[SOLVED] Would there be any benefit at all to adding Wi-Fi 6 + BT 5 PCI-e card to aging but healthy i7 3770 on Z77?

[JamesAndersonJr]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if I could derive any benefits at all (if even fully compatible) from adding this 802.11AX + Bluetooth 5 PCIe card with this antenna to my P8Z77-V LE PLUS motherboard hosting a vanilla (i.e. non-K) Intel Core i7 3770 CPU and 32 GB (4x8GB) 1600MHz CL10 Kingston HyperX DDR3.

Please Note: This is a clean & healthy, but yet still aging secondary system. Not primary.

 

[Eximo]

Do you need the additional bandwidth or connectivity? I think this is something only you can answer.

 

[JamesAndersonJr]

Do you need the additional bandwidth or connectivity? I think this is something only you can answer.

Maybe I phrased my question incorrectly but I wanted to know (1) if the aging i7 3770 processor has the technologies necessary to achieve FULL 802.11AX speeds, and utilize all the new Wi-Fi 6 technologies without hinderance, and (2) How much more bandwidth would it get from say... something like this TP-Link AC1900 USB 3.0 adapter?

 

[Eximo]

1. Again, what are you transferring that needs that much bandwidth? CPU has little to do with data transfer rates. All the WiFi 6 technology, is essentially the available bandwidth, nothing else. Everything else will be up to the hardware you buy.
2. It will be limited by the USB port you plug it into, so 3.0 would be 5Gbps, Wifi 6 (AX) can theoretically go up to 9ish Gbps. Wifi 5 (AC) is roughly 5Gbps as well (under ideal conditions)

If you used a discrete card instead of USB, PCIe 2.0 1x would be about 4Gbps, so any AX card would likely be a 4x card or implicitly ask for PCIe 3.0, which you might have on your board. So if you have an available slot for that, you could achieve those speeds. But then you do need a storage device fast enough, and they would have to be some pretty big files for that to make a big difference.

Not aware of any magical latency differences between the various WiFi techs. If you were on a larger network there are some new protocols and things that come in handy. Multi-Band, MIMO etc, but you don't often find that on consumer hardware. Not enough devices to be useful.

You'll also need other devices with the appropriate level of WiFi, as well as storage fast enough to receive anything you want to transfer.

 

[JamesAndersonJr]

Again, what are you transferring that needs that much bandwidth?

tl;dr A: Streaming.

A: Streaming multimedia (audio + video), and PC games via Wi-Di/Miracast/Screen Beam, DLNA etc. from Cyberlink PowerDVD, Steam, etc. on PC to Roku, Amazon Fire TV, etc. at 1080p+ resolution without causing major network congestion or slowdown.

I was hoping for at least 1GBps (8Gbps).

I planned on using the bottom black PCIe 2.0 x16 slot in x2 mode, but there are only x1 mode cards currently available on the market so I have to settle for PCIe 2.0 x 1 mode at 500MBps (4Gbps) if I don't want to cut my GPU bandwidth in half.

Good Answer Though!

BTW, I have a Samsung 2TB 860 EVO SSD in this PC.

 

[Eximo]

I can't even imagine the video stream that needs 1GB/s. Raw 4K footage, which I think exceeds that anyway?

Get yourself a 10Gbps ethernet system if you want reliable speeds close to that. WiFi varies with range, traffic, interference, etc.

I doubt your GPU needs 16x to operate to its full potential. SLI/Crossfire would drop it to 8x anyway, and that is still something that is happening today with very late model GPUs. Might lose a few percent, if anything.

Not really sure what to tell you. This is a requirement I haven't seen before.

 

[nigelivey]

Do you have a Wifi 6 capable access point or router? It's all well and good fitting an adapter in your PC but that is only half the circuit, If your router or AP is only AC then you are limited to AC speeds.