qualcomm atheros ar9485 wireless network adapter is it 5ghz

GaNE measures real-time performance from two wireless clients at once, recording the results on a third computer that’s hardwired to the network. Qualcomm offered to allow us to examine the program’s source code to ensure that there were no shenanigans.

To evaluate each card’s ability to combat network latency, Qualcomm provided me with its Gaming Network Efficiency (GaNE) benchmark to measure ping (the time required for a packet to make a round trip on the network) and jitter (undesirable deviations in signal timing). The Killer Wireless-N 1202 is certainly inexpensive enough: I’ve seen it selling online for as little as $35 (Intel’s card is street-priced at about $30). You can also purchase one of these cards by itself and upgrade your existing notebook, provided that the system has an available Mini PCIe slot to host the card (a common feature on better notebooks). Some gaming-laptop manufacturers, including Alienware, offer Killer NICs as standard equipment, while others offer the adapters as added-cost upgrades. Both also support two spatial streams for a maximum physical link rate of 300 megabits per second. Robert Cardin We benchmarked two otherwise identical Alienware laptops: one outfitted with a Killer Wireless-N 1202 NIC (left) and the other with Intel’s Centrino Advanced-N 6230 (right).īoth NICs are dual-band adapters that can connect to an 802.11n router on either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequency band. To demonstrate its prowess in this area, the company sent me two identical Alienware notebooks, one equipped with Qualcomm’s Killer Wireless-N 1202 and the other with Intel’s Centrino Advanced-N 6230.

Gamers are always hunting for a competitive edge, and the folks at Bigfoot Networks-now a part of Qualcomm Atheros-have long promised to deliver network interface cards that perform better with online games and other latency-sensitive applications.

Qualcomm atheros ar9485 wireless network adapter is it 5ghz