I need a card for my desktop PC that supports AC wireless.
Any suggestions? I see ASUS as one, called PCE-AC68 but not sure if that is the best out there
To my knowledge, it's the fasted PCIE card available, rated 1900AC. Amped and Dell also have PCIE cards but they are rated at 1200AC. I have never used any of them, but they are all fairly pricey for what you're getting IMHO. The AC68 is about $100 which is pretty damn expensive for just a wireless card; the Amped card is $79, but it's hard to find; and the Dell Starlight card is available from Dell online for $82.99 (not including tax). And Asus also has the PCE-AC56 as well, which is being sold by Walmart for about $78+. There's also an Asus PCE-AC66 that I've seen on the internet but it's out of stock (even at Amazon), and I don't think it's being made any longer (it was an AC1750 device, which matched the speed of the RT-AC66U/R routers...evidently not enough demand to continue manufacturing though).
Personally, I've had excellent success and great experiences with Asus' USB adapters. I currently use a USB-AC56 (AC1300) that I got for about $48 at Frys about 9 months ago on an old Windows 7 laptop that I use for streaming and browsing only (it's connected to an HDTV via an HDMI port, and I get terrific picture and connectivity). I don't think that model is currently being made any longer, but some stores still have old ones on hand. It is nice because it has a long cable that plugs into a USB port with a cradle for the adapter and a single external antenna that can be positioned almost 360 degrees in any direction (same antenna as used on Asus RT routers).
I also had great results from the Asus USB-AC53 adapter, which also has an external cord, thus allowing you to position the internal antennas by moving the adapter to any position you like rather than just having it plugged in horizontally to the laptops USB ports. That one worked great too, and I know it's still available at places like Fry's and online at Amazon. I would think it would be excellent in a desktop unit because you can freely position it in any direction if you use the extender cord that comes with it.
Finally, my wife's Win7 laptop currently is using an Asus USB-AC51 adapter. I had tried to upgrade her laptop's internal card also at the same time I upgraded my laptop, but the AC7260 wasn't on her computer's bios "whitelist" so that was a no-go. The USB-AC51 isn't a whole lot faster than a really good 802.11n card, but it allows me to keep the 5ghz channels at 80mhz by keeping all of the devices connected to the 5ghz channels using only 802.11ac (if an n-device is also connected, it will result in maximum 40mhz channel width due to 802.11 backwards compatibility requirements...and if I still had an 802.11a client, it would drop to 20mhz....).
I don't know that the internal cards currently on the market are really worth the money but at the moment, it looks like the Asus PCE-AC68 though is the fastest and most robust of the lot, rated at 1900ac.
