Onboard wifi Intel® Wireless-AC 9560 vs PCI-E wifi card

shadow2761

Limp Gawd
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I would like to know if using the Asus Z390 STRIX-E onboard wifi 5 (intel ac9560) would be better or on par in terms of ping performance then using a dedicated wifi card like Asus PCE-AC88 4x4 AC3800 to play competative online games with?

I am only concerned with online gaming speeds, not maximum file transfer/download speeds. I don't really want to run a LAN cable around the house if it can be avoided.

Is their more latency of the wifi signal from using this onboard wifi compared to a high end WIFI PCI-E adaptor?
 
You could easily upgrade your on board wifi to say an Intel ax201 and get a boost there for sub $25 if you look on Amazon.
 
Yep. If you want a real advantage--just use a wired connection.
Ok, so some suggest to use a wired connection for an advantage. But can anyone give me any evidence or proof that I will get an advantage with a wired connection. Like is there any reviews on this, comparisons etc? Because i can't seem to find any real evidence or comparisons with a google search.
 
Ok, so some suggest to use a wired connection for an advantage. But can anyone give me any evidence or proof that I will get an advantage with a wired connection. Like is there any reviews on this, comparisons etc? Because i can't seem to find any real evidence or comparisons with a google search.
I doubt there's any gamer-lamer reviews out there because it's not flashy or sexy enough, but since ping times rule and wired ping times are always better than wireless, therein lies the advantage. Plus you have consistent bandwidth whereas wireless can literally change with the wind.
 
You could easily upgrade your on board wifi to say an Intel ax201 and get a boost there for sub $25 if you look on Amazon.
So this is a PCIE adaptor, I understand I will get better speeds with this card, but will I get better pings?
 
I doubt there's any gamer-lamer reviews out there because it's not flashy or sexy enough, but since ping times rule and wired ping times are always better than wireless, therein lies the advantage. Plus you have consistent bandwidth whereas wireless can literally change with the wind.
I agree wired must always give better ping times, but from memory I think I read an article a little while back where they state that these days wifi only gives you a slightly higher ping, like an increase of around 3-5ms between your internet router and hence game server than using a wired connection.

So if a wifi signal is indeed only increasing ping by a few ms, then I do not mind sacrificing that much of a low amount of increased ping to save the need of placing cables around the house.
 
I agree wired must always give better ping times, but from memory I think I read an article a little while back where they state that these days wifi only gives you a slightly higher ping, like an increase of around 3-5ms between your internet router and hence game server than using a wired connection.

So if a wifi signal is indeed only increasing ping by a few ms, then I do not mind sacrificing that much of a low amount of increased ping to save the need of placing cables around the house.
The minimal extra ping is 3-5ms--it can be much much worse than that under load or if there's other people using the airspace (which is common). Also consider that most lan pings are sub 1ms, so adding 3-5ms is increasing the ping by 300-500%--and that can affect latency sensitive applications, no matter what they are.

Perfect example is the RDP session I'm using right now--it's wired. When I'm connected wirelessly, even with good ping times and bandwidth, I can tell the difference in speed when the screen redraws.

Wireless is a balance between performance and convenience. Wired is flat out performance. If you work with wireless, you will always have compromises unless you're getting enterprise level Ruckus access points as those are the only ones I've ever seen people post highly positive things about.
 
You could easily upgrade your on board wifi to say an Intel ax201 and get a boost there for sub $25 if you look on Amazon.
No, ax201 won't work unless you have intel 10th gen+. Intel decided it would be fun to screw everyone over like that and implemented their proprietary crap that artificially requires a newer CPU.
Might have luck with a generic PCIe AX200 though. Or better yet, go for AX210 with WiFI 6E

OP, don't forget that you'll need to get a compatible router to take advantage of the newer standard. If your router is just AC, then you won't stand to gain any benefit.
Also, the 4x4 card won't do anything for you for ping. All it does is run more wifi channels in parallel to increase throughput speed, not ping. Getting a better antenna and repositioning your router to reduce interference will do you much more good. HTH.
 
Thanks for the many input to this discussion.

Ok, so it seems if I really only care about ping, especially for ping sensitive apps, like SamirD mentioned above then I should really get a wired connection.
 
Thanks for the many input to this discussion.

Ok, so it seems if I really only care about ping, especially for ping sensitive apps, like SamirD mentioned above then I should really get a wired connection.
And if you don't want to run wires, I have found that powerline adapters are very good on ping with comparable speeds as wifi, so they could give you the ping you want without running too many wires.
 
