Home Network - Wifi Adapter Inquiry

[Negativefx83]

Hello!

I currently upgraded my cable speeds from 60mb/s to 100mb/s. I currently have a
MOTOROLA 16x4 Cable Modem, Model MB7420, 686 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 along with an Asus RT-AC88U router. I am looking now to upgrade my wifi adapter and I was wondering what AC1900 adapters (I assume this is what I would be looking for?) would be the best for gaming / streaming with this combination?

I was looking between the
Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Wi-Fi USB Adapter (A7000-10000S) or the
ASUS USB-AC68 Dual-Band AC1900 USB 3.0 Wi-Fi Adapter.

I am open to suggestions of course!

Thank you for any help in advance!

 

[psychopomp1]

You don't say if its for a laptop PC or a desktop PC, if the latter then I would forget about a USB and instead go for a PCI wifi card such as the Asus PCE-AC88. Its a 4x4 wifi card and a perfect match for your RT-AC88U (4x4 stream router).

 

[Negativefx83]

Thanks for the reply, sorry completely forgot to say it was for a PC. I will check out your recommendation.

 

[Negativefx83]

Update on this, so my mobo is Asus H87I-PLUS and appears to only have one pcie slot which is taken up by my video card. Is there anything comparable (or just as good) using a usb wifi adapter that would suite the same needs? There are so many choices, I'm just looking to see what would be optimal. I was also reading about powerline adapters? I do not know anything about them but I saw a few reddit posts about them.(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WP2ZT5N/?tag=snbforums-20)

Thanks!

 

[psychopomp1]

Ok, its a shame you cannot use the Asus PCE-88 wifi card as that card is easily the best wifi card at the moment. IMHO Powerline adaptors are hit & miss, they may work very well for you or may not depending on your power circuit - they're very sensitive to noise. Otherwise a USB wifi adaptor such as this should do the trick:

https://tinyurl.com/y84a3lxd

 

[Internet Man]

Update on this, so my mobo is Asus H87I-PLUS and appears to only have one pcie slot which is taken up by my video card. Is there anything comparable (or just as good) using a usb wifi adapter that would suite the same needs? There are so many choices, I'm just looking to see what would be optimal. I was also reading about powerline adapters? I do not know anything about them but I saw a few reddit posts about them.(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WP2ZT5N/?tag=snbforums-20)

Thanks!

Powerline adapters are unpredictable and rarely sustain speeds anywhere near what they claim.

Optimal at any cost? Buy another four-stream ASUS router with NitroQAM and configure it as a wireless bridge. The RT-AC68U might be the cheapest of these options.

The easiest and lowest cost would be a USB adapter but there are no four-stream options.

 

[sfx2000]

You don't say if its for a laptop PC or a desktop PC, if the latter then I would forget about a USB and instead go for a PCI wifi card such as the Asus PCE-AC88. Its a 4x4 wifi card and a perfect match for your RT-AC88U (4x4 stream router).

There's a lot of pro's for a USB adapter - one can move it around from Machine to Machine...

The PCIe adapters do well - but at the same time, have issues with RF interference inside the PC itself, and poor location of antennas for the most part...

 

[psychopomp1]

Yes of course a USB adapter is portable. However for a desktop pc, pci is definitely the way to go as usb adaptors don’t perform as well as pci models and let’s not find forget the only high end Wi-fi adaptor (4x4 stream) is a pci version. The Asus PCI-AC88 comes with an external antenna mount and should really be used in order to get the high link rates. I get close to 2.1 Gb/s by using the external antennas versus 1 Gb/s by plugging the antennas direct to the PCE-88 card.