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Acer Predator Connect W6x on a wooden table

Acer Predator Connect W6x: an affordable Wi-Fi upgrade for owners of older computers and mobile devices

by admin June 17, 2025

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Acer Predator Connect W6x: One-Minute Review

Like most manufacturers, Acer has been focusing on the latest Wi-Fi 7 technology in its best routers and mesh systems.

One advantage of Wi-Fi 7 is its use of the high-speed 6.0GHz frequency band, which provides far higher speeds than previous versions of Wi-Fi. However, there are millions of people who are still using older computers and mobile devices that only support the 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz bands used by the previous generations of Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6.

To provide a more affordable option for those users, Acer has also released the Predator Connect W6x, which provides basic dual-band Wi-Fi 6 support using the 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz bands with a top speed of 6.0Gbps (and is also backwards-compatible with older devices that use Wi-Fi 5).

Acer Predator Connect W6x: Price And Availability

How much does it cost? $169 / £99 / AU$299
When is it available? Now
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia

Your first task is to make sure you find the correct model on Acer’s website, as the company sells a number of routers in the Predator Connect range that look almost identical and have very similar model numbers.

We tested the Predator Connect W6x, which you can spot by counting its array of six external antennae. However, there are also models called the Predator Connect W6 (eight antenna) and W6d (four antenna), which have very similar designs, although they do have slightly different technical specifications.

And Acer’s Australian website carelessly manages to refer to the W6x as being both a tri-band and dual-band router, depending on which web page you look at, so you really do need to take care when ordering online.

Assuming you manage to find the correct model, then the Predator Connect W6x is available directly from Acer in the US and Australia, priced at $169 / AU$299.

That’s a fairly competitive price when compared to similar Wi-Fi 6 routers, but it’s customers in the UK who seem to get the best deal, as the W6x costs just £99. It’s not sold on the Acer website in the UK, though, so you’ll need to shop around online.

Acer Predator Connect W6x: Design

(Image credit: Future)

Low-profile design
Eight external antennae
Four Ethernet ports for wired connections

The Acer Predator Connect W6x certainly looks like a gaming router, with a sombre black, low-profile design and an intimidating array of dagger-like antennae (that’s six antennae – count ‘em, not four or eight).

The body of the router stands just 50mm high, 270mm wide and 187mm deep, but the adjustable, rotating antennae are 170mm long so you’ll need plenty of room when you’re setting it up to make sure that the antennae can spread out and zap the Wi-Fi signal far and wide.

The affordable W6x doesn’t have the array of glowing lights that you find on some gaming routers, but Acer hasn’t cut too many corners in order to keep the price down.

The back panel of the router provides a 2.5Gb Ethernet port for a high-speed Internet connection, and there are four Gigabit Ethernet ports available for a gaming PC or console if you prefer a lag-free wired connection for your online gaming sessions.

There’s even a USB port for adding a network storage drive as well. This uses a USB-A (3.0) connector, rather than the faster USB-C, but that’s hardly a criticism at this price.

Image 1 of 3

(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

Acer Predator Connect W6x: Features

Free security from Trend Micro
Free parental controls
QoS for gaming and streaming

The Predator Connect app provides a number of useful features, but it’s not as user-friendly as it could be.

The apps provided with many routers keep things simple by automatically combining the different frequency bands to create a single network, while others prefer to create a separate network for each frequency band.

The Predator app does neither of these things – it starts by simply filling the screen with the various network settings and leaves it up to the user to decide which options to choose.

That’s fine for more experienced users, but home users who aren’t familiar with terms such as ‘band-steering’ and ‘SSID’ may be a bit confused at this point.

Once that’s done, the app provides features such as the ability to create a guest network, or to block Internet access for individual devices. There’s also a QoS option – quality of service – that allows you to give priority to devices, such as a gaming PC or console, that require maximum performance.

Some features are made unnecessarily complicated, though. The app does include a number of security features and parental controls, and we were pleased to find that these are provided free of charge, with no need to pay an additional monthly subscription – as is the case with some of Acer’s rivals.

But, it’s strange that these are initially turned off within the Predator app, which simply tells you to leave the app and connect to the router using a web browser interface in order to activate these features.

Again, this is something that will appeal to more experienced users, but it could be confusing for people who have never used a browser interface to connect to their router before.

Acer Predator Connect W6x: Performance

(Image credit: Future)

Dual-band Wi-Fi 6
Top speed of 6Gbps
2.5Gb Ethernet for broadband connection

Acer Predator Connect W6x: Benchmarks

Ookla Speed Test – 2.4GHz (download/upload)

Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps/150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 70Mbps/70bps

20GB Steam Download – 2.4GHz

Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 70Mbps

Ookla Speed Test – 5.0GHz (download/upload)

Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps/150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 150Mbps/150Mbps

20GB Steam Download – 5.0GHz

Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 150Mbps

The Predator Connect W6x isn’t a top-of-the-range router by any means, as it’s based on older Wi-Fi 6 technology.

Even so, its top speed of 6Gbps should be more than fast enough for most home broadband services. Our normal office router can only manage a top speed of around 80Mbps on the 2.4GHz band when running the Ookla speed test with devices in the same room.

That’s far short of the maximum 150Mbps available with our office Internet connection. Steam downloads struggle even more, at around 40Mbps. Switching to 5.0GHz on our office router provides some improvement, with the Ookla test rising to 120Mbp, and 100Mbps for Steam.

But, when connecting to devices that are nearby, the W6x breezed along at the maximum 150Mbps for both tests on both 2.4GHz and 5.0Ghz bands.

I also have an office at the back of my building that suffers from an annoying Wi-Fi ‘deadspot’ as my normal office router can’t provide a reliable signal in that location at all.

The W6x was able to reach that office, although its 2.4GHz band struggled a bit and dipped to 70Mbps for both Ookla and Steam.

Fortunately, the router’s 5.0GHz band stepped up to the plate and quickly boosted both Steam and Ookla tests up to the full 150Mbps once more.

So while the Acer Predator Connect W6x might not be the fastest router around, it does perform pretty well for an affordable Wi-Fi 6 router and could be a good upgrade for owners of older Wi-Fi 5 routers (especially for £99 in the UK).

Swipe to scroll horizontallyShould you buy the Acer Predator Connect W6x?

Category

Verdict

Score

Value

It’s not going to break any speed records, but the W6x is a good, affordable upgrade for people who are still using an old router provided by their ISP.

4.5/5

Design

It doesn’t have any flashing lights for gamers, but the low-profile design looks smart, and the array of eight antenna provides good Wi-Fi coverage.

4/5

Features

The Predator app has some rough edges, but the W6x provides good wired connectivity, along with security features and parental controls that don’t require an extra monthly subscription.

4/5

Performance

The Predator app has some rough edges, but the W6x provides good wired connectivity, along with security features and parental controls that don’t require an extra monthly subscription.

4/5

Overall

It’s certainly not state-of-the-art, but if you just want to replace an old Wi-Fi 5 router then the W6x does the job at a very competitive price.

4/5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Acer Predator Connect W6x: Also consider

Swipe to scroll horizontallyAcer Predator Connect W6x vs its competition

Router

Acer Predator Connect W6x

Acer Predator Connect T7

Netgear Nighthawk RS200

Price (as reviewed)

$169/£99/AU$299

$329.99/£236.22/AU$699.00

$229.99/£199.99/AU$449

Wi-Fi Type

Dual-band Wi-Fi 6

Tri-band Wi-Fi 7

Dual-band Wi-Fi 7

Wi-Fi Speed

6Gbps

11Gbps

6.5Gbps

Connectivity

1x 2.5Gb Ethernet (WAN), 4x Gigabit Ethernet (LAN), 1x USB-A (3.0)