Ok, so it seems if I really only care about ping, especially for ping sensitive apps, like SamirD mentioned above then I should really get a wired connection.

Why not test it yourself?

Open up a command prompt on your computer and ping your router. On a wired connection, you will have ping times of less than 1ms to your router. Whatever your ping to your router is while on wireless should essentially show you how much latency is being added. Make it a running ping and keep it up and going, and you will be able see if there are any latency spikes or drop-outs over time.
 
And if you don't want to run wires, I have found that powerline adapters are very good on ping with comparable speeds as wifi, so they could give you the ping you want without running too many wires.
I found some forums of people posting results of their powerline adaptors having more latency than wifi.

There were several people who also claimed that. I don't know maybe they had bad or old wiring in their home?
Why not test it yourself?

Open up a command prompt on your computer and ping your router. On a wired connection, you will have ping times of less than 1ms to your router. Whatever your ping to your router is while on wireless should essentially show you how much latency is being added. Make it a running ping and keep it up and going, and you will be able see if there are any latency spikes or drop-outs over time.

What command do I use to test?

I tried the 'ping' command to my modem IP address, and both wireless and wired connections gave me a min/avg/max of 0ms. And 0% packet loss.
 
You can use tracert to say yahoo.com, or if you want true speed you could try iperf3 if you have another pc to act as a server.
 
I found some forums of people posting results of their powerline adaptors having more latency than wifi.

There were several people who also claimed that. I don't know maybe they had bad or old wiring in their home?


What command do I use to test?

I tried the 'ping' command to my modem IP address, and both wireless and wired connections gave me a min/avg/max of 0ms. And 0% packet loss.
You can find evidence supporting either one online, but when powerlines are working well, the ping does not rise a lot like it does on wifi when the connection is being utilized.

A simple ping isn't really enough. You need a 'heavy' ping--something with some data. I don't know if this would show the difference, but maybe setting larger packet sizes on packetlosstest.com and then running the same test on wired and wireless will show it.
 
If you go to speedtest.net, it will give you ping along with the speed. Give that a try.
But, as others mentioned, WiFi performance is relative. If you live out on a farm in the country side a mile away from another access point and your PC is the only device using it, it's not bad at all.
If you're in an appartment building and can pick up more WiFi points that Windows will care to display, and there are multiple devices streaming on WiFi, it can be a struggle whereas a wired network wouldn't be affected nearly much.
 
What command do I use to test?

Hit the Windows Key + R to bring up "Run"
Type "CMD" (without the quotes) and hit enter. This will bring up the Command Prompt.
In the command prompt, type "ipconfig" (without the quotes) and hit enter. The IP that it shows for "Default Gateway" is the IP address of your router.
Now ping the address of your router. If your Default Gateway IP is 192.168.0.1, then you would type "ping 192.168.0.1 -t" (without the quotes). Substitute 192.168.0.1 for whatever it had listed as your default gateway. Hit enter.

A simple ping isn't really enough. You need a 'heavy' ping--something with some data.

This is why I recommend keeping the running ping open (up on a 2nd monitor ideally) and reference it over time during real-world usage. Anything above 1ms is latency that is being added by your local network (due to WiFi or otherwise).
 
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Ax20x series pcie cards are literally m2 wlan cards on a pcie interface, doesn't matter if its my gigabyte or the actual Intel kit. Same shit unless its broadcom model usually.
But yeah nothing beats cable.
 
No, ax201 won't work unless you have intel 10th gen+. Intel decided it would be fun to screw everyone over like that and implemented their proprietary crap that artificially requires a newer CPU.
Might have luck with a generic PCIe AX200 though. Or better yet, go for AX210 with WiFI 6E

OP, don't forget that you'll need to get a compatible router to take advantage of the newer standard. If your router is just AC, then you won't stand to gain any benefit.
Also, the 4x4 card won't do anything for you for ping. All it does is run more wifi channels in parallel to increase throughput speed, not ping. Getting a better antenna and repositioning your router to reduce interference will do you much more good. HTH.
Just to add if you are like me running win7 the ax200 shithead Intel drivers dont exist. 8000 series is fastest Intel wlan on win7 with support.
 
Calling bs on these huge ping differences. I'd be surprised if it's more than 5ms in all about the worst scenario/unreliable.

OP I would say pcie is better than onboard but mostly at the theoretical difference, definitely smaller than WiFi vs Ethernet.
 
