Hi all. I'm most likely buying a new PC for gaming. It will go in a different room to my router which means I cannot connect it via Ethernet. The one I have my eye on currently has no wifi card. What do you think is the best option? Buy a wifi card or USB adapter or buy a Powerline kit. I live in a rather old house so I'm not hugely sure how well a Powerline kit would work. I get 5 bars reception in the room I will put the computer and I also have a dual band wifi extender if the signal isn't great. Thanks for the help in advance
Wifi vs Powerline
- Thread starter archemack
- Start date
derek3ton
Honorable
- Oct 30, 2015
- 403
- 0
- 10,960
generally, powerline is faster than wifi, but slower than direct connect. There are other factors though that can slow down a powerline, but generally once the main power line finds the other and creates the connection, it should keep a good connection. This will also depend on how the house is wired. I like powerline over wifi if hardline wasn't an option.
The actual answer is you are going to have to try it yourself and find out. Someone else posting "xxx works for me" means nothing, it is almost as bad as asking what color router you like.
Both are based on radio signals one just runs over the electrical wires. When you compare the 2 the powerline has less total bandwidth but is much less susceptible to interference since something must be connected to the electrical system to cause interference.
Which you choose also depends on your application. File downloads can tolerate a lot of packet delays and loss but need as much bandwidth as possible. Games do not use a huge amount of bandwidth but they are extremely sensitive to delays.
The thing that makes this impossible to answer is you must know the quality of the wiring in a persons house and how much wireless interference there is around.
For most people that live near a lot of other people using wireless, powerline devices will work better for games unless they are unlucky and have poor house wiring.
As a side comment do not even think to use a wifi repeater/extender unless you have no other option. These cause massive degradation of the signal quality. Pretty much you only use them when a bad signal is better than no signal.
Both are based on radio signals one just runs over the electrical wires. When you compare the 2 the powerline has less total bandwidth but is much less susceptible to interference since something must be connected to the electrical system to cause interference.
Which you choose also depends on your application. File downloads can tolerate a lot of packet delays and loss but need as much bandwidth as possible. Games do not use a huge amount of bandwidth but they are extremely sensitive to delays.
The thing that makes this impossible to answer is you must know the quality of the wiring in a persons house and how much wireless interference there is around.
For most people that live near a lot of other people using wireless, powerline devices will work better for games unless they are unlucky and have poor house wiring.
As a side comment do not even think to use a wifi repeater/extender unless you have no other option. These cause massive degradation of the signal quality. Pretty much you only use them when a bad signal is better than no signal.
Maarsch
Distinguished
- Sep 14, 2012
- 684
- 0
- 19,360
I was worried about applying power-line in my home.
It is old and, as the electrician testified by swearing continuously for the 4 hours it took him fixing something which should have been a simple fuse replacement, very shitty.
It runs better than the wifi.
No, let me be more precise. It is generally slower than my wifi, but far more reliable. 2 one second stutters in a hots/sc2 game was the norm over wifi, now I don't get any.
But downloads and updates do now come in some 10-15% slower. Which is still >5MB/sec.
Buy a powerline set from a brick and mortar store and be nice to the packaging when you open it.
Try it out, if it doesn't work put it back in the box and return it.
Just remember to plug it directly into your wall, not after a powerstrip.
It is old and, as the electrician testified by swearing continuously for the 4 hours it took him fixing something which should have been a simple fuse replacement, very shitty.
It runs better than the wifi.
No, let me be more precise. It is generally slower than my wifi, but far more reliable. 2 one second stutters in a hots/sc2 game was the norm over wifi, now I don't get any.
But downloads and updates do now come in some 10-15% slower. Which is still >5MB/sec.
Buy a powerline set from a brick and mortar store and be nice to the packaging when you open it.
Try it out, if it doesn't work put it back in the box and return it.
Just remember to plug it directly into your wall, not after a powerstrip.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Question User RX 580 8gb red devil powercolor, asking original BIOS- Started by PizzaInGame
- Replies: 5
-
-
-
News Microsoft updates Windows 11 24H2 requirements, CPU must support SSE4.2 or the OS will not boot- Started by Admin
- Replies: 19
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram