Is wifi a selling point on a gaming PC build?

[nathandiffee]

I've built and sold a few budget gaming PC's and sometimes I will throw in a wifi adapter because it's an easy, inexpensive way to add one more feature to the machine. but, is it even worth the 5 minutes and $10-$15 I spend doing it? I assume most people are going to be using ethernet for gaming anyway, and if they really need wifi, they can just go on Amazon and grab a cheap adapter themselves.

So, when a gaming PC has a wifi adapter included, do you think the average person sees that as a selling point? Is that something people are even looking for? Or is it just a waste of time and money to include it? Obviously, any serious gamer probably doesn' care about wifi. I'm talking more about the average joe-shmoe eBay buyer.

Thanks!

 

[dat789]

Well, I'm old school (40+) and have been assembling and buliding my own PC for work and gaming. I will most likely be inclined to NOT be bothered with a WiFi peripheral as a feature as long as an Ethernet port is present. So, it wouldn't be a selling point to me.

However, I think the younger generations, those >16 year olds and under 26, may see a value there as it is a feature point of convenience.

You may be right as there is a trade off between your time and the cost of the peripheral, and the actual value it brings.

As mentioned, I personally wouldn't care for it.

 

[nathandiffee]

Well, I'm old school (40+) and have been assembling and buliding my own PC for work and gaming. I will most likely be inclined to NOT be bothered with a WiFi peripheral as a feature as long as an Ethernet port is present. So, it wouldn't be a selling point to me.

However, I think the younger generations, those >16 year olds and under 26, may see a value there as it is a feature point of convenience.

You may be right as there is a trade off between your time and the cost of the peripheral, and the actual value it brings.

As mentioned, I personally wouldn't care for it.

Ha, yeah, I'm 40+ too and it's not something I would even think twice about if I was looking to buy. But, I'm curious how the average Fortnite/CS:GO/CoD player feels about it since most of my buyers would probably fall into that category. Thanks for the input!

 

[LordVile]

Well, I'm old school (40+) and have been assembling and buliding my own PC for work and gaming. I will most likely be inclined to NOT be bothered with a WiFi peripheral as a feature as long as an Ethernet port is present. So, it wouldn't be a selling point to me.

However, I think the younger generations, those >16 year olds and under 26, may see a value there as it is a feature point of convenience.

You may be right as there is a trade off between your time and the cost of the peripheral, and the actual value it brings.

As mentioned, I personally wouldn't care for it.

Generally good motherboards have wifi built in though

 

[nsuinteger]

It’s not a must as competitive gaming almost always is preferred through ethernet.
I would rather prefer wifi / bt as a good to have for convenience. Also if you’re doing mini-itx build there may not be any space for add on cards anyway, so perhaps motherboard inbuilt support would be better than a usb dongle.

 

[EvanN55]

For me it is. In my case, I can't use an ethernet cable in the place i rent so...ye!

 

[nathandiffee]

For me it is. In my case, I can't use an ethernet cable in the place i rent so...ye!

That's a good point

 

[madmatt30]

Generally good motherboards have wifi built in though

I'd argue that's not even remotely true

I've built and sold a few budget gaming PC's and sometimes I will throw in a wifi adapter because it's an easy, inexpensive way to add one more feature to the machine. but, is it even worth the 5 minutes and $10-$15 I spend doing it? I assume most people are going to be using ethernet for gaming anyway, and if they really need wifi, they can just go on Amazon and grab a cheap adapter themselves.

So, when a gaming PC has a wifi adapter included, do you think the average person sees that as a selling point? Is that something people are even looking for? Or is it just a waste of time and money to include it? Obviously, any serious gamer probably doesn' care about wifi. I'm talking more about the average joe-shmoe eBay buyer.

Thanks!

A novice buyer probably would, and generally anyone who's buying something prebuilt I would class as a novice.

I personally hate usb wifi adapters (if that's what you're supplying), had so many issues with windows losing connection on reboots/restarts on a lot of builds I've done.

Foe me it's a pci express card or not at all.

 

[LordVile]

I'd argue that's not even remotely true

You can get good boards without wifi but as soon as you hot say the $120/30 pricepoint a lot have WiFi built in.

 

[nathandiffee]

One final update in case anyone comes has the same question...
Since posting this I have sold 6 PCs. I didn't include wifi with any of them. 5 out of 6 of those buyers asked me to add a wifi adapter.

Rather than throwing in a $7-$8 USB adapter for free, I think from here on out I will offer the option of a PCIe wifi card as suggested in an earlier reply. Thanks for your responses!