1x 2.5Gb Ethernet (WAN), 2x Gigabit Ethernet (LAN), 1x USB-C (2.0)

1x 2.5Gb Ethernet (WAN), 1x 2.5Gb Ethernet (LAN), 3x Gigabit Ethernet (LAN), 1x USB-A (3.0)

Processor

Quad-core 2.0GHz

Quad-core 1.5GHz

Quad-core 2.0GHz

Memory

1GB RAM

2GB RAM

Storage

256MB Flash

512MB Flash

Dimensions

49.5 x 270 x 187mm

212 x 109 x 109mm

249 x 150 x 102mm

First reviewed: June 2025

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June 17, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Quantum computers could break Bitcoin’s security within five years.

by admin June 14, 2025

Opinion by: David Carvalho, founder, CEO and chief scientist of Naoris Protocol

Satoshi Nakamoto changed how we define money. In response to the 2008 collapse of the financial institutions in which millions put their trust, Satoshi created a decentralized monetary system built on elliptic curve cryptography.

This combination of cold math and decentralization was a powerful one, attracting not only diehard skeptics but also the world’s largest financial institutions, such as BlackRock.

In the 16 years of its existence, Bitcoin has never been hacked. All of that is about to change very soon, however, with the advent of quantum computing. This is the biggest single threat to Bitcoin since its inception from the ashes of the global financial crisis.

Once firmly in the realm of science fiction, quantum computers have become so advanced that they could plausibly rip through Bitcoin’s cryptography within five years or less. Some, like quantum pundit Michele Mosca, predict it might even be possible as soon as next year.

Government agencies like the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Security Agency are aiming to fully transition to quantum-secure standards by 2030. Yet the Bitcoin community appears confined to theoretical solutions, like BIP-360 (Pay-to-Quantum-Resistant-Hash) or commit-delay-reveal schemes.

The time for theorizing is over. If concrete steps to adapt the Bitcoin blockchain aren’t taken now, Bitcoin’s (BTC) entire $2.2-trillion market cap could go up in smoke. All it would take would be one compromised wallet or botched transaction to erode 16 years of painstakingly built trust.

The rise of supercomputers

This year’s real breakthrough was Microsoft’s Majorana chip, which accelerated the timeline to creating a truly useful quantum supercomputer from decades to years. In simple terms, it did so by paving the way to scalable and stable quantum systems — two of the key issues standing in the way of this technological miracle.

Fast forward a few months, and we currently find ourselves with around 100 quantum computers operating in the world already. McKinsey estimates there will be 5,000 by 2030. These computers aren’t just faster than the machines we’re all used to — they’re an entirely new breed of computer that runs calculations in parallel instead of in sequence.

Recent: Is Bitcoin’s future at risk from quantum tech?

This is lethal to classical cryptography, like the ECDSA algorithm that protects Bitcoin’s private keys. At least 30% of Bitcoin, or around 6.2 million coins, are currently sitting in pay-to-public-key (P2PK) or reused P2PK-hash addresses, which are particularly vulnerable to this quantum threat.

A breach would be catastrophic for holders, whose funds would be gone forever, and the ecosystem at large. It would prove that the unbreakable system can be broken. That’s why BlackRock recently acknowledged the threat of quantum to Bitcoin in its updated spot ETF filing. That’s why the time to act is now, before it’s too late.

Prepping for Q-Day

“Q-Day” is the term given to the day that quantum computers are finally ready to break traditional cryptography. When this day comes, Bitcoin transactions validated and secured today, or even 10 years ago, could still be vulnerable because blockchain is fully transparent, and the data remains permanently accessible on this ledger forever.

On top of this, bad actors are already collecting encrypted data in preparation for Q-Day, in a move dubbed “harvest now, decrypt later.” It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that several attacks could happen simultaneously across the globe when Q-Day comes. When this happens, Bitcoin better be ready.

