Need help on selecting WiFi card

Hello, I've been reading stuff about 6230 vs 6300.
6230 - 300Mbps 2 antennas BT
6300 - 450Mbps 3 antennas no BT

Is the difference between 6230 and 6300 noticeable when using any kind of wifi? Sometimes I use my laptop outside (e.g. starbucks, college, restaurants).

When I go online I mainly use it for surfing the web, gaming, streaming videos, downloading etc. and I hate it when my connection suddenly cuts off while I'm browsing or i get disconnected while playing games.

And also, when I turn on the bluetooth of the 6230 will my connection go slower? Please help.

 

The differences really depend on the WiFi you're connecting to. If the router supports the full 450Mbps, then yes your speeds will be faster. However, this only applies to LAN speeds in general because your WAN (internet side) is typically much slower than that. Most cable internet is 10-20Mbps, so that's going to be your hard limit anyway.

That said, I have the 6230 and 6300 in different laptops and I've noticed that the 6300 gets slightly better range and can pick up the same network slightly farther away than the 6230 can. It's not significant, but it's decent. The extra antenna adds that slightly better reception.

Bluetooth won't slow down your connection at all

 

I personally chose the 6230 so I would have bluetooth support, but I expect the speed difference in the 6230/6300 will depend on the access point you are connected to.

As for connectivity, someone else with some experience with both will have to reply..

 

Thanks for the replies.
But what about the reliablity? is the 6300 more reliable? Meaning i wont get disconnected to the internet when i play games and surf the web or does it also depend on the router.

 

Wireless connectivity depends on the amount of wireless noise in the area...

For instance, if you are in a place like Starbucks and there are businesses all around you that all have wifi connections, there are so many signals in the air that the microwave frequency noise can cause packet loss.

If you are talking about at your house, make sure you change the access points Channel to something besides 6 (thats the default for most Linksys and Belkin stuff)

Wireless phones that operate on 2.4ghz can cause interference, as well as leaky Microwave Ovens...

The main thing to be wary of is low signal areas (where you might be too far away, or going through to many walls) obviously.

In the 6300, since it has more antenna's (3 instead of 2) it should theoretically have better signal through walls and further distances.

 

Thanks for all the help. I'm going with the 6230.

 

Where does the bigfoot 1103 rank in all of this? I've read a few times the the 6230 offers a more stable connection?

 

I've seen a lot of people upgraded their Wi-fi cards. Are the stock cards so unreliable?

 

No, it's that the other cards are much better.

 

The 1103 would be comparable to the 6300. However, you have to use the bigfoot QoS software that it comes bundled with for the best performance. It's based on an atheros chipset rather than Intel.

 

Is that a good or bad thing?

 

More of a preference, not necessarily a bad thing. You can view test results for yourself in one of our other forum postings
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/620216-bigfoot-1103-vs-intel-6300-speedtest-net-results.html#post8021160