Intel's Wi-Fi 7 Controllers Reportedly in Short Supply

Wi-Fi 7 (Image credit: Shutterstock)

The Wi-Fi 7 standard is yet to be finalized, but Intel's BE200 Wi-Fi 7 controller is apparently already in short supply. As noticed by @ghost_motley, lead times of the Intel BE200 Wi-Fi solution have gone from six weeks to 12 weeks on Mouser, a major chip distributor.

"Intel BE200 lead time has gone from 6 weeks to 12 weeks on Mouser," he wrote at X (former Twitter). "May explain why the Z790 refresh boards reviewed so far have all had the Qualcomm Wi-Fi [7] chipset."

Mouser expects 27 BE200 Wi-Fi 7 modules to arrive on November 21, 2023. Meanwhile, the factory lead time of the module is listed as 12 weeks. Each module costs €18.53 when bought in a quantity of one, but its price will decrease to €15.42 when bought in a quantity of 500 or more.

Intel currently lists two draft Wi-Fi 7 M.2-2230 adapters: the Intel BE200 and the Intel BE202. These adapters are compatible with 2x2 TX/RX streams and operate on the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz frequency bands. The BE200 boasts a top speed of 5 Gbit/s, which falls short of the peak transfer rate of the standard. While the precise distinctions between the BE200 and BE202 remain unclear, Intel has stated that the BE200 has received Wi-Fi 7 pre-certification. Additionally, the BE200 and BE202 support PCIe and USB interfaces, making them suitable for desktop motherboards and laptops.

Wi-Fi 7 is set to deliver remarkable speeds, with a potential peak aggregated bitrate of 40 Gbit/s, which suggests that it might replace wired Ethernet for most users. Wi-Fi 7 will use three frequency bands to reach these lofty speeds: 2.40 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz. Additionally, it will increase the channel width to 320 MHz and adopt 4096-QAM. Despite these capabilities, several devices, like Intel's BE200, might still operate at reduced speeds.

Intel initially saw Wi-Fi 7 as a perfect fit for high-bandwidth activities, particularly in the realm of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets leveraging Intel's WiGig technology. Although the IEEE aims to officially adopt the IEEE 802.11be specification by 2025, Intel, among other companies, holds a positive view of Wi-Fi 7's potential. This optimism is evidenced by their early release of Wi-Fi 7-compliant controllers and adapters.

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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

22 Comments Comment from the forums

Order 66

This matters how? ( I don't mean to be overly cynical, but the general consumer doesn't need wifi 7.) I feel like it is a bit early to start having mass amounts of wifi 7 devices considering that most people don't even know wifi 7 exists, not to mention those people are probably still fine with wifi 5.
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SyCoREAPER

WiFi is starting to feel like the car industry, release a new model every year.

I know it's been more than a year but WiFi 5 is finally becoming common place with WiFi 6 slowly creeping it's way. WiFi 6e is boaderline useless when it comes to range. So unless 7 has a strong increase in range rather than speed, it's pretty useless for most.

So wifi 7, there's no rush and the adoption rate will be even slower.
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Order 66

sycoreaper said:
WiFi is starting to feel like the car industry, release a new model every year.

I know it's been more than a year but WiFi 5 is finally becoming common place with WiFi 6 slowly creeping it's way. WiFi 6e is boaderline useless when it comes to range. So unless 7 has a strong increase in range rather than speed, it's pretty useless for most.

So wifi 7, there's no rush and the adoption rate will be even slower.
My point exactly. Wi-Fi standards ( for most people) should last about 10 years before people feel the need to upgrade their router.
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InvalidError

Order 66 said:
My point exactly. Wi-Fi standards ( for most people) should last about 10 years before people feel the need to upgrade their router.
Hardware manufacturers can release as many new WiFi routers as they want, you don't need to buy any of them or upgrade any of your devices because of it. The only reason I replaced my Asus N56U was because it was dying - couldn't maintain WAN connections and WiFi devices were losing connection all of the time. It also ran too damn hot for my liking. I replaced it with a cheap D-Link 11ac router that still works fine today, don't plan to upgrade it until that changes.
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DougMcC

Disagree with all the people who think this isn't needed. Wifi 6 is not fast enough to keep up with a lot of streaming in the household, and 6E never mainstreamed enough because it wasn't its own version. 7 should solve both of these issues, and at last enable home wifi to be 'fast enough' to keep up with a device-heavy household.
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cowboys2000

I'm all for the latest and greatest and cutting edge. But realistically, for the price of WiFI 7 Mesh Systems, I could upgrade my home wired network . I have Xfinity Gig Speed. I sue their Wifi 6E Modem/Router. Honestlty, I only have a few devices that take advantage of WIFI 6 so why on earth would I spend THOUSANDS tgo get the latest routers with limited benefit immediatelty?
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Order 66

DougMcC said:
Disagree with all the people who think this isn't needed. Wifi 6 is not fast enough to keep up with a lot of streaming in the household, and 6E never mainstreamed enough because it wasn't its own version. 7 should solve both of these issues, and at last enable home wifi to be 'fast enough' to keep up with a device-heavy household.
really? the max speed of Wifi 6 is 9.6GBPS so 10 Gig fiber should pretty much max it out (theoretically). You're telling me that 10 Gig is not enough for streaming? I have 25mbps and I can stream on 3 devices at once at 4K.
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InvalidError

Order 66 said:
really? the max speed of Wifi 6 is 9.6GBPS so 10 Gig fiber should pretty much max it out (theoretically). You're telling me that 10 Gig is not enough for streaming? I have 25mbps and I can stream on 3 devices at once at 4K.
Maybe he has 100Gbps internet. I still only have 7Mbps :)
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Order 66

InvalidError said:
Maybe he has 100Gbps internet. I still only have 7Mbps :)
wow, I feel lucky to have 25mbps, I tried Starlink and loved it, but unfortunately, I didn't read the fine print on the contract for my old ISP and they wanted $1800 to cancel it, well I couldn't afford that so I was forced to go back to them.
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cowboys2000

I am pretty fortunante that I have Ethernet Jacks with CAT6 wiring. Sure I know there are faster wiring, but where the TV's are, there are network jacks. So the only things fighting for badwidth are the tablets, laptops, phones (all the phones get 5G great at home) and the smart devices (locks, lights, cameras). I have Ap's in the house so coverage is already great. We only have 3 Laptops in the house that can use wifi 6. Only 2 smartphones and ZERO tablets, gaming devices or TV's.

I will say that if you are in the market, sure consider WIFI 7, but also consider the list of compatible devices you have.
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