best mobo with wifi ?

Spiller

Spiller

Spiller

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20 Jun 2013
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19
Hi all,

Bought an Asus P8z77-V LX2 Intel z77 (socket 1155) DDR3 motherboard last year and run an Intel I3 Ivybridge 3.30Ghz in it on advice from people here. It runs like a dream but now it's time to update our family computer and it will need to connect via Wifi. I wanted to use the same motherboard (ie: buy a new one but same type) but discovered I would have to use a wireless modem connected via USB. Would this work ok or should I invest in a motherboard with built in wireless ?

Current price for the motherboard above is around £85 but I could go to £150 if it includes wireless. Does anyone have any suggestions/experience of using wireless via USB ?

Cheers

Pete
 
Wireless via USB is perfectly fine and a lot cheaper than buying a board with Wi-fi included in most cases. It also allows you to pick exactly which wifi adapter you want to use and what its specifications are (eg. Wireless N single band/dual band or newer Wireless AC).

Also, if you don't want to fiddle with a USB adapter you could always get a PCI-E x1 wireless card, though it will take up one of your motherboard's PCIE slots.

That all said, instead of wireless I would strongly recommend a powerline kit. Powerline uses your home wiring to create a link between your PC and the router, compared to wireless it is lower-latency and depending on the the configuration of your house it may be more reliable and faster that wifi. Here is an example of a good powerline kit.

May I ask what the planned specification of your family PC upgrade is?
 
Using one of these in the wifes pc. Never had a problem with it and it has never dropped the connection. Much cheaper than buying a new motherboard and simple to fit.
 
cmndr_andi said:
May I ask what the planned specification of your family PC upgrade is?
Click to expand...

Main use of this PC will be internet, email, some online gaming but nothing major so...

Sure, was thinking of the following:

Zalman Z9 case £44.99
Intel Core I3 3240 3.40GHZ £79.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 1TB 6GB/s 64mb cache £43.99
Asus P8z77 Intel z77 DDR3 1155 socket £85.99
Corsair 600w CX v2 180 PSU £47.99
Crucial Ballistix 2 x4GB DDR3 PC3 dual channel kit £65.99

Total: £385 - but need to decide on wifi adapter.

Ideal price at £600 to include O/S

Does that seem ok in your opinion ?

Will decide OS soon and we already have monitor, k/board, mouse, speakers etc.

Thanks

Pete
 
Thanks Pasty,

Good link. the pc will be against a wall - with possibly several wires around the antenna - is yours a similar setup - could this mess up the wifi at all do you know?

Pete
 
Might I ask if you are updating that original build in your opening post? Or just building a new one?
 
Shivy,

It's a new build - the main reason I stuck with similar stuff is that it's worked well the first time but if you have suggestions to improve further, I'm all ears!

Pete
 
Spiller said:
Thanks Pasty,

Good link. the pc will be against a wall - with possibly several wires around the antenna - is yours a similar setup - could this mess up the wifi at all do you know?

Pete
Click to expand...

That's exactly how the wifes pc is setup with the added confusion of a steel computer desk which has a steel crossmember right accross the top of her aerials. The spare cables are also wrapped around this cross member so they don't sprawl all over the floor. Absolutely no problems with wireless connectivity. It's a cracking bit of kit for the price and is so easy to set up too.
 
Brilliant - that's really useful information. It does look great value too. Means I have more to spend on other stuff for my pc too!

Pete;)
 
Spiller said:
Thanks Ark - good to know several people have used these without fuss.
Click to expand...

my sons pc gets 4 bars on the wifi.

my step sons xbox one roughly the same distance away only gets 2 bars with the xboxs built in crappy wifi.

my sons desk has loads of wires dangling down the back because he has

monitor + pc + speakers
xbox+tv+wii
on the same tiny desk and it doesn't seem to cause any issues with the wifi signal
 
I got my PC running via Wifi, using a PCIe card with 2 attached small antennas (on first floor) and router is on ground floor and in different location, works really well. Ping is even smaller via wifi than via cable (tested) via wifi i get 50-60ms , via cable 60-70ms.

But DONT get a small USB dongle for wifi, as they crappy, i had one before and at times was okay... but mostly was awful.

(My two pence).
 
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