Which wireless adapter/card to get?

[hermelinen]

Hi.

Today I got 1000/100 internet and a Netgear Nighthawk X4s.

My Macbook Pro Late 2013 can archive speeds like 700Mpbs according to speedtest, while my computer in the same room with Asus USB-AC56 only gets tops 250Mbps.

Which wireless adapter/card should I get to get speeds like the Macbook Pro?


Thanks.

 

[sfx2000]

Asus USB-AC56

On Windows? If running Win10, remove the device, uninstall the Asus software, reboot, and once up and running, let Win10's device detection grab the driver from Microsoft. It's a better driver for Win10.

Then, go into the driver properties - the default is for that card to look for 2.4GHz first - and you can change that to prefer 5GHz.

Keep in mind that the USB-AC56 is a two-stream device, so it won't match the MacBook Pro (which is 3-stream), but it should be doing better than what you're seeing...

The other thing with the USB-AC56 - make sure it's plugged into a USB3 port, and if possible, use the little stand it comes with, as it's a USB3 extension cable.

FWIW - I have the same USB adapter, and it's generally pretty good once one understands the oddness around it as mentioned above.

 

[psychopomp1]

If you have a desktop pc, then a wifi PCI card is the way to go. Currently the best wifi PCI card is the Asus PCE-AC88U, this is a 4 stream Mu-Mimo card which would be a good match for your Netgear X4S. With my Netgear X10 (has similar 2.4 & 5ghz guts to X4S) connected to a desktop with Asus PCE-AC88U i easily get wireless speeds of 310/30 mbps on my FTTP 330/30 connection.

 

[sfx2000]

With my Netgear X10 (has similar 2.4 & 5ghz guts to X4S) connected to a desktop with Asus PCE-AC88U i easily get wireless speeds of 310/30 mbps on my FTTP 330/30 connection.

Properly set up - the USB-AC56 can hit those speeds without problem - the issue is that the defaults in the Win10 supplied driver are very conservative, so they need a bit of help...

And properly set, it's a good card for Windows 10 - desktop or laptop (or small form factor PC) - to get the best performance, it needs a USB3 port and with desktop, use the supplied extender/desktop stand (and no substituting here)...

 

[doczenith1]

If you have a desktop pc, then a wifi PCI card is the way to go. Currently the best wifi PCI card is the Asus PCE-AC88U, this is a 4 stream Mu-Mimo card which would be a good match for your Netgear X4S. With my Netgear X10 (has similar 2.4 & 5ghz guts to X4S) connected to a desktop with Asus PCE-AC88U i easily get wireless speeds of 310/30 mbps on my FTTP 330/30 connection.

I was hoping that you were going to report some LAN<>LAN speeds with the PCE-AC88U. I'm curious as to the real world throughput with that device in a 4x4 situation.

 

[psychopomp1]

I was hoping that you were going to report some LAN<>LAN speeds with the PCE-AC88U. I'm curious as to the real world throughput with that device in a 4x4 situation.

Sorry I can't test the PCE-AC88U in LAN to LAN throughput but internet throughput is great when paired with my 4x4 Netgear R9000 X10. Wireless downloads are at 40 MB/s (eg torrents) on my 330/30 fibre connection, pretty much the same as wired speeds. The desktop pc with the PCE-AC88U is upstairs and the X10 is downstairs, at least 15m distance albeit through wafer thin walls.