Motherboard without onboard WIFI

[Matias_Chambers]

So what do you do if you build a PC and your motherboard doesn't have onboard WIFI? Buy a wireless network card? Wireless USB? What's the best option besides ethernet? 

[Stefan1024]

I can recommend the TP-Link Archer T8E / T9E (PCIe cards).

But if the link speed does not have to be super fast you can also get something like the Asus USB-N14.

[Stardar1]

Ethernet is your best option for speed, but PCI Wifi cards are good too

[Vivilacqua1]

I use a cheapo usb wifi dongle I found at my local ShitBuy  It's actually not too bad.

[FoxxyRin]

You can also get USB wifi dongles for cheap. (Like $10-20 on Amazon), though it will have pretty limited speeds compared to a PCIe card. However, unless you have Gigabit/fiber or something, it should be enough.

[tomas710]

10 minutes ago, Matias_Chambers said:

So what do you do if you build a PC and your motherboard doesn't have onboard WIFI? Buy a wireless network card? Wireless USB? What's the best option besides ethernet? 

PCIe cards are the best option, USB tend to underperform and you need the USB controller before you have a connection, which can be very annoying when troubleshooting, and network cards are pretty cheap.

[Dr_Pleeper]

I actually have this netgear usb wireless stick and it runs at speeds upwards of 800mb/s

[Razor512]

If you have to use WiFi, then a PCI express AC1900 WiFi adapter is your best bet.

The PCI express bus has less CPU overhead than USB 3.0, and there is no need for the adapter to reboot its self when switching between 2.4GHz and 5GHz. (USB 3 signals at 2.4GHz, thus it will cause a large increase of the noise floor on the 2.4GHz band if used, thus they switch to USB 2 mode. You will notice this switch over on WiFi adapters such as the netgear A6210.

 

An an AC1200 WiFi adapter, the 2.4GHz band will top out at around 200mbit/s real world performance on the 2.4GHz band, and around 400mbit/s on the 5GHz band.

 

An AC1900 adapter will typically top out at around 250mbit/s on the 2.4GHz band, and around 700mbit/s on the 5GHz band  under ideal conditions (within 6-10 feet of the router).