which is then seen by macOS machines as a compatible Time Machine backup destination.
TP-Link Archer BE9700 Performance
I tested the BE9700 using our purpose-built testing rig, which features an MSI Pro B650M-A Wi-Fi motherboard, AMD Ryzen 5 7600 processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, an MSI Herald-BE Wi-Fi 7 adapter (Qualcomm NCM865), and Windows 11 Home. Windows 11 has all the latest software updates installed, while the Herald-BE runs the latest drivers available from MSI’s support website.
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I’ll preface the benchmark results with the caveat that wireless performance will greatly depend on the layout of your home, apartment, or office. Home construction, wall thickness, the choice of materials in the flooring, and even the number of walls between the router and clients can affect performance. So while the results that I present are consistent, given that the testing locations and methodology that I use in my home don’t change, the results that I present aren’t guaranteed to align precisely with what you might see in your environment.
With that said, our iPerf3 throughput tests are conducted at distances of 6 feet and 25 feet, with and without network traffic. In the congested traffic tests, we add six wireless clients streaming 4K YouTube videos across all bands.
Among the group of Wi-Fi 7 routers assembled here, only the BE9700 and the Nighthawk RS600 are tri-band. The BE9700 jumped out to a commanding lead, hitting 2,507 Mbps at six feet and 1,203 Mbps at 25 feet with no traffic on the network. The Nighthawk RS600 was well behind, delivering 1,790 Mbps at six feet and 956 Mbps at 25 feet.
Moving to the 5 GHz band, the BE9700 underperformed relative to the Asus RT-BE86U and the Nighthawk RS600. While the BE9700 was able to break the 1,000 Mbps threshold at a distance of six feet, the lower-priced BE3600 managed 1,121 Mbps. The Nighthawk RS600 led the field at six feet at 1,610 Mbps. Moving out to 25 feet, both the BE9700 and BE3600 underperformed, delivering less than 500 Mbps, while the RT-BE86U led the field with 806 Mbps.
It is worth noting that none of the routers could match the 214 Mbps that the BE3600 delivered at a distance of six feet, although the BE9700 came in second place with 116 Mbps. At 25 feet, the BE9700 took the slight lead over the rest of the field with 54 Mbps.
Switching gears to our congested tests, the BE9700 again put up a respectable number given its price tag. I saw 2,187 Mbps at six feet and 1,157 Mbps at 25 feet on the 6 GHz band with congested traffic. The Nighthawk RS600 could only muster 1,650 Mbps and 732 Mbps, respectively.
The Nighthawk RS600 clobbered the BE9700 on the 5 GHz band at six feet, hitting 1,610 Mbps, more than double that of the BE9700 (803 Mbps). Moving to 25 feet, the Nighthawk RS600 still held an advantage, but the margin was closer (483 Mbps versus 436 Mbps).
For our final test, I examined 2.4 GHz congested performance at six feet and 25 feet. Performance here was a mixed bag. The BE3600 again took off with a commanding lead, hitting 205 Mbps. The BE9700 settled for third place with 80 Mbps behind the second-place RT-BE86U (92 Mbps). At 25 feet, the BE9700 again settled for third place.
Bottom Line
The TP-Link Archer BE9700 is a rather intriguing entry in the Wi-Fi 7 router market. It’s one of the cheapest tri-band solutions available, with an MSRP of $249.99. However, street pricing at Amazon is currently running around $220. If you need a tri-band router, the BE9700 delivers the best 6 GHz performance at the lowest price, hitting upwards of 2.5 Gbps at close range.
Things aren’t as clear-cut on the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands. Here, the BE9700 often found itself in a losing battle against the BE3600 dual-band Wi-Fi 7 router, which is priced at just $99. This performance difference was even more pronounced on the 2.4 GHz band, where the BE3600 more than doubled the performance of the BE9700.
With that said, the BE9700 represents a real value play in the market, as its closest competitor, the Netgear Nighthawk RS600, has a street price of $500. If you’re in a household that more heavily skews toward 6 GHz devices for demanding tasks (i.e., PCs, tablets, smartphones, etc.), it’s hard to say no to the value that the BE9700 offers.
Performance is still respectable for devices that operate on the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands, but you just won’t get the class-leading performance that you see on the 6 GHz band. With a street price of just over $200, I think that’s a fair tradeoff with the current state of Wi-Fi 7 routers.
Brandon Hill is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware. He has written about PC and Mac tech since the late 1990s with bylines at AnandTech, DailyTech, and Hot Hardware. When he is not consuming copious amounts of tech news, he can be found enjoying the NC mountains or the beach with his wife and two sons.
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wakuwaku ReplyAlthough it’s easy to configure the BE9700 using TP-Link’s excellent Deco app, I decided to use the traditional desktop browser method for setup.
I guarantee the real reason why you did this is because the Deco app did not work, not because you suddenly feel like putting in effort to use the good old browser based configuration.
Do you know how I know this?
Because you are a failure of a reviewer for not bothering reading the manual or the device webpage before doing a "review"
If you did, you would know that the Deco app is for TP-Link's Deco product line only, while the rest of their routers use the TP-Link Tether app.
Here's a link:
https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-be9700/ -
razor512 Reply
One issue with the apps from pretty much all router makers, is that the apps often lack the same set of functions.wakuwaku said:I guarantee the real reason why you did this is because the Deco app did not work, not because you suddenly feel like putting in effort to use the good old browser based configuration.
Do you know how I know this?
