PCI or M.2 Wifi?

[Aidanlockett1]

I am looking to buy a wifi card soon. I used to own a rosewill pcie wifi card and it "worked" and I am wondering if a pcie or m.2 solution would be better? Amazon has a intel 6 Gig m.2 card for about 23 bucks, is pci any different for about 10 more dollars?

[Lurick]

Well an M.2 solution requires you to already have the wires in place, otherwise you're having to deal with all sorts of "fun" to get the antennas attached and working and run through the case outside. A PCIe card (be it m.2 adapter or whatever) you toss the antennas on the back and don't have to deal with anything else.

[Nathanpete]

Ok, there is PCI, then there is PCIe. PCI is like 20 years old. And if you have a open M.2 slot that you don't want to use anytime soon, then get the M.2 card, assuming the reviews are good. 

[mr fobs]

1 minute ago, Aidanlockett1 said:

I am looking to buy a wifi card soon. I used to own a rosewill pcie wifi card and it "worked" and I am wondering if a pcie or m.2 solution would be better? Amazon has a intel 6 Gig m.2 card for about 23 bucks, is pci any different for about 10 more dollars?

I would say it depends on what you'll need in the future. You probably won't notice a performance difference between the two.

If you have plenty of PCIe slots I would recommend just doing that and saving an M.2 slot, unless your board has dedicated slot for WiFi. 

 

But no, you shouldn't see a noticeable difference between the two

 

[Freakwise]

Depends, if you have unused slot, I'd say go with pcie, but if you didn't have it well, ofc go with m.2

 

[Aidanlockett1]

15 minutes ago, Liam danu said:

Depends, if you have unused slot, I'd say go with pcie, but if you didn't have it well, ofc go with m.2

 

 

25 minutes ago, mr fobs said:

I would say it depends on what you'll need in the future. You probably won't notice a performance difference between the two.

If you have plenty of PCIe slots I would recommend just doing that and saving an M.2 slot, unless your board has dedicated slot for WiFi. 

 

But no, you shouldn't see a noticeable difference between the two

 

 

25 minutes ago, Nathanpete said:

Ok, there is PCI, then there is PCIe. PCI is like 20 years old. And if you have a open M.2 slot that you don't want to use anytime soon, then get the M.2 card, assuming the reviews are good. 

i have 3 m.2 slots and 1 m.2 wifi slot so i think m.2 is the move, and im sorry! i meant PCIE just had a small brain moment. So theres not gonna be any noticeable performance difference?

[Nathanpete]

3 minutes ago, Aidanlockett1 said:

i have 3 m.2 slots and 1 m.2 wifi slot so i think m.2 is the move, and im sorry! i meant PCIE just had a small brain moment. So theres not gonna be any noticeable performance difference?

M.2 uses PCIe, so you just have the hard time of cabling the antennas if you go that route. The performance difference is going to be mostly by how shit the intel NIC is, seeing that is claims to support Wi-Fi 6 for only $23. That is really low for a NIC like this and I would pony up for something at least $35. Also make sure reviews are good. Both customer and professional reviews. Wi-Fi NICs aren't in high demand so you have plenty of time to do your research on high-quality but cheap PCIe or M.2 wi-fi NICs. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Nathanpete said:

M.2 uses PCIe, so you just have the hard time of cabling the antennas if you go that route. The performance difference is going to be mostly by how shit the intel NIC is, seeing that is claims to support Wi-Fi 6 for only $23. That is really low for a NIC like this and I would pony up for something at least $35. Also make sure reviews are good. Both customer and professional reviews. Wi-Fi NICs aren't in high demand so you have plenty of time to do your research on high-quality but cheap PCIe or M.2 wi-fi NICs. 

Actually there is one benefit to M.2, it also has USB which is used for the bluetooth on most if not all WiFi cards.  With a PCIe adapter you usually have to dedicate an entire USB 2.0 motherboard header to the card due to what cable they use, which kinda sucks when it only needs one port not both.

Other than that, there is no difference at all, both are PCIe.  I'm actually running a 10Gbit NIC off an M.2 slot because its an ITX board and the single PCIe slot was taken up by the GPU.

[Falcon1986]

1 hour ago, Nathanpete said:

That is really low for a NIC like this and I would pony up for something at least $35.

All WiFi 6/6E M.2 cards are made by Intel. They're the AX200/201 and AX210, and they're in no way low quality. Equating cost to quality is not a fair conclusion to make.

 

Intel provides a desktop kit with the M.2 card and PCIe adapter with antenna/cables. This costs a little more but not by much.

 

Other brands like Ubit or Gigabyte use the same M.2 card and sell a PCIe version with heatsinks, yet charge $30-40. The quality isn't different than the Intel kit. You're paying for the name of other brand, that's all.

[Nathanpete]

5 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

All WiFi 6/6E M.2 cards are made by Intel. They're the AX200/201 and AX210, and they're in no way low quality. Equating cost to quality is not a fair conclusion to make.

 

Intel provides a desktop kit with the M.2 card and PCIe adapter with antenna/cables. This costs a little more but not by much.

 

Other brands like Ubit or Gigabyte use the same M.2 card and sell a PCIe version with heatsinks, yet charge $30-40. The quality isn't different than the Intel kit. You're paying for the name of other brand, that's all.

I mean but intel makes various Wifi 6/6E NICs, and some of them have got to be higher quality than others. I just wouldn't trust a NIC that cheap to have the good model inside. 

[Falcon1986]

6 hours ago, Nathanpete said:

I mean but intel makes various Wifi 6/6E NICs, and some of them have got to be higher quality than others. I just wouldn't trust a NIC that cheap to have the good model inside. 

If you’re talking about the variability in quality on an assembly line, that goes for any other product. Intel only makes 3 major WiFi 6 adapters for client devices, i.e. the same models I mentioned before. There’s not a whole bunch for them to intentionally make crappy ones for low budgets and high quality ones for those who want to spend more. These aren’t CPUs we’re talking about here.

 

8 hours ago, Aidanlockett1 said:

i have 3 m.2 slots and 1 m.2 wifi slot so i think m.2 is the move, and im sorry! i meant PCIE just had a small brain moment. So theres not gonna be any noticeable performance difference?

There should be no difference in WiFi performance between a PCIe adapter and an M.2 adapter. Most PCIe adapters use an M.2 card adapted to a PCIe interface, and include antennae, whereas you’re left to sort the latter out yourself if you just get the M.2 card.

 

A lot of “WiFi” motherboards have integrated adapters, but if you examine them closely, they utilize cards that can be swapped out as well.