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PCIE Wifi vs Powerline Adapter

Jonathan Lee
By Jonathan Lee
in Networking
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Hi everyone,

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I was wondering what your guy's experience with powerline adapters vs PCIE wifi?

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I'm currently running on a USB Wifi (sad I know 😞 ) and was trying to decide on which solution would be better. Upon looking it up myself, it seems powerline adapters are inconsistent in their performance and don't work with some older houses with old wiring. I have about a 20 year old home so I don't know if that would be a problem.

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On the other hand, I'm not too sure if a PCIE wifi would be a significant upgrade over USB.

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Is there any powerline adapter or PCIE wifi that you would recommend?

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Wanted to get more people's experience on this matter before pulling the trigger on one of them

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3 minutes ago, Jonathan Lee said:

what your guy's experience with powerline adapters

Absolute trash compared to good wifi.

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4 minutes ago, Jonathan Lee said:

vs PCIE wifi?

Honestly, the access point matters more than the receiver, in my experience. Make sure you have a good router with external antennas and strong signal, then pretty much any wifi card will do better.

Main System (Byarlant):Β Ryzen 7 5800X | Asus B550-Creator ProArt | EK 240mm Basic AIO |Β 16GB G.Skill DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-14 | XFX Speedster SWFT 210 RX 6600 | Samsung 990 PRO 2TB / Samsung 960 PRO 512GB / 4Γ— Crucial MX500 2TB (RAID-0) | Corsair RM750X | Mellanox ConnectX-3 10G NIC | Inateck USB 3.0 CardΒ | Hyte Y60 Case | Dell U3415W Monitor | Keychron K4 Brown (white backlight)

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Laptop (Narrative):Β Lenovo Flex 5Β 81X20005US | Ryzen 5 4500U | 16GB RAM (soldered) | Vega 6 Graphics | SKHynix P31 1TBΒ NVMe SSD | Intel AX200 Wifi (all-around awesome machine)

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Proxmox Server (Veda):Β Ryzen 7 3800XT | AsRock Rack X470D4U | Corsair H80i v2 | 64GB Micron DDR4 ECC 3200MT/s | 4x 10TB WD Whites / 4x 14TB Seagate Exos / 2Γ— Samsung PM963a 960GB SSD |Β Seasonic Prime Fanless 500W |Β Intel X540-T2 10G NIC | LSI 9207-8i HBAΒ | Fractal Design Node 804 Case (side panels swapped to show off drives) | VMs: TrueNAS Scale; Ubuntu Server (PiHole/PiVPN/NGINX?); Windows 10 Pro; Ubuntu Server (Apache/MySQL)


Media Center/Video CaptureΒ (Jesta Cannon):Β Ryzen 5 1600X | ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0 | Noctua NH-L12S |Β 16GB Crucial DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-22 | EVGA GTX750Ti SC | UMIS NVMe SSD 256GB / Seagate 1.5TB HDDΒ | Corsair CX450M |Β Viewcast Osprey 260e Video Capture | Mellanox ConnectX-2 10G NIC | LG UH12NS30 BD-ROM | Silverstone Sugo SG-11 Case | Sony XR65A80K

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Camera: Sony Ι‘7II w/ Meike Grip | Sony SEL24240Β | Samyang 35mm Ζ’/2.8 | Sony SEL50F18FΒ | Sony SEL2870 (kit lens) | PNY Elite Perfomance 512GB SDXC card

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Network:

Spoiler 
                           β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€ Office/Rack ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
Google Fiber Webpass ────── UniFi Security Gateway ─── UniFi Switch 8-60W ─┬─ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Veda (Proxmox Virtual Switch)
(500Mbps↑/500Mbps↓)                             UniFi CloudKey Gen2 (PoE) ─┴─ Veda (IPMI)           ╠═ Veda-NAS (HW Passthrough NIC)
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╩═ Narrative (Asus USB 2.5G NIC)
β•‘ β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€ Closet ──────┐   β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€ Bedroom ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
β•šβ• UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╀═ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Byarlant
   (PoE)                 β”‚                        ╠═ Narrative (Cable Matters USB-PD 2.5G Ethernet Dongle)
                         β”‚                        β•šβ• Jesta Cannon*
                         β”‚ β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€ Media Center ──────────────────────────────────┐
Notes:                   └─ UniFi Switch 8 ─────────┬─ UniFi Access Point nanoHD (PoE)
═══ is Multi-Gigabit                                β”œβ”€ Sony Playstation 4 
─── is Gigabit                                      β”œβ”€ Pioneer VSX-S520
* = cable passed to Bedroom from Media Center       β”œβ”€ Sony XR65A80K (Google TV)
** = cable passed from Media Center to Bedroom      └─ Work Laptop** (Startech USB-PD Dock)

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Retired/Other:

Spoiler

Laptop (Rozen-Zulu):Β Sony VAIO VPCF13WFX | Core i7-740QM | 8GB Patriot DDR3 | GTΒ 425M | Samsung 850EVO 250GB SSD | Blu-ray Drive | Intel 7260 Wifi (lived a good life, retired with honor)

Testbed/Old DesktopΒ (Kshatriya):Β Xeon X5470 @ 4.0GHz |Β ZALMAN CNPS9500 | Gigabyte EP45-UD3L | 8GB Nanya DDR2 400MHz | XFX HD6870 DD | OCZ Vertex 3 Max-IOPS 120GB | Corsair CX430M | HooToo USB 3.0 PCIe Card | Osprey 230 Video Capture | NZXT H230 Case

TrueNAS Server (La Vie en Rose):Β Xeon E3-1241v3 | Supermicro X10SLL-F | Corsair H60 | 32GB Micron DDR3L ECC 1600MHz | 1x Kingston 16GB SSD / Crucial MX500 500GB

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Powerline adapters really depend on your home. In my case powerline and USB both got 0.3-10mbps, usually about 3. With the powerline it often stopped working completely for a few minutes and ping was much higher (200+ vs 30). A few months ago I got an Intel Gig+ Wifi 6 desktop kit and get about 120mbps down/20 up with 20 ping in games, and it's much more stable. On ethernet I get 200+ mbps up and down with <10 ping.

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High end wifi may be the solution but if all else fails, I far prefer MoCA over powerline ethernet.Β 

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