This is why I recommend keeping the running ping open (up on a 2nd monitor ideally) and reference it over time during real-world usage. Anything above 1ms is latency that is being added by your local network (due to WiFi or otherwise).
That's one way to do it, but then you're trying to 'catch' the bad pings. Better to generate a test that is supposed to affect the latency and see if it does.
 
That's one way to do it, but then you're trying to 'catch' the bad pings. Better to generate a test that is supposed to affect the latency and see if it does.

No better way to test your real-world latency than testing during real-world usage. Playing online games really doesn't even use that much data.
 
Calling bs on these huge ping differences. I'd be surprised if it's more than 5ms in all about the worst scenario/unreliable.
I just did a ping to one of my sites across the US with both a wired and wireless connection. On the average, it is just 5m difference--but the real difference was how consistent the wired connection was on having lower ping times, especially when I put a load on it. This matches my real-world experience when using wired vs wireless rdp sessions.
 
Just to add if you are like me running win7 the ax200 shithead Intel drivers dont exist. 8000 series is fastest Intel wlan on win7 with support.
And meanwhile, 40Gb cards will still work on win 7. :ROFLMAO:
 
No better way to test your real-world latency than testing during real-world usage. Playing online games really doesn't even use that much data.
I can literally 'see' latency in rdp sessions since I'm looking at high res pdfs all day long. And it's much worse when I work wirelessly. But my wife didn't understand why I always worked wired until she started seeing latency in her video calling. Now she too prefers wired. Wired > wireless. Always.
 
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Just to add if you are like me running win7 the ax200 shithead Intel drivers dont exist. 8000 series is fastest Intel wlan on win7 with support.
It's time to get on with the rest of the world and accept the fact that Win10 is inevitable. Just had this argument with a buddy, for whom there was no easy way to install intel 225 (the 2.5G lan) drivers cause he was hell-bent on Win7. I reminded him of the days when Win7 was already out for a while but he was telling me WinXP forever. Then new version of DirectX was not released on XP and he couldn't play new games, among numerous other issues, and switched to Win7. Now he's telling me Win7 forever. I bet in 5 years he'll be telling me Win10 20H2 forever, or whatever.
 
It's time to get on with the rest of the world and accept the fact that Win10 is inevitable. Just had this argument with a buddy, for whom there was no easy way to install intel 225 (the 2.5G lan) drivers cause he was hell-bent on Win7. I reminded him of the days when Win7 was already out for a while but he was telling me WinXP forever. Then new version of DirectX was not released on XP and he couldn't play new games, among numerous other issues, and switched to Win7. Now he's telling me Win7 forever. I bet in 5 years he'll be telling me Win10 20H2 forever, or whatever.
There are some advantages to the older stuff as it will run faster on newer hardware, and you can virtualize and snapshot it, so you don't even need any type of 'protection' or updates. I locked down XP with the steadystate add-on and my parents used that until they passed away. Their systems are still alive and well even though the hardware is s478 p4s, and I still use them for little stuff.

If you don't want the problems of the new, you can't have the solutions of the new either. Personally, I'm fine with that. I don't need the newest cloud based, big-brother licensed, arbitration gagged whatever. I just need tools that work. And honestly, an xp system running adobe pdf reader 8.0 with a gpu seems to still be pretty fast. I haven't found modern systems to be any faster for the simple task of looking at high-res pdfs.

There's lots of software out there that's still around for productivity if you're doing the basics as word processors and stuff like that hasn't really changed much from the days of Windows 3.1 even. And with the advent of opensource, there's a lot of free/freeware stuff out there that works solidly and reliably. But again, if you need latest and greatest, this is not the path you are looking for...
 
If you're that serious with gaming then go ethernet and wired keyboard and mouse. You'll get more consistent performance. With wireless it's constantly fluctuating depending on your air traffic. If you run a microwave for popcorn it will slow your connection speed down for example. Also, get the Asus router like the RT-AC86U that has a feature they call The Gamers Private Network (GPN) from WTFast that is supposed to route game packets for the lowest ping possible.
 
