- May 26, 2012
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Newegg just went out of stock and it's listed as unknown restock date, if ever on the ASRock H110m-ITX/ac, the board I was going to buy on Sunday. The only other place I see it for relatively the same price is SuperBiiz, but I've heard enough horror stories that I don't feel comfortable going that route. Newegg still has the ASRock H110m-ITX (no built in wifi), although it's actually $2 more, no biggy. If I went this route, I would need to get a USB wifi adapter (too far for wired). Thinking pros and cons long term I see it like this:
Built In:
Pros- hypothetically faster, integrated into mobo so it's one less thing to lose (I guess you could lose an antenna?), includes BT 4.0 support
Cons- Presumably harder to upgrade - it's an m.2 chip so I would reckon I could swap it with another m.2 chip? Could potentially a bigger cause damage to mobo if something crazy happened.
USB:
Pros- Easier to upgrade, safer for the mobo
Cons- hypothetically slower, eats a USB port (I do have a self powered USB hub so this isn't a huge deal), presumably at the mercy of having good USB adapter drivers AND USB controller drivers (never had an issue with USB controller drivers in my life though), no BT 4.0 (I don't really use BT devices with my desktop)
We currently have 30 meg internet. I do have a dual band N router and the USB adapter I would consider with an external antenna is single band - I think I'm typically connected to the 2.4 half anyway even with a dual band PCI-E card in my current set up. I don't do hardcore gaming, let alone hardcore gaming online...maybe I'll play Rift and mostly solo at that or Marvel Heroes 2016 solo. I do download a lot of big files so reliability would be key - I've never had a serious issue with my PCI-E card being reliable.
I'm going to call Newegg when they open this morning to see if I can get more info - I'm happy to hold off if they are for sure getting some of the ac board in stock soon. If they have no info or are not planning on restocking it, will I really notice a huge difference in performance? Looking at older threads it looks like no, but they were also 2+ years old so maybe things have changed.
Built In:
Pros- hypothetically faster, integrated into mobo so it's one less thing to lose (I guess you could lose an antenna?), includes BT 4.0 support
Cons- Presumably harder to upgrade - it's an m.2 chip so I would reckon I could swap it with another m.2 chip? Could potentially a bigger cause damage to mobo if something crazy happened.
USB:
Pros- Easier to upgrade, safer for the mobo
Cons- hypothetically slower, eats a USB port (I do have a self powered USB hub so this isn't a huge deal), presumably at the mercy of having good USB adapter drivers AND USB controller drivers (never had an issue with USB controller drivers in my life though), no BT 4.0 (I don't really use BT devices with my desktop)
We currently have 30 meg internet. I do have a dual band N router and the USB adapter I would consider with an external antenna is single band - I think I'm typically connected to the 2.4 half anyway even with a dual band PCI-E card in my current set up. I don't do hardcore gaming, let alone hardcore gaming online...maybe I'll play Rift and mostly solo at that or Marvel Heroes 2016 solo. I do download a lot of big files so reliability would be key - I've never had a serious issue with my PCI-E card being reliable.
I'm going to call Newegg when they open this morning to see if I can get more info - I'm happy to hold off if they are for sure getting some of the ac board in stock soon. If they have no info or are not planning on restocking it, will I really notice a huge difference in performance? Looking at older threads it looks like no, but they were also 2+ years old so maybe things have changed.
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