A post-quantum future

The problem with upgrading an entire blockchain from legacy to post-quantum cryptography is that it would require a hard fork, which has become almost a taboo subject in crypto communities. This huge step could break the UX, fragment liquidity, risk splitting the network and potentially alienate diehard OGs.

There are alternatives: hybrid solutions that focus on securing transactions first and foremost without touching the base layer, layered security models and quantum-secure key management, and infrastructure that can prepare Bitcoin for the onslaught that is certainly coming.

It isn’t a quick fix. Especially considering how conservative and slow-moving Bitcoin has been historically. Unfortunately, there is no longer any time to waste. Decisions must be made and solutions must be chosen because Bitcoin won’t survive as it is in a post-quantum future.

Satoshi gave the world a new monetary system but never said it couldn’t evolve. Now it’s up to the community to make the choice to evolve it and prepare for Q-Day, rather than waiting until it’s too late. It’s not quantum that’s the most significant risk to Bitcoin — it’s complacency.

Opinion by: David Carvalho, founder, CEO and chief scientist of Naoris Protocol.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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June 14, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Is Bitcoin Safe From Quantum Computers? Michael Saylor Shares Bullish Take

by admin June 10, 2025

Saylor reveals story behind choosing Bitcoin in 2020 over other assets
Quantum computation can hardly harm Bitcoin, Saylor insists

In a recent interview, Strategy’s executive chairman Michael Saylor shared how why he decided to start accumulating Bitcoin, and what he has discovered about them. He also shares his take on whether quantum computers will be able to hack Bitcoin passwords. The interview was hosted by Jordan Bernt Peterson, a Canadian psychologist, book author, and media commentator

Saylor reveals story behind choosing Bitcoin in 2020 over other assets

Reflecting back to 2020, Saylor told Peterson that when the pandemic broke out, he started thinking of where to park his money, about half a billion dollars. Saylor began looking for an ultimate form of money to own among that economic crisis. He did not want to buy into US Treasuries to own national US debt since T-bills were worthless back then.

Saylor looked at real estate and stocks which soared at that moment but he did not like the reasons which stood behind those price jumps (the interest rate hike). He also considered art and gold but then decided against those as well. He was unable to find “$500,000 million worth of Picassos Monets attractively priced” and as for gold, his attorney talked him out of it since it sat at about $800 per ounce for twenty years and did not move higher, calling gold “dead money”.

Saylor wanted a “liquid and fungible asset” which would store his “economic energy” for an indefinite period of time. Eventually, he opted for Bitcoin, though a few years before it, Saylor thought of it as a “scam coin that is probably gonna collapse.” But in 2020 he began self-educating himself on Bitcoin on YouTube, listening to podcasts, then he read the famous “The Bitcoin Standard” book.

Quantum computation can hardly harm Bitcoin, Saylor insists

Saylor referred to Bitcoin as “the most anti-fragile and indestructible thing in the world.” He also calls Bitcoin “an ideology that is manifested as a protocol”, saying that even if in the future quantum computation can break Bitcoin passwords, it won’t be able to hack the basics of Bitcoin, which is fundamental maths.

He compared that to hackers hacking one’s email account, saying that they are unable to destroy the English language anyway, which those emails are written in. In this case one has to upgrade the computer program, Saylor believes.

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June 10, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

It Might Actually Be 20 Times Easier for Quantum Computers to Break Bitcoin, Google Says

by admin May 27, 2025

Google just dropped a new research paper, and Bitcoin maxis may want to do some quick math. The tech giant’s quantum team found that breaking the RSA encryption protecting everything from your bank account to your Bitcoin wallet might need 20 times fewer quantum resources than previously estimated.

“Planning the transition to quantum-safe cryptosystems requires understanding the cost of quantum attacks on vulnerable cryptosystems,” Google Quantum Researcher Craig Gidney wrote. “In Gidney+Ekerå 2019, I co-published an estimate stating that 2048 bit RSA integers could be factored in eight hours by a quantum computer with 20 million noisy qubits. In this paper, I substantially reduce the number of qubits required.”

