How fast does my wireless adapter need to be compared to my internet speed?

Question

I am looking to buy a wireless adapter for my desktop and there is a plethora of options online. They all offer different speeds, varying from 150 Mbps to 1200+ Mbps, but most of them describe speeds much higher than what I pay for for internet. Would a 1200 Mbps wireless adapter (like this) always outperform a 600 Mbps adapter (like this)? Does it matter if they are both faster than the internet I pay for? Additionally, what other specs should I be looking for? Internal vs. external?

Solution

As the old saying goes, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link."

You can get any speed adapter and it will work, however your speeds will generally run at the slowest speed in the path.

There is no advantage in getting a wireless adapter faster than the speed of your wireless router's maximum wireless speed. So if you have wireless N, then you should get N speed adapters.

Yes, you can create direct connections between your computers for faster speeds, bypassing the router. However, that is a more advanced topic and not in the scope of the question.

Comments

[cybernard]

Are you planning for your devices to only connect to the internet? Will device 1 ever want to talk to device 2? How many devices?

[tvdo]

Keep in mind that practically attained speed is usually (far) below theoretical maximum. And you'll also notice that they advertise things like "N300", "AC1200", etc. - which is not the same as the Mbps rate (AC1200 has a theoretical max of 867Mbps on 5GHz or 300Mbps on 2.4GHz, of which each device can only connect to one of at a time, plus a bit of funny marketing/word-twisting and you can put the lie of "1200" on the box.)

[TOOGAM]

Keep in mind that if you use 802.11g, that may slow down 802.11n and 802.11ac devices (even if those devices aren't communicating with 802.11g), and likewise if there is a supported 802.11n communication, that may slow down 802.11ac devices. e.g,, even two 802.11ac devices communicating with each other may slow down if they detect there is 802.11n communication going on in the same airspace, because they don't want to violate 802.11n specs and cause problems for the 802.11n equipment that doesn't understand 802.11ac. (May also be affected by choices of "mixed" mode vs. native speeds.)

[Shea]

So what's the point of a 1200 Mbps adapter? Surely not enough consumers have fast enough internet for it to be worth buying, let alone for it to be a best seller (I'm referencing the same adapter as in the post).

[multithr3at3d]

@Shea many wireless routers support wireless speeds above this, as mentioned in the answer. It increases the speeds between devices on the local network

[Shea]

@multithr3at3d Ah, I see. So for my use case, it would be sufficient to buy a 300 Mbps wireless adapter, and that would be equally fast for all speeds below 300 Mbps as a 1200 Mbps adapter?

[Keltari]

@Shea its all in how you plan on using your network and if you plan on upgrading. You can buy a 300Mbps adapter and be done, or you can buy a faster adapter, router, and internet, or anything in between.