DaveLessnau
Occasional Visitor
Most of the focus here seems to be on the router end of things. But, what about the wireless adapter side? Specifically, I'm trying to decide if I should get USB or PCI-E wireless adapter cards (even more specifically, the Asus PCE-AC66 PCI-E card or the Netgear A6200 USB 2.0 device).
Both are 802.11ac adapters. My understanding is that this standard allows 1300 mbps (162.5 MB/s) speed. Yet, USB 2.0 (what the A6200 uses) is limited to 480 mbps (60 MB/s). So, right off the bat, a USB 2.0 interface seems, to put it mildly, silly. Also, my experience with USB 2.0 tells me that the best speed I'll REALLY see from the interface is about 30 - 35 MB/s. So, that seems to knock out the A6200 (even though I have Netgear's R6300 802.11ac router).
For the PCE-AC66, I can't find anything that specifies which version of PCI-E it uses (or even how many lanes). From some of the comments on Newegg and from a picture of the card, I'd guess it's a PCI-E 3.0 (x1) card. If I'm guessing right and Googling correctly, that interface should support something like 7.88 Gbit/s (984.6 MB/s). So, the interface should not be a bottleneck. Yet, looking at those Newegg reviews, I see that even the reviewers who love the thing say it only gets 30 - 40 MB/s moving things around on their internal networks. That's in the same range as what I'd expect to see from a USB 2.0 interface version.
So, I'm in a quandry. Do I spend twice as much for a PCI-E card in the hopes of higher speed? Or, do I spend half as much for the USB 2.0 version? Are there actual benchmarks out there somewhere that my Google-fu can't find?
EDIT -- I'm adding some links to help find these things:
Silly Devices (802.11ac Devices with a USB 2.0 Interface):
802.11a/b/g/n Devices with a PCI-E Interface (just as fast as above):
802.11ac Devices with a USB 3.0 Interface:
802.11ac Devices with a PCI-E Interface (currently, about the same speed as all of the above):
Both are 802.11ac adapters. My understanding is that this standard allows 1300 mbps (162.5 MB/s) speed. Yet, USB 2.0 (what the A6200 uses) is limited to 480 mbps (60 MB/s). So, right off the bat, a USB 2.0 interface seems, to put it mildly, silly. Also, my experience with USB 2.0 tells me that the best speed I'll REALLY see from the interface is about 30 - 35 MB/s. So, that seems to knock out the A6200 (even though I have Netgear's R6300 802.11ac router).
For the PCE-AC66, I can't find anything that specifies which version of PCI-E it uses (or even how many lanes). From some of the comments on Newegg and from a picture of the card, I'd guess it's a PCI-E 3.0 (x1) card. If I'm guessing right and Googling correctly, that interface should support something like 7.88 Gbit/s (984.6 MB/s). So, the interface should not be a bottleneck. Yet, looking at those Newegg reviews, I see that even the reviewers who love the thing say it only gets 30 - 40 MB/s moving things around on their internal networks. That's in the same range as what I'd expect to see from a USB 2.0 interface version.
So, I'm in a quandry. Do I spend twice as much for a PCI-E card in the hopes of higher speed? Or, do I spend half as much for the USB 2.0 version? Are there actual benchmarks out there somewhere that my Google-fu can't find?
EDIT -- I'm adding some links to help find these things:
Silly Devices (802.11ac Devices with a USB 2.0 Interface):
802.11a/b/g/n Devices with a PCI-E Interface (just as fast as above):
802.11ac Devices with a USB 3.0 Interface:
- Amped Wireless ACA 1 (not yet available)
- Trendnet's TEW-805UB (not yet available)
802.11ac Devices with a PCI-E Interface (currently, about the same speed as all of the above):
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