“I estimate that a 2048 bit RSA integer could be factored in less than a week by a quantum computer with less than a million noisy qubits,” Gidney argued.

“This is a 20-fold decrease in the number of qubits from our previous estimate,” the Google researcher said in an official blog post.

Image: Google

But it’s not like it’s going to happen anytime soon. For context, IBM’s Condor (the most powerful quantum computer to date) tops out at 1,121 qubits while Google’s own Sycamore runs on 53. So your coins are still safe—for now. The trajectory is what matters, and it’s pointing in a direction that should make anyone holding crypto sit up and pay attention.

The breakthrough, Google says, comes from two places: “better algorithms and smarter error correction.” On the algorithm side, researchers figured out how to make calculations for modular exponentiations—the heavy mathematical lifting in encryption—twice as fast, whereas the error correction improvements is possible because the team tripled density of the logical qubits space by adding a new layer of error correction, effectively packaging more useful quantum operations into the same physical space.

They also deployed something called “magic state cultivation”—basically a trick to make special quantum ingredients (called T states) stronger and more reliable, so quantum computers can perform complex tasks more efficiently without wasting extra resources—to reduce the workspace needed for basic quantum operations.

Image: ArXiv

Why should Bitcoin holders care about Quantum computers?

Bitcoin relies on elliptic curve cryptography, which works on similar mathematical principles to RSA. If quantum computers can crack RSA faster than expected, Bitcoin’s security timeline just got compressed. The cryptocurrency’s 256-bit encryption is stronger than the older RSA keys Google studied, but not by as much as you might hope when dealing with exponential scaling.

And there are already experts trying to find ways to apply quantum tech to break Bitcoin.

As previously reported by Decrypt, Project 11, a quantum computing research group, launched a Bitcoin bounty worth nearly $85,000 for anyone who can break even a simplified version of Bitcoin’s encryption using a quantum computer. They’re testing keys ranging from 1 to 25 bits—tiny compared to Bitcoin’s 256-bit encryption, but it’s about tracking progress.

“Bitcoin’s security relies on elliptic curve cryptography. Quantum computers running Shor’s algorithm will eventually break it,” Project 11 wrote when announcing their challenge. “We’re testing how urgent the threat is.”

Bitcoin’s security relies on elliptic curve cryptography.
Quantum computers running Shor’s algorithm will eventually break it.

We’re testing how urgent the threat is.

— Project 11 (@qdayclock) April 16, 2025

The security implications extend beyond crypto. RSA and similar systems underpin global secure communications, from banking to digital signatures. Google noted that adversaries could already be collecting encrypted data now to decrypt later once quantum computers become available, so they are preparing for this imminent future.

“Google has therefore been encrypting traffic both in Chrome and internally, switching to the standardized version of ML-KEM once it became available,” Google said.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology released post-quantum cryptography standards last year and recommended phasing out vulnerable systems after 2030. Google’s research suggests that timeline might need acceleration.

IBM has plans for a 100,000-qubit quantum computer by 2033, partnering with the University of Tokyo and University of Chicago. Quantinuum aims to deliver a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029. These targets suddenly look more significant given Google’s findings.

Another thing to tackle is how much continuous runtime quantum machines support. The hypothetical million-qubit machine Google describes would need to run continuously for days, maintain extremely low error rates, and coordinate billions of operations without interruption. Current quantum computers can barely maintain coherence for minutes—so again, don’t panic.

The quantum threat isn’t immediate, but it’s accelerating faster than expected. The crypto community has already started working on quantum-resistant solutions. Solana developers introduced a quantum-resistant vault using hash-based signatures, while Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed forking the code of current blockchains to protect against quantum threats.

So it seems more likely that we’ll see some sort of anti-quantum hard fork in the future before we witness the first quantum hack of the Bitcoin blockchain—fingers crossed.

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May 27, 2025 0 comments