I am attempting to replace a broken router for my home network, and in doing so I am likely going to try and build my own router (but not necessarily). I am looking to future proof the new router for multi gigabit fiber optic ISP speeds while I am at it, and generally future proof the router for any other purposes. The problem there is that there aren’t any really up to date guides I’ve found taking that specific goal into account when building a router and while I have built my own desktops before, I certainly don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a desktop build just to turn it into a much lower intensity-usage device like a router and I am not exactly sure what the floor or ceiling targets for specs here are to future proof it to the specifications I am wanting.

So, a couple of specifications here:

1: Does a router even use a GPU for any reason, even if you do absolutely unrealistic stuff on it like run a Minecraft server on it? I have scoured the internet for any reason at all no matter how farfetched and there just doesn’t seem to be a need to even use a GPU for a router.

2: I am not planning to have an integrated WAP in the router like most store bought routers. I want this to purely be a wired router (the only wirelessly connected devices in the entire house are our smartphones and sometimes the Nintendo Switch (it is wired when docked), absolutely everything else is hardwired down to even the printer), the plan is to use the old router as a standalone WAP (I know that part of the router works) and just wait until we can get a dedicated WAP from somewhere like Best Buy.

3: Showing my ignorance here, is having a wired router and giving it wireless capability with a standalone WAP even a good idea? There is some intensive, latency sensitive gaming done every so often wirelessly, and I don’t want to cause any additional latency if having the WAN connected separately from the router causes that. If it’s not a good idea, I want to be able to upgrade our router to Wi-Fi 7 when it becomes available, having a discrete WAP that can be upgraded as new Wi-Fi standards emerge was one reasoning for doing it that way (For reference, our end goal when fiber becomes available for installation is to have less than 5 ms of ping, ideally 3 ms or less, or to have absolute possible minimization of ping across the network, so the build of our household network being ping-minimal is important)

4: Based on research, I would like to figure out how to build a device that has at least 8gb of RAM, potentially more. The snag is I have no idea what to look for in a CPU with a router (this is always my weakness when building new tech), what’s overkill and what’s underkill, what do I even want to look for?

5: Back a little bit to point 3, should I simply have 2 ethernet ports and connect the WAP via an external ethernet switch and be fine, or should I have more than 2 ethernet ports on the router to wire the WAP directly to the router’s ports for minimal ping?

6: How much SSD space would be prime to have in a router?

7: I am planning on running a local DNS server in the home in order to eliminate DNS lag. Is it possible to run a DNS server directly in the router, or do I need a separate built device for a DNS? On a similar note, would running something like a Minecraft Java server be feasible on a router or should I build a separate device to act as a server down the road? If possible, I’d like to be able to run this sort of thing on the router. If not, I’d still like to maximize control over the network as we had a very cheap router that did not allow any advanced control options.

8: Down the road I am wanting to segregate all game consoles into a DMZ, would I need an entirely separate router to do that or does custom router software allow a DMZ zone to put things like multiple game consoles outside of your firewall? Currently we have our primary Nintendo Switch in the DMZ, but down the road we would like to put the other game consoles in the DMZ as well, without having to switch between which one is in the DMZ at a time.

8.5: If anyone asks, we do a lot of 4K streaming and a lot of super latency sensitive gaming, sometimes multiple devices at once running things like Street Fighter online where every millisecond of lag counts, if you want to know what our load looks like for most of the day when we aren’t doing something super intensive like a massive file download.

9: Finally, would it even be worth building one or should I just get a prebuilt but slightly custom router somewhere like Seeed Studio or get a Raspberry Pi that meets these specifications?

Thanks in advance to everyone here, this is new territory for me so sorry if I forgot to ask or specify anything important.