Intel Wireless AC 7260 vs Killer 1202 Wireless card? For Gaming?

Hi im new here.:hi2:

Im buying a gaming laptop soon and i cant decide between the Intel Ac 7260 and the killer 1202 wireless n card. I dont care about the cost and i dont own a ac router but i do own a very good wireless n router.

I want the best card for wireless gaming which will reduce as much lag as possible. (I get very good signal strength around the house so singlerange isnt a problem)

Thanks!:hi2:

 

If you don't own a 802.11ac router and are not planning to buy one, there's no point buying 7260 at all.
Apart from that 802.11ac is there to increase throughput rather than reduce latency so it wouldn't be much of an improvement (if any) anyway.

 

Which notebook are you thinking of getting for gaming?

Some MSI gaming models have the Killer 1202 as stock wireless card and others like the GS60 Ghost have the Intel AC-7260

Which router do you own or plan on using?

 

Like what downloads wrote, 802.11ac will NOT improve your latency at all. Rather, it only allows you to transfer at around 40 - 45 MB/s half-duplex of sequential data. You also don't need a super expensive and fancy router unless you have more than 8 devices streaming and some P2Ping while you're gaming at the same time or if you have a large house and you need very long range. I use a $25 Refurb Netgear WNDR3400v1 as 5 GHz AP and a 2.4 Ghz Netgear WNR2000v2 as my router and that $25 router offers lag free WiFi at 5 GHz band:

I happen to use the Intel 7260 N (not AC) which you see on my sig. I just want to let you know that 7260 isn't problem free for some people. In fact, the exact driver version works with some laptop brand / configuration while it performs poorly (lag spikes, disconnections, 5 GHz drop, etc.) on other laptops. For example, I'm using the 16.8.0.6 drivers on my laptop and it works PERFECTLY on both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands (both bands give good range though 2.4 Ghz has ping spikes due to WiFi interference at my apartment) while this exact same version works poorly on WhatsThePoint's laptop (low transmit power resulting to short range). Therefore, I cannot guarantee if you'll get a perfect performance with Intel 7260. The same can be said with the Killer 1202 as well.

IMO, purchase both then compare. I suggest to do a ping test to the router gateway. Do at least 500 times of ping and if the ping has spiked to greater than 10 ms, If the maximum ping is greater than 10 ms, it will cause network lag when gaming.

If you get a results of consistent 1ms ping with less than 10 ms of the maximum from the 500 time ping test, then you shouldn't be lagging due to your WiFi.

Here's mine that I just did while writing this:

See the full result here: View attachment WiFi ping.txt

Hopefully the 7260AC will work perfectly on your laptop at least on 5 GHz. If it doesn't while Killer 1202 works well then keep the Killer. Just remember to try different drivers for 7260 in case you are getting lag spikes from 5 Ghz band. Whatsthepoint recommends 16.6.0.8 and 17.0.0.34 which works perfectly to his PC and laptop while the 16.8.0.6 from Dell works best for my laptop.

 

im getting the sager np 9377-s fully loaded. i have a asus n66-u router with 120 mbps down and 10 up

 

thanks for the answer. i understand now. i used the 5ghz band anyway on my rt-n66u router.

 

I used a Killer 1103 wireless N card with 3rd antenna successfully paired with a Netgear WNDR4500 and Netgear R6300.

On the 5ghz band the transmit and receive were a solid 450Mbps almost 100% of the time.

I'd check with a few different Sager reseller about any known issues with wireless cards before ordering the notebook.

Wireless cards sometimes perform less than expected in certain brands and models.

 

Cool, thanks! will do.