So there are many companies offering WiFi chips: Intel, Mediatek, Qualcomm, Realtek etc… who makes the best ones?
I am sorry if this question sounds stupid, because in the tech world it’s best to compare the products themselves, not the brand. However I am not familiar with how this sector of the hardware industry works and product lines of each company. So I hope your answers can enlighten me and others in the same boat.
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Intel, just not the Intel Killer ones.
I always pop in the latest Intel WIFi card (AC, WIFI 6, 6E, now WIFI 7) and it works like a charm and has driver updates all the time using Intel driver assistant app that checks at PC boot.
It’s often the driver that really separates micro controller manufacturers IMO.
Realistically, even the cheapest Realtek ones have been “good enough” for the past years. I’ve been gaming competitively on a 10$ 2.4ghz one without issues.
that’s not a very hard workload
In my experience Intel is generally best, but they all make duds, including Intel. I use a Qualcomm in my laptop at work and it’s very good.
Indeed, but most people I know that demand the best NICs (not necessarily wifi ones), have low latency gaming in mind, thus my comment. What I was trying to say was that even cheap ones, are “good enough” for such scenarios.
Contrary to popular believe I don’t think “gaming competitively” is anything hard on any modern network card. In my IT life, bandwidth is sometimes the issue, latency is sometimes the issue, but latency caused by the wifi card itself has almost never been the issue, and gaming uses miniscule amount of bandwidth.
Competitive online gaming has been feasible on wi-fi for a long number of years now. Obviously ethernet is better, it just is plain and simple. However wi-fi gets about 90% there and the remaining 10% between wi-fi and ethernet won’t make someone a pro gamer or not. wi-fi is seriously fine in 2023, the latency is low and the throughput is high
Intel > Qualcomm > Realtek > Mediatek.
Get an AX210 or AX411, the later is technically better but is only compatible with Intel CPUs that support CNVio2.
+1 for the AX210. Its $20 on Amazon. If you have an open PCIe x1 slot you can get an adapter and for under $40 you end up with a wifi+bluetooth card that beats any branded cards from the likes of D-Link or Netgear which are probably using proprietary broadcom or realtek chips.
Plus its upgradeable. When WiFi 7 rolls around its another $20-30 for a drop in replacement.
Where does AMD fit? They do make WiFi chips and early AM5 boards had them
BE200 is already available for basically the same price
Intel have had lots of WIFI6 driver issues tho. Hopefully they get better code quality on newer cards.
their 6E cards have pretty much patched up the problems. My laptop has a normal 6 adapter and has connectivity issues out the ass. I tried upgrading to a 6E module, but unfortunately the slot doesn’t support a 6E adapter
On Linux I’d recommend MediaTek, Intel adapters just suck there for some reason
If you wait just a bit the new BE700 is shipping in roughly two weeks
Agreed, that’s a good rank ordering. Also, OP, if you want a stronger connection and are using a desktop, consider simply upgrading your connection with better antennas. I upgraded my router, and the antennas on my Intel AX201 with the Eightwood EWUA0160 kit since it has SMA connectors. With larger antennas at the end of a good length of cable, I was able to more advantageously place them for least interference. I can’t ethernet my PC to the router right now, but I wanted to stream to my phone using Moonlight, and this helped me a lot.
IMO realtek is worst, worse than mediatek.
Avoid broadcom if you use Linux. Their drivers suck…
Broadcom really should be in that listing….
Synaptics and Infineon also have product lines branched from that. And Redpine (now in Onsemi) have some extra features for low power.
Marvell and NXP also figure into V2X where those others don’t always have parts to meet temperature requirements.
Realtek ones were always good to me. I had Intel once and it was real bad. I guess it was drivers problem. It would go to power saving mode during normal use, would get real slow for no reason. Had to change lots of settings in control panel and even then I would shat itself from time to time. But this was years ago, so IDK maybe now Intel is decent…?
I cannot speak to the overall sector, but when it comes to M.2 laptop wifi cards, Intel is the way to go. They have long been the most reliable of the bunch, likely due to better windows drivers more than anything else. Intel is usually the most expensive, but the cost difference is so negligible, paying extra for reliability is well worth it. I have swapped out two cards for Intel for friends who had dead cards in <4 years, and I swapped out one in my own laptop right after purchase due to instability.
Alfa wireless cards support packet injection.
Generally Intel is the most regarded. But I got motherboard with Mediatek’s wifi 6e chip and it works just fine, and bluetooth range is slightly better than by old desktop with Qualcomm wifi ac chip and much better than my laptop with Intel wifi 6 chip.
Wallstreetbets ruined the word “regarded” for me, I started laughing when I read the first sentence.
I think it’s absolutely regarded that just using the word regarded once on Reddit can get your account banned fully automatic if somebody clicks report.
Intel’s drivers are constantly fighting with Windows Update. I deliberately buy MOBOs with 3+ NVME slots so I can upgrade my wifi when I periodically upgrade my network --and the last three Intel (proper Intel, not 3rd party) mini-cards I’ve acquired have been plagued with endless Win11 v Intel driver conflicts.
yeah, intel’s chipsets are also the flakiest on bluetooth, and it’s completely down to drivers (apple has them working pretty solidly on macbooks but NUCs are noticeably worse and rando motherboards with intel bluetooth are a pain in the ass)
Drivers are optional updates and can be disabled or not used? Or are you using Home? I have always used windows professional since XP so maybe home doesn’t offer if, but drivers are listed under advanced/optional updates and I have the system set to NOT download from windows update unless I tell it to, which is generally ok for like Bluetooth drivers from Intel which are basic anyway.
Its ethernet,they make the best ones!
For PC it’s definitely Intel.
If you plan to run or test Linux, stick to Intel. Some vendors tend to have proprietary drivers and do not contribute to the Linux kernel, meaning the code is not reviewed or packaged with most distributions.
Now(wifi5/6/7), No.1 is Mediatek(Ralink).
There’s so much more that goes into how good a wifi is even on board/system level than just who makes the wifi chip. Even within the same company it can wildly differ. It depends on the board design, layout, noise isolation, chipset drivers, antenna design, antenna placement, and manufacturing. If the wifi on your device sucks, there probably wasn’t enough engineers working on testing it when integrating into their system or good testing on the production line to catch defects. Sometimes something like a missing screw can mess with the radiation pattern. Source: RF test engineer.
Just upgraded my Intel chip to a mediately/AMD relabeled one. Twice the speeds now, so it’s kinda crazy.
That doesn’t sound very informative. Your older chip might have been WiFi 5 and now you perhaps upgraded to a chips with WiFi 6. Of course it’s going to be faster.