I rent my apartment, so I can't drill through the walls to run Ethernet cables. So Wi-Fi (or possibly power-line adapters) is my only choice. It's an apartment complex, so getting stable Wi-Fi has always been a little tricky (before 5 GHz .n it was hopeless).
I've been quite happy with my Linksys E4200 paired with a Linksys USB-adapter, but with faster Internet speeds it's starting to become a bottleneck. So I picked up the Asus EA-AC87 and Asus PCE-AC68 PCI-E adapter.
I've done some testing using Windows file transfers, pulling files from my laptop, both with it wired directly into the AC87 (Gigabit Ethernet) and over Wi-Fi (Intel AC 7260 AC-adapter).
My desktop computer can only use Wi-Fi as it's in another part of the apartment, with two walls between it and the router/AP.
Linksys E4200:
Laptop via Gigabit Ethernet: ~20MB/s
Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi (5 GHz): ~9 - 10Mb/s
Asus EA-AC87
Laptop via Gigabit Ethernet: 50 - 60MB/s
Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi (5 GHz .ac): ~22MB/s
Pretty impressive real-world speeds. Clearly the Wi-Fi speed will no longer bottleneck my 250Mb/s Internet connection. However if I were to upgrade to 1Gb/s Internet, it wouldn't be enough. This is also fast enough to consider (wired) NAS, which wasn't really practical before. Also the Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi speed is fast enough to be practical now.
I've been quite happy with my Linksys E4200 paired with a Linksys USB-adapter, but with faster Internet speeds it's starting to become a bottleneck. So I picked up the Asus EA-AC87 and Asus PCE-AC68 PCI-E adapter.
I've done some testing using Windows file transfers, pulling files from my laptop, both with it wired directly into the AC87 (Gigabit Ethernet) and over Wi-Fi (Intel AC 7260 AC-adapter).
My desktop computer can only use Wi-Fi as it's in another part of the apartment, with two walls between it and the router/AP.
Linksys E4200:
Laptop via Gigabit Ethernet: ~20MB/s
Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi (5 GHz): ~9 - 10Mb/s
Asus EA-AC87
Laptop via Gigabit Ethernet: 50 - 60MB/s
Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi (5 GHz .ac): ~22MB/s
Pretty impressive real-world speeds. Clearly the Wi-Fi speed will no longer bottleneck my 250Mb/s Internet connection. However if I were to upgrade to 1Gb/s Internet, it wouldn't be enough. This is also fast enough to consider (wired) NAS, which wasn't really practical before. Also the Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi speed is fast enough to be practical now.