New Intel ac Pci-e and M2 Adapter

[MrPromaster]

Intel has updated their wireless page and i'm yet to see any news or discussions about it, so i was wondering what SNB thought about them?

the line up: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/wireless-products/wireless-product-selection-guide.html.html

Intel Ac 7260: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/wireless-products/dual-band-wireless-ac-7260-bluetooth.html

 

[Razor512]

Cool, I wish intel would sell those directly, I had to give up on buying an intel ultimate n 6300 because every seller seemed to be only selling the lenovo versions which tend to have compatibility issues on non lenovo laptops.

PS it would be awesome if small net builder could do an article on upgrading the wifi adapters on laptops, I would love to know if some of the newer intel offerings will work on AMD based laptops since I have both an intel and an AMD based laptop that I want to upgrade in order to get better performance when backing up data.

 

[thiggins]

It's nice that Intel has come up with mini PCI-e draft 11ac adapter. More convenient than an external adapter.

The PCI-e interface might be a bit faster than USB 3.0. 2x2 does limit maximum link rate to 867 Mbps, though. The only 3x3 adapter remains the ASUS PCE-AC66 for desktops.

 

[thiggins]

PS it would be awesome if small net builder could do an article on upgrading the wifi adapters on laptops, I would love to know if some of the newer intel offerings will work on AMD based laptops since I have both an intel and an AMD based laptop that I want to upgrade in order to get better performance when backing up data.

Sorry, but don't have access to the laptops I would need for the article.

 

[MrPromaster]

I was going to upgrade to the 6300, but i decided to wait for the ac chips. With the improvements of ac i won't have to buy another internal antenna since they all seem to the 2x2 and easily twice the speed of the n adapters.

is there any way of finding out way more information about the actual chips used on the adapter? Broadcom give really detailed breakdowns of their chips, do intel?

 

[thiggins]

Intel uses its own devices. You can look up the FCC ID docs. But they have temporarily blocked the internal photos until early December.

 

[RMerlin]

PS it would be awesome if small net builder could do an article on upgrading the wifi adapters on laptops, I would love to know if some of the newer intel offerings will work on AMD based laptops since I have both an intel and an AMD based laptop that I want to upgrade in order to get better performance when backing up data.

This will vary both between models and also between manufacturers. Some manufacturers implement a whitelist in the BIOS which will only allow you to use a card that is on that whitelist, making it hard to upgrade, especially to anything new. This makes it next to impossible for a reviewer to validate compatibility - you will have to ask either your manufacturer, or the community in general.

For myself, I upgraded my Asus K53E single-stream Atheros with a Centrino 6230 dual-stream + BT last year. 23$ on Amazon - very nice upgrade for that price.