Is it worth the upgrade?įirst, the easy answer: If you’re already in the market for a new router, buy a Wi-Fi 6 router and check out the best Black Friday Router deals we found. In other words, Wi-Fi 6 laptops won’t benefit you without a Wi-Fi 6 router. When connected to the AC4000 router at Wi-Fi 5 and at five feet, each of the laptops performed similar to each other. Clearly, the Wi-Fi 6 laptops lost more speed the farther they moved away from the router, and at some point, Wi-Fi 6 started to perform worse than Wi-Fi 5. The XPS 13 managed just 54MBps (megabytes per second) while the Spectre x360 13 and Envy 13 both hit 69MBps. Each laptop hit close to its maximum throughput at 10 feet from the router with a single wall in between, and then performance dropped off precipitously for the Wi-Fi 6 laptops at 20 feet with a couple of walls in between. Given that the Synology DS918+ was connected to the router at 2Gbps, it’s likely that I maxed out how fast the NAS device itself can deliver data - otherwise, I imagine the Wi-Fi 6 laptops would have achieved even faster speeds.Īt some point, Wi-Fi 6 started to perform worse than Wi-Fi 5.Īs expected, throughput dropped as I moved farther away from the router. The Spectre x360 13 was close at 116MBps, while the Envy 13 hit 81MBps. The XPS 13 and Spectre x360 13 both benefited tremendously from connecting at Wi-Fi 6 speeds, with the XPS 13 hitting a maximum of 118MBps (or 944Mbps) when connected to the AX11000 at five feet. The throughput results were similarly impressive. At 20 feet from the router, for example, the XPS 13 connected at 585Mbps, the Spectre x360 at 488Mbps, and the Envy 13 at 535Mbps. The Spectre x360 13 hit 2.4Gbps - more than a 60% increase in speed, showing the raw power of Wi-Fi 6.Įach laptop connected to the AC4000 router at the maximum 867Mbps at five feet, and things fell off from there. When connected to the AX11000, the Envy 13 topped out at the Wi-Fi 5 maximum of 867Mbps for a single stream, while the XPS 13 managed 2.2Gbps within five feet of the AX11000 router (with no walls in between). Wi-Fi 6 has a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 3.5Gbps per individual stream, but I never saw that speed. I also noted the speed at which each device connected to each router at each location. I timed how long it took each client to copy the file and did a little math to determine the throughput. To test throughput, I copied a 13GB video file that’s loaded on the DS918+ to each of the clients at various locations around my house.
It’s connected to the AX11000 via two gigabit Ethernet connections that are bonded to provide a single 2Gbps connection. I also tested a TP-Link Archer AC4000 Wi-Fi 5 router to see how the Wi-Fi 6 devices performed when connected to an older router.įinally, for the throughput test, I used a Synology DiskStation DS918+ network-attached storage (NAS) device. The AX11000 is overkill for most people, but I didn’t want the router to be a bottleneck. This thing is a monster, supporting up to 11Gbps connectivity via two 5GHz bands (both supporting 160MHz) and one 2.4GHz band. The first two support Wi-Fi 6 the Envy 13 supports only Wi-Fi 5 - the new name for 802.11ac.įor my Wi-Fi 6 router, I used a TP-Link Archer AX11000 that’s at the very top-end of the Wi-Fi 6 router food chain. That’s what I tested, and while my methods weren’t scientific, they do provide a hint at what’s possible.įor my test clients, I used the latest version of the Dell XPS 13 equipped with a Killer AX1650 chipset (from Killer Networking, of course), a brand-new HP Spectre x360 13 with an Intel AX201 chipset, and an HP Envy 13 with an Intel AC9560 chipset. That doesn’t mean there’s no good reason to buy a Wi-Fi 6 router to go with your brand-new laptop that’s equipped with a Wi-Fi 6 adapter. So far, there are only a relative handful of devices that support the standard, making it a question mark in terms of whether it’s worth buying into today.
WI FI 6 ROUTER REVIEW FULL
That is, you need a Wi-Fi 6 router and Wi-Fi 6 devices to see the full benefits of the new standard. I wasn’t able to test that kind of capacity out yet because Wi-Fi 6 is required on both ends. Wi-Fi 7 officially hits 5Gbps, five times the speed of your current router This dongle can bring a superfast Wi-Fi 6 connection to your old computer
WI FI 6 ROUTER REVIEW PRO
Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro adds Wi-Fi 6E but loses compatibility
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