Download speed vs wireless speed

Hi all,

I'm getting a new gaming laptop (Alienware M17x R3) and I want to take full advantage of its capabilities. I'm confused though, after looking around for a wireless card / router / ISP provider. It seems like the killer wireless 1103 is the top of the line when it comes to a wireless card, with awesome software and dual band 450 Mbps. For that I would need a wireless N router that can operate on dual band at 450 Mbps. But it occurs to me that ISPs don't offer much more than 20Mbps download speed unless cost is absolutely no issue and even then I've never seen anywhere near even 300Mbps download speed being offered. This is why I'm confused. Am I missing something? is the wireless Mbps speed only useful for data transfers and such over a lan? Someone please help me to understand this, so I know what download speed I'll need and if I even need the new router and wireless card. At this point I'm wondering why the stock wireless wouldn't be more than adequate.

 

It is.

The actual benefits would be faster file transfer speeds to/from a wired desktop or NAS box. Then again how much faster depends on what the basic wireless card is and how well it performs.

I think for your use the only good reason (in addition to fancy product name) for getting the better wireless would be slightly better latency in games. At least I remember something like that was mentioned one time and I don't even know if it works in real life

If the basic wireless is 2.4GHz only, then upgrading to a dualband card is a good idea. When the 2.4GHz becomes too crowded, there might be room in the 5GHz band. You wouldn't need to upgrade router for dualband model yet unless you want to.

 

One thing regarding the supposed lower latencies of the Killer cards. The card itself is basically a high end Atheros adapter and it's the software that's supposed to make it tick. Downloads didn't really find much difference between it and the Intel 6300 and some users here reported that the adapter operated better on Atheros drivers rather than the Bigfoot drivers. If you were to ask me, i'd say the improved latencies are quite environment dependent and the card isn't performing all that much better than the other adapters at the top of the food chain.

The stock will do just fine if you don't have special needs, but if you want to go for high end, pick whichever one is cheaper between Intel and Bigfoot.

 

Ok, thanks for letting me know! I'll probly just use the stock card for a while to see if its performs well enough for me

 

Well, consider you have connected the RJ-45 cable. The network speed will be 1000Mbps, and your download speed is great. Think about the wireless, who can only give 300Mbps. Thus, your download speed will decrease.

 

I have yet to see a personal Internet connection that will actually saturate a wireless N network in North America. Your download speed has almost nothing to do with network speed, aside that if it is above the network speed it will saturate. If you have 20Mbps Internet, it won't matter whether you're on gigait or wireless N.

At this point, the only reason for wired is if you need high bandwidth for local data transfer or you have latency issues with wireless.