Because you are a failure of a reviewer for not bothering reading the manual or the device webpage before doing a "review"
If you did, you would know that the Deco app is for TP-Link's Deco product line only, while the rest of their routers use the TP-Link Tether app.
Here's a link:
https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-be9700/
For example, if you want to prevent some devices on your network from being able to access anything from the WAN beyond the NTP time service, you will end up in the web UI setting up those restrictions.
Often the apps only have the most basic settings.
For me, I don't see much purpose in those apps unless they are willing to bring over all of the features of the web UI.
Beyond that, the biggest challenge will be determining firmware update commitments. As seen with many CVEs reported on, routers are targets for attacks and it is no longer viable for a device maker to release a router and stop releasing updates after a few months to a year. -
tamalero Reply
yikes.. who pooed in your cheerios...wakuwaku said:I guarantee the real reason why you did this is because the Deco app did not work, not because you suddenly feel like putting in effort to use the good old browser based configuration.
Do you know how I know this?
Because you are a failure of a reviewer for not bothering reading the manual or the device webpage before doing a "review"
If you did, you would know that the Deco app is for TP-Link's Deco product line only, while the rest of their routers use the TP-Link Tether app.
Here's a link:
https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-be9700/
Is this guy really that bad of a reviewer? -
razor512 Reply
In my opinion, the review covered the most important stuff.tamalero said:yikes.. who pooed in your cheerios...
Is this guy really that bad of a reviewer?
From the major brands, their web UIs and apps maintain a very uniform UX to the point where often you can't even tell the difference between an entry level WiFi 7 router and a top of the line model. It is at a point where if every review covered it, the hardest part of making the review would be coming up with different ways to word the app review section so that it doesn't look copy and pasted from every other review.
If anything I find it be be more valuable to review the app separately from the routers, and update that review separately when a major change happens.
Outside of that, for router reviews, Ideally it would be good to have an overview of certain key settings, for example, per-device service/ port blocking (becoming increasingly important given the number of devices that quickly stop receiving security updates). Sadly there are some consumer routers that lack those basic functions.
Outside of that for all in one units, the most important area of benchmarking is primarily the WiFi since modern SOCs, even at the entry level, can easily handle 1-2Gbps connections with 10GbE capable ones being able to handle the full 10Gbps if not using QOS.
The issue is that it is hard to benchmark the WAN port on most budget focused routers since often you will not have a second 10Gbps port to use.
With that in mind, the 10GbE units are almost always capable of at least handling 2Gbps connections even with some QOS.
This often leaves just the WiFi, and if there is a 10GbE port that can be used for LAN traffic, then those tests become easy and consistent, as you no longer need to spread a test out over a WiFi client communicating with multiple 2.5GbE endpoints.
If you are testing with 2.5GbE to WiFi, and a client benchmarks at around 2380Mbps for a TCP connection, then the 2.5GbE port is what is bottlenecking you.
Beyond that, when it comes to routers with a USB port, it would be good to have a basic benchmark of the read and write speeds.
All it really takes is a basic NVMe enclosure and an okay SSD.
For example, I have had good results with a cheap $17 orico nvme enclosure, and a 1TB SN770 for benchmarking, though for everyday use, I use a SATA dock and a 2TB WD blue SSD since my router struggles to sustain even 200MB/s reads and writes.
USB storage on a router is very useful even if you already have a proper NAS. For basic use such as streaming anime to your smart TV, storage on your router will handle that task with a tiny fraction of the power that a basic truenas build would use from the activity of simply streaming the video (no transcoding or anything else CPU intensive).
a/FfwiKbvView: https://imgur.com/a/FfwiKbv -
TechieTwo What seems to be grossly ignored with most all Wi-Fi routers and / or PC reviews is if the hardware is actually secure. Isn't there a pending U.S. government investigation into backdoor access on these routers? Isn't their weekly security flaws reported on many of the major consumer brands of Wi-Fi routers? It would seem to me security would be the number one priority with any Wi-Fi based hardware.Reply -
razor512 Router security would be extremely hard to test, especially if someone wants to test for a backdoor. Everyone is pretty much just trusting that a major device maker would at least keep their latest models secure.Reply
Though security can be indirectly tested, though it requires waiting many months, and effectively revisiting older reviews and updating them or keeping an ongoing rtings style chart, but instead of tracking TV burn-in, it would instead track firmware updates and if any CVEs impacting the router are present, as well as looking for signs of abandonment. For example, if a router maker uses the same or very similar SOCs and WiFi radios where largely the same drivers can work, but they are only supporting a newer model consistently while an older model is going months with no update. Then a helpful list for customers will be a chart covering confirmed abandoned and presumed abandoned consumer routers.
They can then subsequently use that data in other charts, such as which brand is quickest to abandon their products. That will help users to better determine the value of a router.
For example, a router that is slightly cheaper from a company that has a track record of abandoning that class of product within a year, will have a far worse value than another brand that cost slightly more but has a track record of supporting their routers for years.
For example, the Netgear R7000 that came out in 2013, is still receiving firmware updates in 2025.
One of the biggest helps in terms of a purchase decision for determining value is a user having some idea, will their router purchase be equivalent to a Netgear R7000, or will it be equivalent to a TP-Link AD7200 V1 (stopped receiving firmware updates within 8 months after the initial release).
While this is more of an extreme example, info like this is important for purchase decisions because it determines the useful life of the router. While the hardware will technically continue to work, how comfortable will a user be with a router that is racking up CVEs every few months with no chance of updates?