Choosing the right card & router for gaming

I have a few questions and need help with a configuration for gaming. Currently, I am trying to choose the best wireless card for a laptop I am customizing. Then a router for wireless gaming (if needed). I will be using a i7-4800qm in my configuration. My networking knowledge is lacking but while I continue to read books any help would be greatly appreciated.

Like I stated before, I am trying to choose a wireless card if wireless gaming is needed. I will be primarily using it for downloads and gaming. I am currently leaning toward bigfoot killer's wireless-N 1103 over the intel wireless AC 7260 because bigfoot prioritizes latency which is essential. Is this a correct choice? Are there other cards that can compete or are better? Should I be focusing on 802.11n or 802.11ac ( home use with very few users [ 1 most of the time and 2-3 rarely] )?

As for the routers, I heard that Asus currently has a solid router. The rt-n66u however, doesn't work with my cpu from what I've read. They do offer the n68u as a replacement from other topics that i read. Are there any other routers I should be looking at? If I am gaming using an Ethernet connection, how much of an impact does a router or a modem have on my connection? Any thing else I should consider when looking at routers?

 

It's not the router- rt-n66u that doesn't work with Haswell it's the Wi-Fi card PCE-AC66 that doesn't.

It makes no difference from a gaming standpoint if you use 802.11n or 802.11ac router- it only matters if you need more throughput over Wi-Fi for transferring files.

As for Bigfoot cards- it's one big hoax for gullible people with no networking knowledge. Yes it prioritizes UDP packets but only on your own computer (so if you are downloading with full speed of you connection and gaming at the same time and on the same computer it will help. That does not help at all when someone else connected to the same router downloads while you're gaming.

Also LAN latency is minimal compared to Internet latency- if you ping your router you'll end up with 1-2ms latency. If you run a ping test to Google you'll probably end up with 15-20ms (depending on the connection). Bigfoot card will "help" only with local latency (1-2ms) the rest stays the same.

Your ISP and router (with QoS) is far more important than a Wi-Fi card that prioritizes UDP packets over TCP packets coming from your own computer.

 

Thanks for the clarifications and info! Any routers that you would recommend then?

 

There are quite a few good ones. Are we talking 802.11n or 802.11ac?

With AC it's a bit ,ore complicated- almost all first gen routers are based on the same hardware made by Broadcom- you would be buying the same hardware with different chassis and firmware (admittedly the latter makes a big difference).

If you want to buy 802.11n router- there's a sticky for you. I think I'd buy TP-Link TL-WDR4300 myself.

 

I'm going to shoot for 802.11ac

 

I'd wait a while if you want to buy AC. Second generation routers started appearing and look better than first gen- unfortunately D-Link was the first to the market with its crap.
Wait until Belkin/Linksys and Asus, Netgear and TP-Link (Archer C7 is on the way) introduce their respective routers and buy then.

 

Thanks again. Glad I got a few months to kill before I return to the states. Meantime I will keep an ear out for reviews.

 

Archer C7 doesn't seem to be getting very favorable reviews.

 

Depends. I use TP-Link Routers exclusively but I NEVER use factory firmware anymore after using OpenWRT.
Right now I do custom building of OpenWRT images for TP-Link Router with way greater performance and capablities than factory and I have shared it back to the community with full source code.
TP-Link is a good brand to get the hardware, they have powerful hardware usually for half the price of competitors, I make my own software.
I will get the AC version after the opensource ath10k driver completes which is soon.