will i see a difference between intel 6200 and 6300 for my usage?

Hi,

I searched the forum and read many threads about the intel 6200 advanced and the 6300 ultimate wifi cards.

it seems the 6200 has 2x3 antenne and the 6300 3x3. what does this mean?

also i gather that 6300 supports higher speed. i dont really transfer files over my network, its just to surf the web.

so, will i notice any difference? the factors that are important to me are

1) range
2) signal quality


does the 6300 have any advantage on these two points? also any other benefits i may have misunderstood?

seems much more confusing than the difference between the 5100 and 5300 series... especially since now there is the 1000 series....

 

IMO - no, you will not notice any difference. Range might be slightly better with 6300 but I wouldn't expect miracles. I doubt the difference (if any) would be noticeable.

6300 supports higher speeds but only if offered from the router and internet connection Most routers are still G-standard based and even if not - the internet connection sets the limit way below G standard anyway

So my advise would be to get 6200.

 

thanks! +rep

anyone else have any opinions?

will i notice much difference from the 5300 on my dell? (the 6200 is on my new ultraportable thinkpad i bought as a run-around device, hasnt been delivered yet)

 

speed of wlan is bigger than your web speed most likely. signal quality i don't know. i thought the third antenna is mostly for speed (and needs a fitting third antenna on the router/accesspoint). but what do i know?

 

If you're only really using it for web surfing, no, you won't see any difference.

If you're chucking a lot of files about on your network, have a lot of devices connected wirelessly at the same time, or are having range issues, then it might be worth a look.

 

You would be more bottlenecked by your router moreso than your WLAN cards.

 

yes, im well aware of the internet bottleneck, even more so than the router bottleneck. i did say that i dont transfer files around the network. i wanted to know about signal quality and range. and also maybe any other benefits i overlooked.

but thanks for the advice

 

Specifically, I don't know which is the 'faster' one, but theory would tell us that the newer/better 6300 would be the one to choose.

As mentioned, all 'G' speed cards and even some 'B' speed rated cards are faster than most internet connections - so no point comparing these 'N' cards here (they simply outclass anything you can get from your ISP...).

What the 2/3 antennae options do is (assuming that you have 3 antennae connections in your notebook and the appropriate 3 antennae router to connect to...) is that the 6200 offers a maximum 300 Mb/s connection and the 6300 offers a maximumm of 450 Mb/s connection speed.

Transferring files wirelessly will be sped up by 50% or more (how more? because the 3 antennae router/card setups will have a much better chance of connecting at the highest speed possible in all locations you will use it in).

In my recent router upgrade; I went from ~30 minutes wireless 'G' transfers to 7 min 300 Mb/s 'N' transfers speeds (same data moved). Compare that to GB LAN speeds of 7-9 seconds (yeah, seconds) for the same data moved.

Although I had an 'N' router and 'G' router before and they were still working - this 'test' was worth the $100 to upgrade to a 'real' 'N' speeds. (My previous 'N' transfer speeds on the same data at the same distance/location from the router was at least double and sometimes would almost hit 20 minutes).

So, if you are (or will be in the future) transferring large amounts of files wirelessly, then the 6300 (assuming you can connect all 3 antennae) is your best bet. Of course, don't forget the router is the next thing you may need to upgrade then too.