Less performance for faster internet, or better performance for slower internet.

[CaptainNoobulous]

Hey guys, So I'm asking this question for a friend. So he needs a new gaming rig. He wants to get a laptop so that he can use a cat6e cable since the only place he router can be is in his living room. His mom will not let him put a big desktop in his living room so my question is, do you think it's worth it getting to less performance for faster internet? Would a wifi extender that he could get and put in his room (where his desktop would be) and hard wire it to that (I don't know if you can do that) Or just simply get a wifi card? He does have great internet though. Also could you give recommendations for both? His budget is around 1800 he would need the computer plus monitor and a Keyboard (for desktop only). Same budget for his laptop but he would want it a decent size so he can put it in his backpack for school.

Thank you so much for you time and help

 

[bill001g]

I would go with powerline networks before wireless for gaming.

Gaming uses very little network bandwidth. It does though want very stable and reliable data rates. Wireless tends to get random results which is bad. Now if you live far away from all neighbors and you have good signal level wireless works fine for games. Power line tend to not have the same top speed but it deliverers the packets at a much more consistent rate than wireless.

The reason games are so intensive on a machine is people like to turn the graphics up as high as they can. This requires lots of video processing ability and many times lots of capacity from the main cpu.

Still the amount of data sent and received for most game is extremely small. They are designed to run on small dsl connection that are lucky to get 1m. It is pretty easy to tell how much a game using by leaving the resource monitor open as you play the game.

 

[CaptainNoobulous]

Ok, so should he get the laptop for the better internet performance?

 

[bill001g]

In most cases you will trade video performance for network performance. When you look at games the video card tends to be the most important part of the system and with a laptop you are limited because the device is designed to run on battery and be portable.

 

[CaptainNoobulous]

So you believe that he should go for a laptop over the desktop so I can get the better network performance.