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Understanding Macbook wifi card speeds

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occamsrazor

Regular Contributor
Hi,

I currently have a network of Tomato-firmware based router and access points, but am looking to upgrade one of the access points for improved wifi speed. I do a lot of LAN transfers to/from my Macbook to other Macs on the network and a QNAP NAS. With the Asus RT-N66U using 5Ghz I usually get around 30-35MB/sec file transfers.

While I can understand the various AC1200, AC1900, AC3200 terminology, I'm unclear exactly what speeds the internal card of my MacBook is capable of. It's a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015), and the card details say:

en0:
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x133)
Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.95.175.1a6)
MAC Address: xxxxxxxxxxx
Locale: ETSI
Country Code: US
Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140, 144, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165
Wake On Wireless: Supported
AirDrop: Supported, Channel 149
Status: Connected

As I'm only considering to use the built-in adapter, I'd like to know what speeds it is capable of so I can look for the appropriate router speeds..... Any ideas how to determine this? Thanks....
 
Macbook Pro's have been 3*3:3 for some time now... the 2015 device should be a three stream device.

Macbook Air - two stream... the 11 inch 2014 is actually a preferred device for many WLAN pro's, as it has very good performance there in 802.11ac...
 

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