If you're that serious with gaming then go ethernet and wired keyboard and mouse. You'll get more consistent performance. With wireless it's constantly fluctuating depending on your air traffic. If you run a microwave for popcorn it will slow your connection speed down for example. Also, get the Asus router like the RT-AC86U that has a feature they call The Gamers Private Network (GPN) from WTFast that is supposed to route game packets for the lowest ping possible.
Interesting. I never heard of GPN before. :) They also have a very pertinent paragraph in their support documentation here: https://wtfast.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027563012-What-is-the-Middle-Mile-

"WiFi is not your friend. While convenient, WiFi unfortunately is susceptible to interference. This interference can create a game connection with lots of jitter and packet loss. If you do a traceroute over your WiFi, there is a high probability that you will see cascading jitter and packet loss to any target. Clearly this is a problem, it is going to make your online gameplay choppy. If you see this, your ISP can’t help you, this is just the nature of a WiFi connection.

If you want to make sure that your game connection at home is nice and smooth, we recommend doing a wired / ethernet connection. This will ensure that your connection at home is as good as possible, without outside interference hampering your gameplay. Your ISP can help you with getting more wiring installed at your house to support all your devices."
 
I have used WTFast along with many other tunneling/proxy services and I have to say they are crap for me. Maybe they work for some people but for me, it never made any difference and is some cases made ping worse.

I have had much better success with MudFish service, and it is far cheaper to use than althose over-hyped tunneling crap like WTFast.
 
Interesting. I never heard of GPN before. :) They also have a very pertinent paragraph in their support documentation here: https://wtfast.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027563012-What-is-the-Middle-Mile-

"WiFi is not your friend. While convenient, WiFi unfortunately is susceptible to interference. This interference can create a game connection with lots of jitter and packet loss. If you do a traceroute over your WiFi, there is a high probability that you will see cascading jitter and packet loss to any target. Clearly this is a problem, it is going to make your online gameplay choppy. If you see this, your ISP can’t help you, this is just the nature of a WiFi connection.

If you want to make sure that your game connection at home is nice and smooth, we recommend doing a wired / ethernet connection. This will ensure that your connection at home is as good as possible, without outside interference hampering your gameplay. Your ISP can help you with getting more wiring installed at your house to support all your devices."
Lots of ISPs in America will not help you fish ethernet all over your house. Comcast for example is terrible and the only time I've succeeded in getting the workers to fish ethernet for me is on really hot days in the Summer on Friday afternoon appointments after 2PM. That's the magic time to get proper fishing going on. Still it requires bribery with money and bbq.

For regular monetary transactions try local alarm companies that do security cameras. One of these screwed up saying $100 a drop but I did all the easy ones myself this time and only the real bitch ones were left. Next time I'll need to pick another company unless that dude sells out.
 
Lots of ISPs in America will not help you fish ethernet all over your house. Comcast for example is terrible and the only time I've succeeded in getting the workers to fish ethernet for me is on really hot days in the Summer on Friday afternoon appointments after 2PM. That's the magic time to get proper fishing going on. Still it requires bribery with money and bbq.

For regular monetary transactions try local alarm companies that do security cameras. One of these screwed up saying $100 a drop but I did all the easy ones myself this time and only the real bitch ones were left. Next time I'll need to pick another company unless that dude sells out.
Yeah, it took some effort to even get charter to run 2x cat5 runs for a business account with a point-of-sale system. But I know a lot of these guys do stuff 'on the side' so that is your best quote since they're already there and know the install situation.

Alarm companies are pretty good, but they're only running for 100Mbps since even 4k cameras are still 100Mbps. You can have issues at gigabit that you won't get with 100Mbps. I would have them run the wire, but then somehow guarantee their run and then terminate everything myself unless it's cheap for them to do it and confirm gigabit works properly.
 
I supply the cable and keystone jacks, rj45 connectors to the alarm guys. It hasn't come up yet but I'd be happy to terminate the ends myself. The hard part is getting the wire fished high on the outside of my house, to the living room, front and back porch, back corner of the house by master bedroom, and the far end of the kitchen. That guy really, really earned his money. The complicating factors here were not breaking anyone's neck 30' up in the air or doing a bunch of drywall work. Instead the alarm guy brought an enormous ladder and had no problem fishing wire to these places, deploying keystone jacks, mounting cameras, and installing access points in the highest parts of my house. I also have a tester that can make sure the wires do 10gbps due to doing work like this professionally in the past. I'm not as agile as I once was and the next time I screw a joint up badly it won't go back together as neatly as it did before so I don't do ladders over 20'.
 
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Thread is pretty old but here's an option in case someone else comes looking. Most houses should have Coax run to most rooms. If that's the case you can use MoCA adaptors to get "full-speed" without running ethernet cables.
 
WiFi is perfectly fine for gaming. Hardwired is better but you don't need high throughput but solid latency
 
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